Analogy of the self, the profession and the academy: blind men and an elephant

Entrepreneurs set high goals, dream big, and believe, without conviction, that they are the next big thing. Salespeople are motivated by money, by winning, and by being the best. Engineers have analytical minds, backed by experience in their field with an insatiable drive to be challenged in problem solving. Leaders are generally well educated, clear communicators, and great delegators. Writers deliver unique content that is strongly backed by good research, in-depth knowledge, and creative ideas that can capture and hold your readers’ interest.

As a professional, you bring your individual strengths to the table and have valuable skills to skillfully achieve your employer’s goals. That’s why they hired you, right? Your skills are recognized. You have managed to not only beat the competition to impress your employer as the best candidate for your job, but you have also managed to earn the admiration and trust of your clients, and just as importantly, yourself, with your ability to master and improve. effectively the performance of the initiatives it manages. You’re smart. You know it. they know. I know. So how could your ideas be anything but the best?

There is a fable that originally circulated in Indian cultures that has been translated into numerous theories today and it basically boils down to “our subjective experience may be true, but it may also be essentially limited by our inability to take into account other truths or the totality of truth.” What does that mean? Well, maybe you’re right, because, hey, you usually are, right? Maybe someone else’s idea is right, too, from a perspective you haven’t considered yet. And maybe, just maybe someone else I am using the term ‘correct’ in the sense of knowing useful and factual information that can be applied to understand or improve a situation or circumstance.

the parable of blind men and an elephant it has been retold in many ways and is, in essence, a story of six blind men being taken to “see” an elephant for the first time. After each one has touched a different part of the elephant, the blind people are asked to describe an elephant from what they have just experienced. The blind man who touched the leg confidently says that the elephant is like a pillar; the one who felt the tip of the tail says that the elephant is like a broom; the one who felt the trunk knowingly says that the elephant is like a hose; the one who touched the ear says that the elephant is like a soft blanket; the one who felt the belly says that the elephant is like a wall; and he who felt the tusk says without a doubt that the elephant is like a solid tube. Unable to agree, the blind men proceed to violently fight among themselves.

How little did each of the blind really know about the whole from their limited experience, while each thought their perceived knowledge had to be more correct, a better truth? I believe there are abundant applications in life, personal relationships, and our business interactions where we could use this teaching for the good of our lives. We all think we know more, when in reality, even with all our recognized expertise, perceived experience, and insight, we may actually know very little.

Can you recall a time when you and a friend, or friends, saw the same thing or attended the same event, and you all have slightly different memories of the experience? Is any of your eyewitness testimony necessarily wrong? Or did they just take away something different from their views shaped by their individual personalities and unique previous experiences?

The idea of ​​conflicting interpretations of the same event by different people has been around for a long time. A term for this phenomenon is flushomon effecta phrase derived from the film Rashomon, where the accounts of witnesses, suspects and victims of a rape and murder are all different. The term came into wide use in the late 1970s with implications for journalism ethics, and has been studied in the context of understanding the nature of truths and truth-telling in journalism. The term has found its way into plays, movies, and has been used extensively on American television. The fable of the blind men and the elephant works as a wonderful embodiment of this concept.

One big lesson I took from the story is to question the integrity of our ideas and strive to gain more knowledge before rushing to a conclusion from a blanket statement that is based on insufficient evidence without considering all the variables. A term used for this informal fallacy is hasty generalization.

Perhaps we should consider the possibility or ignorance itself and weigh the value of forgoing the need to defend being right in exchange for the possibility of advancing our understanding through contemplation of the contradictory ideas of others, which perhaps they have more experience that can give them deeper insight than we do.

There is great value in surrounding ourselves with people who see things differently from us. Contemplating contrary ideas can only make us smarter. Even if, after careful consideration, we still decide to see things from our original perspective, our questioning can help us further solidify what we think we know, as well as help us become smarter from our engagement in the reexamination process.

