More on the elephant
Sep. 21st, 2008 08:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerOf course, the people who believe in the elephant aren't entirely blameless, because they often can't seem to leave it at that.
There are those who stoutly maintain that the elephant-shaped building is in fact a real live elephant, that the room in which they are is actually the elephant's stomach, and that everyone *must* believe all this in order to become part of the elephant when they die and not get squeezed out as elephant poo. The fact that the room is firmly established by observation and testing as an ordinary room, with a nice tiled floor and plaster walls and a door and everything, they either ignore or put down to the mysterious powers of the elephant. There are others who are just as insistent on a rather more rarefied belief, that the building, the real live elephant, and the hologram that sighted people can see are somehow three separate things but the same thing at the same time. There are those who see the hologram of the building, and draw up their own highly detailed conjectural maps of the interior, including the location of the room, and disagree violently with each other when their maps conflict. Some insist that it's actually a rhinoceros, or an antelope, or two men in an elephant costume.
And everyone has their own ideas on how other people should behave, which they handily ascribe to the will of the elephant when anyone asks why. And the ones who do not believe are eager to take all these extraneous beliefs and their unfortunate consequences, and use them to "prove" that there is no elephant. Some of them even go so far as to say that there are no sighted people, because if there were they would not see an elephant, because there is no elephant. It's a mess.
But none of that has any bearing on the question of whether or not there is an elephant. The elephant, or the building, certainly doesn't care one way or another about all the blood and the anger and the trouble we make for ourselves. There's no reason why it should.
Does anyone need to believe in the elephant? If they see it, then I would say it's not a question of belief for them, or of need. If it's there, but they don't see it, then I would say it's up to them, but they should know that they are ignoring something that is there simply because they haven't the requisite sense to perceive it, and that calling those who do see it liars or dupes is perhaps uncalled for. If they don't know if it's there or not, don't trust the people on either side enough to believe them, and say so, then that is their choice and certainly has the virtue of honesty, though I wouldn't say it was a principle worth fighting for.
Would we be better off simply to take the path of least resistance and believe there is no elephant even if there is? Well, the ones who can see it certainly wouldn't, because they would then have to believe that their senses were playing tricks on them. For the rest of us, life might be easier in some ways, because we would argue and fight and kill each other about other things...but there would still be an elephant, and it might become important to us at any time to acknowledge it.
There are those who stoutly maintain that the elephant-shaped building is in fact a real live elephant, that the room in which they are is actually the elephant's stomach, and that everyone *must* believe all this in order to become part of the elephant when they die and not get squeezed out as elephant poo. The fact that the room is firmly established by observation and testing as an ordinary room, with a nice tiled floor and plaster walls and a door and everything, they either ignore or put down to the mysterious powers of the elephant. There are others who are just as insistent on a rather more rarefied belief, that the building, the real live elephant, and the hologram that sighted people can see are somehow three separate things but the same thing at the same time. There are those who see the hologram of the building, and draw up their own highly detailed conjectural maps of the interior, including the location of the room, and disagree violently with each other when their maps conflict. Some insist that it's actually a rhinoceros, or an antelope, or two men in an elephant costume.
And everyone has their own ideas on how other people should behave, which they handily ascribe to the will of the elephant when anyone asks why. And the ones who do not believe are eager to take all these extraneous beliefs and their unfortunate consequences, and use them to "prove" that there is no elephant. Some of them even go so far as to say that there are no sighted people, because if there were they would not see an elephant, because there is no elephant. It's a mess.
But none of that has any bearing on the question of whether or not there is an elephant. The elephant, or the building, certainly doesn't care one way or another about all the blood and the anger and the trouble we make for ourselves. There's no reason why it should.
Does anyone need to believe in the elephant? If they see it, then I would say it's not a question of belief for them, or of need. If it's there, but they don't see it, then I would say it's up to them, but they should know that they are ignoring something that is there simply because they haven't the requisite sense to perceive it, and that calling those who do see it liars or dupes is perhaps uncalled for. If they don't know if it's there or not, don't trust the people on either side enough to believe them, and say so, then that is their choice and certainly has the virtue of honesty, though I wouldn't say it was a principle worth fighting for.
Would we be better off simply to take the path of least resistance and believe there is no elephant even if there is? Well, the ones who can see it certainly wouldn't, because they would then have to believe that their senses were playing tricks on them. For the rest of us, life might be easier in some ways, because we would argue and fight and kill each other about other things...but there would still be an elephant, and it might become important to us at any time to acknowledge it.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-22 01:33 am (UTC)But to assume it doesn't care is to presuppose that every single person who thinks he knows what the elephant wants people to do is wrong -- because the elephant doesn't actually want people to do anything, for any reason at all.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-22 08:24 am (UTC)It may be that some of the people who write the books are sighted, and can see the hologram. It may be that they can tell what it wants us to do by watching its expression. But the only reason we have for believing that is that they say so, and that doesn't carry an awful lot of weight unless you want it to.