/lit/ - Literature

"Elephant in the room" is a saying used to describe a problem everyone ignores. It is so overwhelming that it is easier to just look away and not face the reality. You become more of an idealist. The phrase is also used to describe issues that involve social taboos such as race, religion, homosexuality, mental illness, or even suicide. But in the grander scale of things that idiom can be applied to everyone, there will always be someone or something we will choose to ignore or disregard just so that we can postpone confronting the problem.

The first use of this metaphor can be traced back to 1814 in the work of a Russian poet named Ivan Andreevich Krylov.

"Good morning, my good fellow! And where do you come from?"
"From the Museum of Natural History, where I have just spent three hours.
I saw everything there was to see and examined it carefully.
It was all so astonishing that honestly I am not clever enough to describe the half of it.
Nature is certainly wonderful in her rich variety!
There are more birds and beasts than I ever dreamed of—not to mention the butterflies dragonflies and beetles—some green as emeralds and others as red as coral!
And there were tiny little gnats too—why, really, some of them are smaller than the head of a pin!"
"And of course you saw the elephant? What did you think of him? I'll wager you felt as though you were looking at a mountain!"
"Elephant? Are you quite sure that they have an elephant?"
"Quite sure."
"Well, old man, don't tell anybody—but the fact is that I didn't notice the elephant!"
> What would you say is the most prominent "Elephant in the room" of our culture? I would probably say that non-questioning of non-religious women's capability to have a rational opinion has caused the downfall of conservative values in western civilization.