What is the story I hate? Actually, I am not the one who hates the story. I love the story. But when I tried to share it with a friend, she stopped me and blurted, “I hate that story?”
The reason she hates that story is because it robs her of her point of view being the only one that is good and right.
So what is the story? It’s the one about the blind men and the elephant that I have posted on many times.
Table of Contents
What Do You See?
The Blind Men and the Elephant is as follows with a version from textbook editor and author James Baldwin:
The Blind Men and the Elephant is a parable from India that has been adapted by many religions and published in various stories for adults and children. It is about a group of blind men who attempt to learn what an elephant is, each touching a different part, and disagreeing on their findings. Their collective wisdom leads to the truth.
There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side every day, and begged from the people who passed. They had often heard of elephants, but they had never seen one; for, being blind, how could they?
It so happened one morning that an elephant was driven down the road where they stood. When they were told that the great beast was before them, they asked the driver to let him stop so that they might see him.
Of course they could not see him with their eyes; but they thought that by touching him they could learn just what kind of animal he was.
The first one happened to put his hand on the elephant’s side. “Well, well!” he said, “now I know all about this beast. He is exactly like a wall.”
The second felt only of the elephant’s tusk. “My brother,” he said, “you are mistaken. He is not at all like a wall. He is round and smooth and sharp. He is more like a spear than anything else.”
The third happened to take hold of the elephant’s trunk. “Both of you are wrong,” he said. “Anybody who knows anything can see that this elephant is like a snake.”
The fourth reached out his arms, and grasped one of the elephant’s legs. “Oh, how blind you are!” he said. “It is very plain to me that he is round and tall like a tree.”
The fifth was a very tall man, and he chanced to take hold of the elephant’s ear. “The blindest man ought to know that this beast is not like any of the things that you name,” he said. “He is exactly like a huge fan.”
The sixth was very blind indeed, and it was some time before he could find the elephant at all.
At last he seized the animal’s tail. “O foolish fellows!” he cried. “You surely have lost your senses. This elephant is not like a wall, or a spear, or a snake, or a tree; neither is he like a fan. But any man with a particle of sense can see that he is exactly like a rope.”
Then the elephant moved on, and the six blind men sat by the roadside all day, and quarreled about him. Each believed that he knew just how the animal looked; and each called the others hard names because they did not agree with him. People who have eyes sometimes act as foolishly.
The truth is that thoughts are not facts. They are events of the mind, based on some mix of who we are when we come into the world and then all of what happens to us once we are here.
Nature and nurture as they say. But all day long they argued, as so many of us do now too, about how much more right than the other we are sure we are.
The incessant arguing erodes trust when we may need to feel trust in one another at least as much now as ever before.
What is Trust?
Let’s consider this definition from the Cambridge Dictionary: “to believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable.”
Unfortunately, when humans differ in their viewpoints, there is a tendency to see the other as not good, honest, safe, and reliable; but rather bad, dishonest, dangerous, and unreliable instead.
One need only flip back and forth between right- and left-leaning news channels to know the truth of this statement.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that humans evolved to favor their in-group while viewing outsiders with suspicion, a survival mechanism that once protected early tribes but now fuels political and social polarization.
Negativity bias, which once ensured survival by prioritizing potential threats, also plays a role in making opposing viewpoints seem more dishonest or dangerous than they may be.
Because these instincts were so essential in the past, they are hardwired in the brain and easily triggered—especially under stress—even if not as useful as they once were.
Indeed, run amok, they are pulling us apart at a time when we need each other more than ever.
Therefore What? Ask Why?
I had a moment with a loved one a couple of weeks ago, the kind of moment I had been trying so hard to avoid for many months. I had been practicing Austerity of Speech, which you can read about here.
But alas, the news of that particular day was just too much to bear, and it all just came out on both sides of the exchange, which I am not sorry about.
The reason I am not sorry is because it helped me to see something I want to share with you now. That is, instead of accusing the other person of the badness, wrongness, dangerousness, and lack of caring we may attach to their opposing point of view, what if we asked them what they are seeing instead?
What if we asked the other “Why?” with curiosity and a genuine interest in learning what makes other people tick differently than we tick ourselves?
It’s also a question worth asking oneself. Sometimes we may not even know, as I did not myself.
Upon reflection, I discovered that my commitment emerged from personal history as much as from a stand against broader social injustice—a commitment that may appear to set my loved one and me apart, even though we share a deep commitment to social justice.
Recognizing that our struggles and histories converge in the pursuit of social justice, we can see that our deep-rooted values connect us more than they divide us.
Even when our paths seem uniquely personal, the enduring call for justice and compassion reminds us that we are part of a larger, unbreakable community striving for a better future.
In these turbulent times, it is the triumph of trust—trust in one another, in our shared values, however deeply buried, and in the promise of tomorrow—that can carry us through today.
Photo by Freepik
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