Foxes and Hedgehogs

Photo: Eric Bégin

"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."
--Some ancient Greek dude named Archilochus

Research suggests that some people are "hedgehogs" and others are "foxes." This dichotomy came up recently in a Newsweek article about political pundits. Inspired by the ancient Greek poet, and further developed by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, the division of the world into people who think like "foxes" versus "hedgehogs" is a handy concept.

So how you do spot a "hedgehog" or a "fox" in the wild?

According to the article, hedgehogs know "one big thing." They "apply that one thing everywhere, express supreme confidence in their forecasts, dismiss opposing views and are drawn to top-down arguments deduced from that Big Idea."

Foxes, on the other hand, "know many things. They consider competing views, make bottom-up inductive arguments from an array of facts and doubt the power of Big Ideas."

"At one extreme, hedgehogs seek certainty and closure, dismiss information that undercuts their preconceptions and embrace evidence that reinforces them, in what is called 'belief defense and bolstering.' At the other extreme, foxes are cognitively flexible, modest and open to self-criticism."

Are you a Fox or a Hedgehog? And who would you rather listen to on TV?

The Newsweek article explored the reasons why the experts you hear pontificating in the media often have their heads up their asses make inaccurate predictions about what's going to happen in the future.

Turns out, it's at least partly because the media favors the very sort of pundit who is the least able to make accurate predictions. "The media's preferred pundits are forceful, confident and decisive, not tentative and balanced." The problem: these are not the people we should be listening to.

(This is all based on research by Philip Tetlock, who did a big study on the accuracy of expert predictions and wrote a book about it a few years ago.)

Those forceful, highly-regarded pundits? They're generally "hedgehogs." And compared to the more tentative "foxes," hedgehogs are really bad at predicting what will happen in the future. Tetlock looked at 82,361 predictions by 284 pundits, and found that the "The hedgehog-fox dimension distinguished more accurate forecasters from less accurate ones." And the more well-known the expert? The less likely it was he or she would be accurate.

Cranky Fitness prides itself on being totally obscure, so if we were ever to try to predict anything, you could totally trust us!

Also, without having read either Berlin or Tetlock, we created a somewhat similar "cognitive style analysis" a while back: the Screaming Baby-Heads versus the Wishy-Washy Grown-Ups.) Alas, Newsweek is not citing our analysis, which is too bad, because we could use a little publicity so we could let it go to our heads and get all confident and forceful like the hedgehogs!

Anyway, is it safe to assume that most of us here are Foxes, not Hedgehogs? Cranky Fitness does not have "the answer" to anything. Around here, it's all "maybe," and "apparently" and "on the other hand" and "what do we know?" and "whooops!" We also kinda get from reading your comments that you guys are every bit as flexible and balanced and confused as we are. This is Fox territory, not a great roosting place for Hedgehogs.

But Hey, Aren't We Cute When We're Angry?
(Photo: meantux)

"Tentative, Balanced, and Proud of It!"

It's not a very catchy slogan, is it? But that's how we roll.

It's funny, this post was originally going to be about "Hedgehog Envy." Because sometimes I do think it would be so nice to be a Hedgehog! It would be so much easier to look at the confusing, ever-changing, frustrating, complicated world we live in and feel less conflicted and mystified.

But it's almost like there's something in the air--a barely perceptible change in tone that making the world a bit more hospitable to foxes these days. Not that we'll ever hear the end of the hedgehogs--the media will continue to favor them and of course they NEVER shut up.

However (and this may just be wishful thinking), I get the sense that regular people (as opposed to media outlets) are getting weary of all the forceful hedgehog types out there. The defensive posturing, inflexibility, black and white thinking, and "easy" answers--these don't seem the best match for the messy, complicated world we live in right now.

But I'm not a hedgehog, so what the hell do I know? What do you folks think about foxes and hedgehogs?

Staying Healthy When The Economy Sucks

I Waited all Day in This Bread Line and
They Don't Even Have Whole Wheat?

(Note: This is Part One of a two part post. In Part II we're going to get much more nuts-and-bolts practical, and I'm hoping some of you Smart Readers can help me out!)

Getting a Little Worried about the Economy?

Who knows, maybe the market is going to zoom up a few thousand points this week and Gloom and Doom scenarios will not come to pass. Companies will meet payrolls and there will be no layoffs or recessions or government cutbacks or bankruptcies. Perhaps some day in the future we'll all be laughing about those few funny weeks back in October of 2008 when everything seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket. But guess what, nothing bad actually happened! Ha ha ha ha!

Let's hope so, anyway.

But as a proud member of the "defensive pessimism" club, I'm guessing... we may be in for some tough times. It may be wise to think ahead about how we're going to handle them.

Many household budgets may no longer have room for things like gym memberships or cute workout clothes or personal trainers or kettlebells or heirloom organic vegetables or pre-cooked free range chickens -- or for extra hours of child care in order to get some time to work out.

How will this potentially sucky economy affect your health and fitness?

Perhaps that depends on how you approach it.

How Does The Economy Effect Health and Fitness?

