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The ancient Buddhist parable of blind scholars

The ancient Buddhist parable of the blind scholars and their encounter with the elephant helps us to illustrate the social controversy over the nature and various dimensions of how people interpret their knowledge-claims on how the world be governed.

Since the blind scholars did not know what the elephant looked like, they resolved to obtain a mental picture, and thus the knowledge they desired, by touching the animal. 

Feeling its trunk, one blind man argued that theelephant was like a lively snake.

 Another man, rubbing along its enormous
leg, likened the animal to a rough column of massive proportions. 

The third person took hold of its tail and insisted that the elephant resembled a large, flexible brush. 

The fourth man felt its sharp tusks and declared it to be like a great spear. 

Each of the blind scholars held firmly to his own idea of what constituted an elephant. 

Since their scholarly reputation was riding on the veracity of their respective findings, the blind men eventually ended up arguing over the true nature of the elephant.

The ongoing competition among world leaders over which dimension contains the essence of the way the world be governed, represents a postmodern version of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. 

Even those few leaders who still think of liberalism and others who believe in authoritarianism as a singular process clash with each other over which aspect of social life constitutes its primary domain at which the world could achieve social equilibrium. 

 Like the blind men in the parable, each leader is partly right by correctly identifying one important dimension of the phenomenon in question. 

However, their collective mistake lies in their dogmatic attempts to reduce such a complex phenomenon as country management to one or two domains that corresponds to their own expertise. 

For me,  I believe a central task for the new field of studies must be to devise some better ways for gauging the relative importance of each dimension without losing sight of the interdependent whole.

The ongoing election in India is case in point. Disciples of President Modi have claimed he could win the race by far. Without considering the perspectives of the left-leaning critics, they embraced  emotivism, vehemently claiming that Modi's programs had really enticed scores of Indians.

In another case, Ukraine drone attack hits Russian Tatarstan, killed 13 Russians, and 8 injured. Some NATO saw it a progressive move by the Ukraine in attacking a strong enemy. Others believe it could result in increase global energy cost.

Perspective is always a personal statement.

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