The Elephant in the Room

I heard an ancient tale during my travels in Southeast Asia. I may have been sober when I heard it, which is why the details have stuck with me all these years. Or, maybe the reason has more to do with the fact that human nature remains unchanged. What was an astute observation two thousand years ago has endured the technological evolution of humanity intact. I’ll paraphrase.

Six blind men enter a room with an elephant and were asked to describe what they found. Basically, the only sense available to them was touch. The first one touched the elephant’s side and said, “I have found the wall.” The second grabbed the trunk. “I have found a snake.” The third one, a tail—“I have found a rope.” Number four grabbed onto an ear. “I have found a fan.” Bumping into a leg, the fifth one said, “I have found a tree.” Finally, the last one stuck his hand on the point of the tusk. “Watch out for the spear.” Each man had a clear and correct description of what he found. They were all right, and yet they were all wrong. How is that possible?

Each one explained his discovery based on his own perspective, and every individual in the world has a limited perspective. It may not be limited by sight, but by one of the other senses. It may be bounded by geographic environment or emotional bias. Some people are constrained by education or lack of education. Whatever the reason, we all see things within the narrow confines of our own experience, and the range of individual human experience is narrow. Consequently, if we base our realities on our own perceptions and the opinions we form from them, what we understand about the world we live in can be completely divorced from the larger reality of what is.

Terms have developed in recent years to describe this effect on us, especially regarding living together in societies, even though this limitation in thinking has been around as long as there has been thought. For example, the Dunning-Kruger effect simply put means that people tend to think they are smarter than they really are. Another term becoming more familiar every day in the world created by supporters of former U.S. president Donald Trump is cognitive dissonance. This psychological flaw is defined as the mental stress weighing on a person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. It gets triggered by a situation in which a person’s belief clashes with new facts. When confronted with facts that contradict beliefs, ideals, and values, most people will try and resolve the contradiction in a way that reduces discomfort rather than adheres to truth.

The most provocative example I can think of immediately is rooted in the Christ-like adoration some Republicans seem to hold for a man known to routinely violate the law of reality and the laws of his country for his own pleasure and enrichment. Consider the current world-wide Covid-19 virus pandemic. How far we are behind the health curve on this issue has become well-documented fact, and the reasons for that are well known also. There are people dying in our hospitals every day from this disease who, as they pass away, still refuse to admit it even exists. Despite known facts, people refuse to wear masks to prevent transmission while others refuse vaccinations for fear of secret surveillance issues created by the “Deep State.” Why? Because countless hours of various types of misinformation have been delivered to the public by people with incomplete knowledge and competing agendas—untrustworthy people whose opinions we have been socialized to trust—and because some of us simply want to accept only the information in harmony with our preconceived ideas. Think of those guys and the elephant.

What has made these attitudes so dangerous and disruptive in our world today? It has become entangled with another viable social theory. Partial views of an issue generate conflict. We see with a limited perspective. We trust, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, that what we see is the only truth and all of the truth. For many this desire to believe only what we want to believe becomes obsessive due to a whole catalogue full of personal reasons such as poverty, racism, economic elitism, education or lack thereof, etc. But the bottom line—having knowledge makes us feel superior.

Then, someone else understands the same issue from an entirely different perspective. Or, as my old man used to say, “No matter how thing you slice bread it always has two sides.” Hence, conflict sparks and the longer we argue, the more entrenched in our own opinions we become. At some point it is safe to assume that the most adamant, unbalanced, and loudest on either side may resort to violence as a way of defending their views. The most recent example of that is on trial in the Senate now. The events in evidence came close on January 6^th to ending any resemblance to democracy left in this country.

If the six blind men had been willing to go beyond their first impressions and continue with an objective observation of the whole, then they would have realized they shared the room with an elephant. Knowledge is power only because it can lead to understanding and understanding when used can generate wisdom. The decision made from the bigger picture could have allowed for an accurate assessment. Accurate assessments lead to opportunities for making informed decisions, and informed decisions provide a foundation for wise actions. Wise actions often deescalate crisis or create a positive path forward from an existing one. We should all consider the issues that affect our lives from as many different perspectives as possible. Yes, that requires energy, time, research, and humility because the first three don’t work unless we are willing to change an existing opinion if new evidence is discovered.