3 February

Are you a hedgehog or a fox? Taken from an old fable, hedgehog thinkers have one big idea, which they apply to all things. Hedgehogs are certain, they’re ‘moral’ thinkers who talk about right and wrong. Foxes know many things, and are uncertain and empirical, they test and they question and believe things in a provisional, always revised way. In research on decision-making, foxes easily beat hedgehogs when it comes to making decisions that work. I see our societies as increasingly like a hedgehog, not a fox, searching for absolutes and big binary oppositions. Every issue gets transformed into a goodies and baddies fight. Which suggests we’re making poor decisions.