Dear BIC, there is NO FLAW in John G Saxe's poem in so far that
it represents his own qualified opinion.
Although the poem seems to refer to religious persons, I think
its greater truth refers to all persons (religion is only the case
example)- it could refer to a maritial relationship for example:
e.g. assuming that one's husband were unfaithful simply because he
arrived home late for instance- where a fact is mis-interpreted due
to inherient prejudice.
" the blind men were all WRONG about their beliefs about the
elephant."- clarification: each blind man was fully correct in
his observation to the extent that it refered to only the part of
it that they each experienced. Their error in judgement however was
in assuming that what they had each experienced was the sum total
of all interactions with an elephant which is obviously
misplaced:this mistaken assumption was what stymied their
subsequent discussion and consequently, their simple excusion drew
no conclusions.
It was their lesser desire for individual presteige that failed
them ultimately.
The narrator is qualified in so far as he has created a story
(real/ otherwise) to illustrate his opinion about how matters of
such importance ought to be handled.
Blind Men and the Elephant – A Poem by John Godfrey Saxe remains a
valid reminder of inherent human fallability and its impediment to
progress.
Allow me to clarify, I agree that there is no flaw in the
analogy as it is related. The flaw I was referring to was about how
this analogy has often been used to say that all religions are
merely having a partial truth and that ultimately it is the same
"reality", bearing in mind that this forum is more of a religious
theme. I don't think it is apt to apply it to the suspicision
of infidelity case though.
While each blind man thought he was correct about his
"observation" (though they only relied on other senses but not
sight to derive at their conclusions), in reality they were
objectively wrong. Even the poem at the last sentence assented
to that.
The fact of the matter, as I see it, is that the blind men will
NEVER get to "see" or know how the elephant really look like, even
if someone with sight were to tell them or orally explain to them.
They have no visual reference point at all. The blind men can also
come together and discuss all they can and pool their "insights"
together but it will still be a distortion of reality.
It seems then, that the moral of the story is that we each have
our own personal view of things and we need to be informed by
what others see and not think that our views are
necessarily correct. If blind in the analogy is merely
referring to our fallible human nature, I agree. But I
think if we have the narrator (infallible source) telling us the
truth, then we can, on the basis of what has been revealed to us,
conclude that we are correct. Moreover, this also highlights the
point that truth is OBJECTIVE. Because truth is objective, people
can be wrong about things. Thus the idea of relativism or
subjective truth is false.
