{"id":102668,"date":"2017-12-04T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=102668"},"modified":"2017-12-02T14:25:06","modified_gmt":"2017-12-02T14:25:06","slug":"seven-men-and-an-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/12\/seven-men-and-an-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Men and an Elephant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven men were in a dark room touching an elephant. One touched his leg and said, “An elephant is like a tree trunk.”<\/p>\n

Another touched his belly and said, “No, an elephant is like a wall.”<\/p>\n

Another touched his trunk and said, “No, an elephant is like a snake.”<\/p>\n

Another touched his ear and said, “No an elephant is like a cabbage leaf.”<\/p>\n

Another touched his tusk and said, “No, an elephant is like a branch.”<\/p>\n

Another held his tail and said, “No, an elephant is like a paint brush.”<\/p>\n

Still another sat on top and said, “No, an elephant is like a mountain.”<\/p>\n

Then someone came in and switched the light on.<\/p>\n

All seven closed their eyes and shouted, “That fool should leave at once!”<\/p>\n

We all possess a piece of the truth, but nobody possesses the whole and only truth. Many cling to their narrow views and refuse to see a larger truth. Through dialogue, we can all learn from one another.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dietrich Fischer (1941-2015) from M\u00fcnsingen, Switzerland, got a Licentiate in Mathematics from the University of Bern 1968 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University 1976. 1986-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow in International Peace and Security at Princeton University. He has taught mathematics, computer science, economics and peace studies at various universities and been a consultant to the United Nations. He was co-founder, with Johan Galtung, of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> in 1993<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Excerpted from Dietrich Fischer’s <\/em>Stories to Inspire You<\/a> – TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven men were in a dark room touching an elephant. One touched his leg and said, “An elephant is like a tree trunk.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspirational"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}