But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking about the Present as If It Were the Past

by Chuck Klosterman

A final note about hedgehogs: In “The Case Against Freedom,” I spend a few pages describing a period of my life when I watched a hedgehog from the balcony of my Akron apartment. It turns out there is a problem with this memory—hedgehogs are not native to North America. Whatever was chomping apples outside my window must have been either a groundhog or a woodchuck (although it was definitely something). I have to assume this is not a well-known fact, since I’ve been telling this anecdote for almost two decades and not one person has ever remarked, “Hey idiot—don’t you realize there are no hedgehogs in Ohio?” That said, I’ve never dated an Erinaceidae zoologist. I’m (very slightly) embarrassed by all this, since I based an entire chapter around a metaphor I did not technically experience. But there was no practical solution to this contradiction, outside of re-naming this book But What If We’re Wrong? Thinking About Woodchucks As If They Were Hedgehogs. Chuck Klosterman regrets the error.