Seeing what we want to see

Here’s a short fable I’ve written for our dark times.

Photo: ginger on Pixabay

There was once a magnificent herd of deer living in a forest.  Hunters came after them and those who didn’t die were blinded in one eye.  Eventually the alpha stag lost an eye and then it became a badge of honour when other deer also lost their sight.

As the hunters started to cut down the trees, the situation became more threatening.  The stag leader said he preferred having only one eye, as restricted vision meant there was less cause to be frightened.  The deer who had become blind agreed – if they couldn’t see the danger, it wasn’t there.

More trees were felled and more deer died or were blinded, until the warnings from those who still had two eyes were ignored by the others as being fanciful and alarmist.  The watchful deer became such a nuisance with their constant alerts that the herd shunned them, as they only wanted to graze in peace, not be constantly harried about by anxiety and fear.   Thus it seemed reasonable to them that the sentinels should become blind too, as it would benefit the herd if everyone was the same.  Everyone would feel safer if no-one could perceive any threats in the undergrowth.

Meanwhile the forest got smaller and smaller until the hunters had killed all the deer – except for one or two of those who had kept their eyes open, and had escaped to tell this sorry tale.