The Elephant and the Rider: A Tale About Our Moral Judgments

                  Some people love hot sauce, the spicier the better.  Others like it mild.  Others want none at all.  Are these preferences the result of a logical thought process, or simply an honest report on what peoples’ taste buds tell them?

                  When we make judgments about other people, moral questions, and politics, is it our thinking mind that decides what’s true?  Or is it more often a deep feeling/reaction we have, and our thinking mind comes up with reasons to support that point of view?

When a human rider is on top of an elephant, which one holds the real power to decide what direction to go?

                  Several years ago, I read a book which challenged my understanding of the way we make judgments: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.  Haidt draws on extensive research about moral reasoning and comes to many important conclusions.  One of them employs the metaphor of an elephant and its rider.  In this imaginary scenario, the rider does not ultimately decide which path the elephant takes, but, in many ways, is “along for the ride.”  The rider’s job is to come up with reasons to justify which way the elephant wants to go.  Haidt says our moral judgments are like taste buds — more a reflections of our instincts and intuition than a logical process.  This explains why people across cultures, in religion and politics, fall into groups often labeled “liberal” and “conservative;” people may look at the same set of facts or events but draw different conclusions.

                  This explains why we hear people say, “How can they think like that? Why won’t they listen to reason and pay attention to the facts?

                  I grew up in a racist culture.  I didn’t realize it at the time – I just thought this was the way life was.  My view of African Americans came from all directions…comments, jokes, a biased history, commonly accepted racial slurs, and TV shows like “Amos and Andy.” I didn’t think this was point of view was right, it was just the way it was. As I got to know African Americans in school, in the workplace, and through our evolving culture, my views changed.  Personal experiences and compelling stories began to challenge my inherited bias.  My elephant began to go in a different direction, and my rider-mind began to understand the world differently. 

                  I grew up in a homophobic culture which has undergone a similar evolution.

                  After 9/11, I became involved with community interfaith groups that included Muslim and Jewish representatives.  I led a year-long project in which a dozen people from my congregation as well as a dozen from the local synagogue and mosque began meeting every other week for lunch.  In the early meetings, we did not talk about our different beliefs, but focused on getting to know each other as human beings.  We learned about each other’s families, life stories, hopes and dreams.  In the early encounters, my elephant kept tugging at me, saying “This person is fundamentally different than you.”  But over time that changed; the categories I had inherited faded, and I saw each participant as a unique individual.

Looking back, it is interesting to see how the change in my unconscious elephant came about through accumulated visual impressions and how they were tied to judgements. Before the project began, if I saw a woman wearing a hijab face covering, the only realities I could associate with that were the endless news stories about terrorists and the oppression of women; such stories were always accompanied with suspenseful, troubling music. So, when I first met some of the Muslim women, I felt tense.  But over time, as I got to know them, I no longer noticed how they dressed or if they had a face covering — I knew them as friends.  After the project ended, I was traveling to Ghana and had just boarded a plane at JFK airport. I saw five Muslim women coming down the aisle.  My “elephant” said, “Oh, look, some Muslim women…I’d love to get to know them!”  In that instant, I realized my snap judgment had totally shifted because of our project.  The change came about not by rational persuasion as much as lived experience.

                  I currently live in a community that votes very “blue.”  Before coming here, I lived in a community that was politically “red.”  I have friends who hold differing perspectives in both communities, and I can tell you what life experiences has led them to see things the way they do.

                  As we approach the 4^th of July, we will be reminded of the words ““We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” For decades, “all men” meant “all white males” – that was the elephant the leaders were riding at the time.  But through much suffering and striving, we’ve come to realize that the more profound and inspired meaning is not “all white men” but “all people.”  America at its best is not about the dominance of one ethnic group, but a shared dream for the entire human family.

                  Our spiritual traditions were born in cultures with their own sense of tribalism, identity, and biases.  But at their best, they call us to go beyond the brute instincts and assumptions we ride on.  They call us to see all people as created in the divine image, regardless of ethnicity, gender, and social status.  Through powerful teachings and stories, our “riders” can sometimes convince our “elephants” to move towards higher ground. Our progress may be slow and the obstacles never ending, but the ethical summons and divine vision is nonnegotiable.

Lead image: https///usustatesman.com

Lower Image: elephant_and_rider_by_ohmygodfatherscat_d1oxikr-fullview.jpg