The Elephant and the Blind Men

I'm sure many of you have heard of relativism, an idea that reality is subject to the perspective of others and outside of people's perspectives, there is no absolute truth. And if there is an absolute truth, then no one really has it grasped yet or it would be arrogant to think they he/she does know it. The most common interpretation illustration for this is the Indian story of the Elephant and the Blind Men. 

The story goes that there was an elephant surrounded by blind men, and as each blind man grasps a part of the elephant he describes what he thinks he sees. One man claims that what he's holding is a snake because what he is holding is elongated and stretchy so it must be a snake. Another claims what he's holding is large and tough, so he concludes it must be a tree trunk. And as the story goes, the observer is supposed to come to the conclusion that each of the blind men's perspectives is true, but each are a part of a bigger piece. This is often attributed to religious beliefs.

The problem with the illustration is that in order for the blind men to be wrong, we need to assume that the observer is right. We need to trust the narrator sees the elephant and is correct in doing so. And if we step back and look at the scenario, that's the arrogance that we're considering to be "tolerance". Let me put it in context of religion: When someone says that "all religions are right", that person is making a doctrinal statement about his or her own beliefs that he/she is unknowingly imposing on those who believe otherwise. To relate it back to the elephant parable, it's arrogant to place the rest of the world's religions in the blind men's situation and have the all-tolerating agnostic in the narrator's seat. And people are always willing to bash the Christian for being close-minded, when in doing so the very accuser is guilty of the very same act. 

To bring it back to my first point, relativism is a belief/personal doctrine that is on the same level as the other faiths. To say that "everyone is right" is just as bigoted and ignorant (in the words of those who don't like religion) as "there is only one true God". In fact, to say everyone's beliefs is right is a religious belief in of itself that thrives on society's misconception of what tolerance really is. 

Tolerance should be "Listen, I still think you're wrong, and I don't believe what you're saying, but we can still talk about it" and not "Hmm, I think everyone is entitled to his/her own beliefs". This is because the first person is willing to acknowledge the beliefs of the other person, when the latter ignores it. The first opens his/her mind to the possibility of it being right/wrong, when the latter just outright rejects it by not even considering right/wrong. And in writing this spiel, I'm taking a stance on this issue of relativism that has muddled what we know about culture, faith, and the true meaning of tolerance.