Koenigsberg's Law of Sacrifice (scroll down) From Good to Great (Jim Collins): Hedgehogs simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything. It doesn't matter how complex the world, a hedgehog reduces all challenges and dilemmas to simple indeed almost simplistic-hedgehog ideas. Princeton professor Marvin Bressler: "You want to know what separates those who make the biggest impact from all the others who are just as smart? They're hedgehogs." Freud and the unconscious, Darwin and natural selection, Marx and class struggle, Einstein and relativity, Adam Smith and division of labor-they were all hedgehogs. They took a complex world and simplified it.  Hedgehogs are not stupid. Quite the contrary. They understand that the essence of profound insight is simplicity. What could be more simple than e = mc2? What could be simpler than the idea of the unconscious, organized into an id, ego, and superego? What could be more elegant than Adam Smith's pin factory and "invisible hand"? No, the hedgehogs aren't simpletons; they have a piercing insight that allows them to see through complexity and discern underlying patterns. Hedgehogs see what is essential, and ignore the rest. Koenigsberg's Law of Sacrifice Wars are fought in order to testify to the truth of a society's sacred ideal. Death--and memorials erected to honor those who have died—perform a validation function. If so many people died for an entity or ideology—it must be true.