The Blind Men and the Elephant

The art of listening

There is a tale that originated somewhere in the Indian subcontinent about six blind men and an elephant.  My favourite version of the story is a poem written in the mid 19th Century

The blind men and the elephant

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me!—but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: “Ho!—what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ‘t is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“‘T is clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

John Godfrey Saxe 1816 -1887

The moral of the story

What can we learn from the blind men and the elephant? That it is easy to become seduced by our own ideas — which we base on our own experience. It is also easy to give everybody else’s ideas, — based on their equally valid experience — a good stiff ignoring. 

What could we possibly learn from somebody else?

Another angle

The story has been told for over 3,000 years in one way or another.  It can be found in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sufi texts.  Idries Shah retold the story in 1970 in his book “The Dermis Probe” and the BBC got in on the act in 1997 with a Radio 4 documentary called “Touching the Elephant”.

It is a good story; every generation needs to hear it…  Maybe more than once.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Stephen Covey

Or, more prosaically

The good lord gave you two ears and one mouth

My Mum

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Photo by Inbetween Architects on Unsplash