A Saturday Allegory

Saturday, 16 November 2002

The fox knows many things but they are small things; the badger knows only one thing but it is a great thing.

I can't remember where I read this beautiful aphorism about knowledge and the different forms it may take. The beauty is perhaps a little meretricious since the aphorism is incomplete: it omits the jackass whose head is full of nonsense.

The jackass is a sad creature - like the fox it knows only small things; like the badger it knows only the one thing. It is ugly, noisy and stupid and knows, in the core of its being, that it is ugly, noisy and stupid. And that is all it really knows. The rest of its ideas are pleasant nonsense to distract it from this unpleasant knowledge.

Often, the nonsense that the jackass thinks pleasant displeases both foxes and badgers. The fox, with its knowledge of the many small things which are known as facts dislikes its constant braying of myths and legends. The badger with its knowledge of the big thing known as truth loathes its outright lies.

Sometimes, foxes and badgers alike are provoked into confronting the jackass with the unpleasant self-knowledge it strives so hard to ignore. The jackass will respond with a sneer and tell them that the problem is theirs, that they only say these things because they resent the superior wisdom of the jackass. Only I, says the jackass, have the courage to speak the unpleasant facts the the foxes prefer to ignore and the real truth the badgers refuse to acknowledge. And for a moment it thinks itself proud when it is merely vain.

There are many jackasses in the world - some would say too many- but they do have a purpose and a function, which they carry out admirably. That purpose is to satisfy themselves for in all other respects they are useless.

Corrigendum: John Quiggin has written to inform me that the quote comes from Isaiah Berlin, and that in the original it was a hedgehog, not a badger. I think I'll stick with the badger, but you're free to read it as "hedgehog" if you're picky about such things.