The continuing relevance of the Baroque hedgehog in the age of the Gothic Fox

Everyone despises the plodder; and, in the case of countries that plod, history will be unnforgiving. It's a melancholic read about the Baroque hedgehog's fate and how history has been both unkind and unfair; unfortunately, closed societies simply don't fare well because change is both natural and continuous. That's pretty much the conclusion I draw after reading Claudio Veliz's The New World of the Gothic Fox

In many ways, the Baroque hedgehog parallels what happened to Apple computers. It's technology was beautiful and of high quality; it was also closed to outside influences. The result when it competed with the IBM/Microsoft technology based on open standard, the latter one and became Apple has become successful, only because the company has finally embraced open technology.

So in world history, the hedgehog has reluctantly embraced the fox's behaviour with indifferent results that only reinforce its sense of irrelevance.

And yet, if Western civilization is to survive, the Gothic fox needs to call from obscurity the Baroque hedgehog, accord it some new respect and for both to work in concert. The former's knowledge of many things impedes it from articulating why Western civilization is worth preserving.

Sure, Blair's speeches defending Western civilization were eloquent but this wasn't the Gothic fox orating; it was the Baroque hedgehog, its knowledge of the one thing and its stubbornness to defend it. Further, the Gothic fox's nominalism has killed and will kill. There's no islamism or islamojihadism but simply particular individuals who espouse an ideology and carry out destructive acts. The very idea that there exists an overarching ideological architectonics that motivates them, is alien to the Gothic fox. It simply wouldn't be 'sporting' if these adherents did espouse such a weltanschauung.

The London bombings have effectively refuted such nominalist wishful thinking.

My readers object vehemently and point to the current rioting in France is once again proof of the Baroque hedgehog's inability to deal intelligently, or effectively, with life's uncertainties. That is both unfair and false.

Unfortunately, given that the prejudice of our time is the era of the Gothic fox, the Baroque hedgehog is forced to act against his nature and is doubly condemned: first for acting as qua hedgehog; second for imitating the fox with the predictable dismal results. What the Gothic fox needs is the Baroque hedgehog's realism as well as its knowledge of the one thing; the latter needs the Gothic fox's love of change to temper that skepticism of innovation. Together, they'll provide an effective defence of Western civilization