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Schopenhauer enlists another animal—the porcupine—to explain human relations. Imagine a group of porcupines huddled on a cold winter’s day. They stand close to one another, absorbing their neighbor’s body heat, lest they freeze to death. Should they stand too close, though, they’re pricked by a needle. “Tossed between two evils,” says Schopenhauer, the animals approach and retreat, again and again, until they discover “the proper distance from which they could best tolerate one another.” The Porcupine’s Dilemma, as it’s now known, is our dilemma, too. We need others to survive, but others can
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