“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”  These words were part of a poetic fragment written by the ancient Greek poet Archilochus, in the 600’s BC, and became famous when Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay with the title “The Fox and The Hedgehog” about Isaiah Berlin.  Since then the terms have been used as one of the numerous animal-based ways of describing the personalities and proclivities of people.

Speaking personally, on a personality level, I would feel I have more in common with a hedgehog than a fox.  My favorite animals are animals like skunks, echidnas, porcupines, and hedgehogs (or dinosaurs like the ankylosaurus) which have fierce active defenses against predators but are themselves rather peaceful in nature.  This is the sort of approach I have in life, as the prickliness tends to encourage others to keep their distance without being signs of a predatory or aggressive nature.  The fox, on the other hand, is quite a clever predatory animal.

Concerning the actual comparison between the two in terms of personality, I am a hedgehog that could easily (and incorrectly) be seen a fox.  The reason for this is because I am a wide ranging person when it comes to my interests and learning habits, but someone who tends to find connections and interrelations so as to create grand unified theories of very disparate elements.  As a result, it is easy either to focus on the study of disparate fields and (falsely) assume a lack of unity in focus and perspective, or to focus on the very limited number of central concerns that I have and think me uninterested in broad perspectives.  Both errors would be wrong–in me is both unity and diversity, but with an apparent and superficial diversity covering a deeper unity.

In many fields hedgehogs have advantages to foxes.  For one, hedgehogs tend to have a greater focus and concentration that allows their ideas to be more powerful.  Despite the fact that these grand unified theories are inevitably simplifications of the real world and invariably part of the story rather than the full story, the power of the hedgehog is in cutting through the twigs and dealing with the trunk of the tree, the essential concerns and features, without getting lost and tangled up in all the extraneous and unimportant details.  The failing of the hedgehog is placing that insight about what is essential into the proper perspective, and then in applying that “one truth” to areas outside its proper domain.

On the other hand, a fox’s focus is dissipated by having no unified theory, no consistent worldview, and so his often valid insights on the nuance and complexity of the world are neglected because they lack a centralizing theme that can tie all the threads together.  In a competition between complicated nuance and an oversimplified but compelling message, the compelling message is going to win almost every single time, even though the fox is usually right to say that things are more complex than the hedgehog claims.

In short, the battle between the hedgehog and the fox is but one of the many fronts of the humanistic struggle between the many and the one, between unity and diversity, between tyranny and anarchy, between the polytheism of the pagan state and the closed unified godhead of the Muslim, Jew, and (most) Christians.  These are false dilemmas, though, as the true solution is a harmony between the many and the one, where each has its proper place, rather than in pitting one against the other.  That is the underlying flaw in the division of hedgehogs and foxes.  The truth is that both unity and diversity have their proper place.  E pluribus unim–from many, one.  Or, “let them be one as we are one” (John 17:11).

This understanding is that there is a flowering complexity to the universe and to life but that there is an essential unity, a central authority, a law that all under heaven are accountable to, even with a multitude of gifts for people to develop, and a multitude of different roles and functions that serve as part of a unified whole, the recognition of the many and the one working together in harmony.  The hedgehogs are right in seeing the essential unity, and the foxes are correct in seeing many functions and many different perspectives, but alone, each perspective is missing an important element.  We are not created for the same purpose, but we are all accountable to the same standard and have the same Creator.  The fundamental unity of of the universe does not destroy the complexity and diversity of what we see and experience, and neither does that diversity destroy the essential unity.

For in truth, there are many things to learn and know and do, far too many for any one person to know them all and do them all and learn them all, at least in the short time that is appointed to us on earth, but they are all parts of one big thing, one plan, under the authority of the Father of all.  Therefore, let the hedgehogs search for those large branches of the one tree, but without falsely concluding that they are the trunk of the tree, and let the foxes enjoy the twigs and smaller branches, without supposing they are separate from each other.  In short, let all of us serve our proper function within the greater hall, enjoying the unity in diversity, neither demanding that everyone see the world in precisely the same way or serve the same function, but recognizing our common origin as being created in the image and likeness of God as fellow brothers and sisters serving the purpose of the same God in heaven, the same God who ordained that there be both hedgehogs and foxes, to fulfill His will.