The Blind Men and the Elephant

Probably most of you have heard the famous parable of the blind men and the elephant, originally attributed to the Buddha. The story goes that six blind men in a village encounter an elephant for the first time, and each grabs ahold of a different part of the beast. The one standing by the tail believes it to be a rope; the one standing by the belly believes it to be a wall, and so on. In some versions of the story, the men argue endlessly about the nature of the elephant, each insisting that they are right. In other versions, a wise (presumably seeing) man walks by and tells them that, while they each have a portion of the truth, none of them is aware of what the entire animal is like. So they are simultaneously all correct, and all wrong.

As a systems scientist, this parable points to the need to incorporate, and learn from, diverse perspectives on systems. Most large problems we deal with today in the science of the environment are like the elephant—it is figuratively impossible for us to ‘get our arms’ around the whole thing, no matter how much of an expert we may be in our particular piece of the problem (the ear, the tail, etc.) This means that we have to learn from one another while studying the system at the same time. I design processes to do this with both scientists and stakeholder groups.

One of the topics of this blog is women, and diversity, in academia. Some people believe that this is a ‘hot topic’ of the moment that is not deeply consequential. But I believe that diversity in all of our societal institutions is absolutely essential if we are to learn about the issues we face systemically, so that we can make more robust decisions - decisions that take into account the ‘whole beast’, as it were.

I was one of those ‘blind men’ in my first year in the Philippines. The focus of my research was soil erosion and topsoil loss, a major issue in a mountainous country with monsoonal rain patterns and a strong need to increase agricultural production in order to feed one of the fastest growing populations in Asia. The literature on the topic referenced field trials in which several soil conservation techniques were tested, and implied that the only problem was getting farmers to adopt them. The dominant theory in the literature was that farmers were either too poor, too unconcerned about the long-term consequences of soil loss, or too ignorant to implement erosion prevention technologies.

However—unsurprisingly, really—when I began speaking with small-scale farmers, they had a very different view of the situation. Many of them did know about soil conservation technologies, and used them. The real ‘beast’ was that the best land in many parts of the Philippines is owned by large farming operations (for historical and political reasons—a long story I won’t go into here), so the poor farmers are relegated to what is known as ‘marginal land’—steeply sloping, with relatively thin, poor topsoil. Even their best efforts to conserve soil were often ineffective for these reasons. The soil erosion researchers may have been paying attention to the ear, or the tusk, but the farmers had a firm grip on the elephant’s tail, so to speak. Any explanation of the erosion issue is highly ineffective without a diversity of perspectives on the topic—especially the farmers’ grasp on it.

Faculty in universities, being human like everyone else, have to deal with the ‘blind men’ phenomenon. The position requires learning about a wide variety of issues, and taking decisions on everything from research priorities, curricula, funding, hiring, promotion and more. I argue that these decisions are better decisions if those at the table have a diversity of perspectives, derived from a diversity of upbringings, gender, ethnic backgrounds, and worldviews. Interestingly, some have used a similar argument in recent years to criticize the ‘groupthink’ that may emerge from an academe that is more politically liberal than society at large. I’m not going to wade into that snakepit here, [m1] but it is something to consider. While the relative liberal bias of academia is hotly debated, I don’t think anyone can contest that the upper ranks of academia are overwhelmingly white and male—and perhaps prone to groupthink. Time to get some different perspectives on the elephant up in here!

From the next post until the end of the year, I plan to write about poverty, one of my areas of research. What does poverty have to do with the over-arching theme of this blog (women in academia and modern family life)? A lot, IMHO—stay tuned to find out.