the.com/hedgehog fox
one big idea versus a thousand small ones, fighting for your attention span.
means a two-type split for how minds work: hedgehogs see everything through one grand unifying idea, foxes juggle many small, often contradictory ones.
from from a fragment by the greek poet archilochus — the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing — turned into a full theory of thinkers by isaiah berlin in his 1953 essay on tolstoy.
berlin's essayoriginally meant as a joke, not a taxonomy
tolstoy's caseberlin called him a fox who believed he was a hedgehog
forecasting researchphilip tetlock found foxes predict the future better