“If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room” ~Unknown

The statements of the blind characterize classic aspects of a unreliable narrator perspective. The blind are classified as naive and unreliable storytellers, that is, their perceptions are immature and limited from their point of view, telling their stories in a similar way to children whose inexperience can impair their judgment and make them unreliable.

Some questions that might be worth pondering about history are: how do we determine a speaker’s authority, what part of his information should we trust, and how should his information be interpreted? How do we proceed when dealing with someone who we feel has seriously compromised their credibility with us? Do we acknowledge the possibility that they are still well informed in other areas of knowledge and remain open to discovering what their areas of expertise may be, or are they just dead to us?

We depend daily on the reliability of information presented by others in our careers and personal lives. I am reminded of the Russian proverb made famous by former US President Ronald Reagan’s frequent use when discussing US relations with the former Soviet Union: “Trust but verify.“Perhaps our immediate reaction to this statement, who has time for misinformation or the patience to feel the need to verify all information received? What could we learn if we were equally concerned with managing our time and patience as developing a relationship based on drawing on the real strengths of your experience with those we feel have misinformed us on a subject where your knowledge was weak?

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its entire life thinking it is stupid.” ~Albert Einstein

Another thought-provoking observation from this teaching is how quickly we resort to coming to blows when someone has an opinion contrary to our opinion. Remember, through healthy debate, many great ideas were born.

There are numerous teachings throughout the centuries on how to overcome disagreements and misunderstandings with an honest attempt to empathetically try to see things from our disputant’s point of view with understanding, probably one of the most widely recognized,

“Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; harshness begets greater harshness… Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that “. ~Martin Luther King Jr.

In America especially, our culture may lose the ability to handle another person’s opposition to our ideas and the skills necessary to engage in open-minded discussion with our challenger. We Americans often perceive an opinion expressed that differs from our own as a personal attack, when in fact it could be an opportunity for us to question what we know, perhaps realizing that there is common ground on which we agree. deal with our opponent, and perhaps even learn better ways to achieve what we think we already know best.

In traditional European cultures, such as those found in parts of Italy, it is common for friends and family to argue and engage in lively debates for hours over dinner and wine, with considerable shouting and much emotion involved, and the ability to from agreeing to disagreeing if unable to find common ideas, they exchange hugs and walk away feeling no less love for their rival in the debate.

Rhetoric, the ability to skillfully argue and persuade, was a talent highly valued by our founding American ancestors. We would be wise to develop these skills ourselves and have American culture popularize the skill again today.

Examples of famous people from around the world who you can recognize have made lasting changes with their rhetorical skills to argue and persuade in debate include Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Mohandas Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, and Plato.

“You fight to win; you argue to reach an agreement.” ~Jay Heinrichs

This ancient story of the blind men and the elephant has stood the test of time, being interpreted first in Jainism, Buddhism, Islamic Sufi Muslim, and Hindu cultures, eventually making its way into 19th century American poetry and, oddly enough, , in the modern Interpretations of the story are still told today.

Several modern scholarly analyzes of the story are in use today, according to Wikipedia, “History is seen as a metaphor in many disciplines, being used as an analogy in fields far beyond the traditional. In physics, it has been seen as an analogy for wave-particle duality. In biology, the way the blind men cling to different parts of the elephant has been seen as a good analogy for the polyclonal B cell response.

A modern interpretation of the moral of this story is:

“We have to remember that what we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” – Werner Heisenberg

I have used this story repeatedly over the years to put a smile on my face and help me control myself when I find myself stubbornly convinced that I know more than someone else and have a hard time considering their contradictory ideas. I take a moment to stop and ask myself, “Maybe you’re being like the blind men and the elephant, Trey?” Often after asking myself this question, I can acknowledge my adamant attitude at the time, perhaps laugh at myself a bit, and then try again to listen more acceptingly with a new perspective. Maybe this story can help you too.

In conclusion, the best representations of this story for me are: Never stop learning. Try to wholeheartedly consider other people’s ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem at first. Keep questioning everything, especially yourself.

Thank you for reading!

Can you think of any other useful morals or applications for this parable? Let’s go here in the comment box below!