The King's Elephant

An old story tells about a king who lived with his three faithful servants in a large castle. One day he heard a story about this wonderful yet mysterious beast that his subjects referred to as an elephant. Having never seen such a creature himself, he was intrigued and eager to learn more.

The king's three most loyal servants were blind, but he put more faith in them than anyone else. Since the king could not leave the castle himself, he sent these men out into the forest so that they might investigate this mythic beast and report back to him with all the details.

Trudging his way to the edge of the kingdom, the first blind man came upon a town where an elephant was said to be kept, and had the villagers lead him to it. He put his hands on the incredible specimen, feeling all around its huge legs. Noting the wide width and bumpy texture, he hustled back to the castle and told the king that an elephant was basically a moving, living tree.

Upon locating an elephant, the second blind was surprised by a long, tubular thing that seemed to tickle him. He explored this curious appendage as it slithered up and down his body, seeming to give him wet kisses. With this experience in hand, he returned to the king and reported that an elephant is like a large snake that had the head of a leech.

The third blind man was directed towards the elephant when he bumped into an object that was rock hard, yet with a point on the end like a spear. He was taken back by the elephant's smelly breath which hit him fully in his face as he felt the creatures' tusks. After further exploration he was sure he possessed the answer, and returned to the castle to tell the king that an elephant is merely a large walrus that has moved onto land.

Naturally, the king was now more confused than before having been given such conflicting reports on the nature of an elephant. His three loyal advisors had failed him for the first time. He concluded that the only way to satisfy his curiosity was to see the animal for himself.

So once more his servants were sent out from the castle, only this time with some money and an official decree demanding that an elephant be brought back to the castle for inspection. Upon laying eyes on an elephant for the first time, the bigger picture became clear, and he now understood how each blind man had formed their conclusions.

The elephant that's in the room.

This parable is meant to teach us about perception. Each of us, in a way, is exactly like the blind men in the story: handicapped not by a lack of vision, but by inadequate knowledge.

When we form our views of the world, each of us is drawing from a limited amount of information, a limited set of experiences. It doesn't matter how smart or sophisticated you think you are, the reality is that even the most brilliant among us are severely handicapped by the knowledge we lack or the experiences we've never had. As a result, we stumble about this world as crippled as a blind man who is trying to formulate the whole picture after having observed only a fraction of its parts.

None of the blind advisers in this story were incorrect in what they observed. However, none of them had collected enough information to create a more accurate assessment. The first blind man was not wrong to describe parts of an elephant as being like the base of a tree. The other was correct to describe his experience as being like an encounter with a friendly snake. The last could be forgiven for thinking he was dealing with a walrus.

All had observed the same thing, and yet by experiencing different aspects of it, each came away with a completely different understanding of what they had encountered. Our own perceptions are working in equally profound ways in our world today.

Whenever the perceptions of others are different from our own, it's generally not a matter of one person being entirely wrong and the other entirely right. Instead, it's almost certain that each viewpoint has merit, but that each observation by itself is also hopelessly incomplete. Since each person is forming their world view from a unique repertoire of knowledge and experiences, each can view the same thing quite differently.

It's only when we combine these perspectives that we can obtain a fuller picture of the truth. If everyone tried to do this more often, particularly when it comes to those people or viewpoints that may initially seem so different from our own, we'd all come away with a more accurate understanding of the way our world really is.


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