There's a recent article in the New York Times (registration may be required) about how a good or bad economy can affect health. The whole thing is a bit of a mishmash, and there's no clear bottom line. The worst aspect seems to be the inability of lower income folks to pay for necessary health care. But depending on who you are and how you handle things, the article seems to suggest that bad economic times don't necessarily mean that the health of the population suffers.

They have examples like people who get fired from their jobs may get to spend more time with their kids; and folks who can't afford restaurants may do more cooking at home, from scratch. And they mention that "good times," can affect health in negative ways: people may work long hours, not exercise, skip doctor's appointments and eat lots of fatty food at restaurants.

Some Health Challenges When Money's Tight

I'm not an expert on either economics or health, so I'm only guessing. But here are some things that seem might get more difficult for a lot of families if the economy really does go down the toilet:

1. Affording proper health care

2. Eating nutritious food on a smaller budget

3. Having fewer exercise options, like gym memberships, exercise equipment, personal trainers, and even proper shoes and clothing

4. Coping with longer work hours from taking on second jobs

5. Or, alternatively, dealing with depression and loss of structure in the day from losing a job

6. Finding time to work out without money for day care or other household help, and

7. Stress, stress, stress, and more stress.

And I'm sure there are lots more I haven't thought of yet. But lets shift gears entirely now, shall we, for...

A Little Personal Story About Change!

Once upon a time, I worked for a stodgy old legal publishing company. The environment was not glamorous and we were all underpaid, but it was a friendly, flexible workplace. Most of my coworkers were scary smart and hella fun to hang with. And there were genuine wild-haired eccentrics roaming the hallways! People got hired and stayed there for decades, pretty much until they retired or toppled over at their desks of old age.

It short: it was a comfortable place to work and I mostly liked the job a lot.

Then one day another, bigger company bought us. Consultants were dispatched and soon thereafter there were beaming corporate trainers everywhere, and a blizzard of buzz-words and binders and workshops and mission statements and team-building exercises all designed to turn us in to model employees.

Employees of the Month!
(Photo by defwheezer)

And of course very soon thereafter, two-thirds of the workforce was fired. Welcome to Change, and don't let the door smack you in the ass on your way out.

Those of us who remained were left stunned and gasping; we flopped around like fish on a boat deck, wondering where the hell the our comfortable old salty water was. And we were the lucky ones.

And while I no longer own the personalized company t-shirt with my name misspelled on it, I did retain one thing from all those smiley-faced trainings on the brave new corporate world: the concept they called ... the "Opporthreat."

Seriously, An Opporthreat?

It was hard not to laugh. In fact, many employees heard it as an "opera threat," and understandably became very confused. Were well-endowed sopranos wearing horned helmets on the way to roust us from our cubicles?

But the term basically seemed to mean this: sometimes a big looming change that looks like it's going to be a "Threat" can really be an "Opportunity." So it's an "opporthreat!"

Kinda makes you want to puke, right? And mostly, it's bullsh*t.

Bad things aren't usually good things--they're bad things. Often when they happen, the best you can do is cope with them and hope one day to be back to normal.

But sometimes... crummy things actually do shake things up and change your life for the better. When your entire lifestyle needs to be re-evaluated for stupid reasons beyond your control, sometimes you can actually use that "all bets are off" feeling to rediscover your true priorities again.

As it happened, the decimation of our comfortable old workplace really did lead to some great new work and lifestyle changes for many people at the company, including myself. Eventually. But the transitions were sometimes long and painful.

So I guess I'm hoping that for some people, in some situations, the coming crappy economic times could actually be a chance to reevaluate lifestyle decisions. Not just how often to eat dinner out, but even major things like what kind of neighborhood to live in or how many cars to own or how many hours to work and how much "stuff" in our lives we decide is really necessary.

'Cause I'm thinking mostly it's gonna suck. But perhaps some of us might find a few "Opporthreats" out there?

Help Me Write the Next Post on Practical Ways to Stay Healthy When Money's Tight!

I know there are probably practical lists all over the web on ways to be healthy on a budget, but we want one here too! I'd like to collect a bunch of tips and links in one place, especially ones that have actually worked for Cranky Fitness readers. And I'd like to have a whole post about it, rather than bury great ideas in the comments section of this post.

So if any of you could email us here at Crabby McSlacker @ gmail dot com (no spaces) that would be awesome. If you're a blogger and you've already written a post on cheap ways to stay healthy, please send us a link! Or if you've seen a really helpful bunch of tips elsewhere and can send a link, that would be great too.

And we'd love to hear from any of you who have specific suggestions about staying healthy on the cheap! We may edit down longer suggestions to get small bite sized tip just to keep the list manageable.

We'd love to create a book-markable resource to come back to if, a few months down the road, you should God Forbid find yourself in need of some ideas for cutting expenses.

If you could get any tips or links to us by later in the week that would be great--I can run the post Friday or next Monday.

So, are any of you worried about the economy? Ever actually had an "opporthreat" in your own life, where you actually turned a crappy situation into something good?