U.S. Mayors Climate Conference: Clinton I

Clinton and Gore, fox and hedgehog

Posted by David Roberts at 3:21 PM on 02 Nov 2007

Read more about: Bill Clinton | Al Gore

Bill Clinton gave the keynote address at the conference. That means I got to see Gore and Clinton within a few hours of one another, and wow, what an interesting contrast.

Isaiah Berlin famously divided thinkers into two categories, hedgehogs and foxes. The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows a lot about one thing. Bill Clinton is perhaps the foxiest fox of our time, and Gore perhaps the hedgehoggiest hedgehog. Gore takes one thing -- climate change -- and methodically works his way through it, covering all the angles, carefully presenting the evidence. Clinton, even when he intends to focus, can't help flitting from this to that, from al qaeda and identity conflict to global urbanization to median wage trends to green roofs and on and on.

Clinton's more fun to watch, but he mostly convinces you of his own intelligence and charm. Gore convinces you of the merits of his position. You walk away from Clinton dazzled by Clinton; you walk away from Gore believing climate change is a crisis that requires immediate action.

Another analogy (now with more manliness!): Clinton is the hotshot point guard, all style and razzle dazzle, driving to the hoop here, sinking a three there, dishing assists behind his back just because he can. He doesn't even look like he's trying, and sometimes you suspect he isn't. Gore is the power forward. His play is fairly workmanlike, but he practices, he trains, he learns his moves, he pounds the boards. He tries. And he delivers.

When people applaud Gore, it's like applauding the power forward. "You kept at it, and while watching you play still isn't the most thrilling thing in the world, we sure appreciate your stats!"

When they applaud Clinton, there's more of an aesthetic appreciation. "Daaaaamn. The guy's good." In a way Gore never could, Clinton makes you want to be near him, be a part of his world. He seduces, and the applause is louder, more adulatory -- such is human nature. Stats don't make the hairs on your neck stand up; Clinton can do it with an casual, impromptu riff. I can't imagine two people more different.

Anyway, enough of this pop psych: next post I'll get into the substance of Clinton's talk.

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An Adlai Stevenson Moment

Thanks for that thrilling portrait of a man who is the Dan Marino of politics, Al Gore.

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 1:39 PM on 03 Nov 2007

Archilochus and Berlin

Archilochus of Paros, who flourished around 650 BCE, not more than a century after Homer, was the first Greek poet to draw on his personal experiences for his subject matter, not on mythological tradition. Hence he is an extremely important figure in the history of Greek (and all Western!) literature.

We do not know the context of the famous fragment that Isaiah Berlin picked up and ran with, "A fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one great thing." Since Archilochus was a soldier who practically rejected the heroic code of Homeric society, possibly he is telling his audience that his simple strategy of looking out for his own survival is superior to the more clever and acquisitive approach that can get a soldier into trouble. Cf. how Odysseus got into trouble, not once but twice, with the Cyclops (Odyssey IX).

It is also interpreted, somewhat more in line with how Isaiah Berlin takes it, to refer to a literary style: Archilochus sees himself as a hedgehog, a poet who writes on one limited subject, but with great effect, unlike the more learned and more widely experienced fox-poets whose poetry is perhaps not so impressive.

Since the hedgehog's "one great thing" is presumably the defensive maneuver of curling up into a ball, offering a predator an array of spikes, it is not easy to see how Berlin uses the metaphor as he does. The authors whom he calls hedgehogs certainly seem far from lacking in creativity and variety.

But by the same token, DR's assertion that Al Gore is a hedgehog makes a good deal more sense than Berlin's about, say, Dante and Tolstoy. Certainly, to use a rather different contrast of animals from Archaic Greece, Aesop's Hare and Tortoise, Gore could be said to resemble the relentlessly plodding, single-minded Tortoise.

As for whether Bill Clinton is "the foxiest fox of our time," that is very possible. But meanwhile, some of the pundits have lately been telling us that Hillary is a shrewder politician even than Bill.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:55 PM on 03 Nov 2007

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