FRUITFUL QUESTIONS
AMY BURNS
JOURNAL #3
DR. BARRY POLLICK
WRITING 101S, KADENA AFB
500

Hedgehog or Fox? Intellectual or the Artistic? Which is better? Fruitful Questions by James Sollisch emphasizes the importance of looking at things and problems more than one way in order to come up with a solution. This essay reminds me of a fable by Isiah Berlin told to me by an old professor of mine. In this fable the fox is a cunning creature, able to devise a myriad of complex strategies for sneak attacks upon the hedgehog. Day in and day out, the fox circles around the hedgehog’s den, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Fast, sleek, beautiful, and crafty—the fox looks like the sure winner. The hedgehog, on the other hand, is a dowdier creature, looking like a genetic mix-up between a porcupine and a small armadillo. He waddles along, going about his simple day, searching for lunch and taking care of his home. The fox waits in silence at the juncture in the trail. The hedgehog, minding his own business, wanders right into the path of the fox. The fox thinks he has the sure advantage now. He leaps out, bounding across the ground, lightning fast. The little hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks, “Here we go again. Will he ever learn?” Rolling up into a perfect little ball, the hedgehog becomes a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The fox, bounding toward his prey, sees the hedgehog defense and calls off the attack. Retreating back to the forest, the fox begins to calculate a new line of attack. Each day, some version of this battle between the hedgehog and the fox takes place, and despite the greater cunning of the fox, the hedgehog always wins.
This fable separates people and their personalities into two different groups: foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity. They are “scattered or diffused, moving on many levels,” says Berlin, never integrating their thinking into one overall concept or vision. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything. The fox would look at the picture of the orange, tomato and strawberry and come up with many different answers just like the children in Sollisch’s essay. The hedgehog on the other hand would come up with one answer and one answer only.
So which is the better approach? Doing what Copernicus did? How about what Edward Jenner did when he stopped looking for a cure for smallpox in people with smallpox and took another direction and studied people who were exposed but never got sick? Or is it better to be like Freud and the unconscious, Darwin and natural selection, Marx and class struggle, Einstein and relativity, Adam Smith and division of labor—they were all hedgehogs. They took a complex world and simplified it. So which one are you? Are you going to think outside of the box and come up a million different ways to travel one path and get stuck? I think I will settle with curling up in my ball the best way I know how and ALWAYS WIN!