Somewhere in a deep, tropical jungle lived a tribe of natives with
extremely odd behavior. Generations ago the tribe had in some
obscure fashion contracted a parasite which induced a seemingly
permanent delirium in each native, and which was passed on to
subsequent generations. The delirium increased with age, and most
of the adult natives showed it by eating dirt, sleeping on dunghills,
pummeling anthills with rocks even as the ants bit them severely, and
jumping out of trees onto their heads. This last maneuver caused the
natives to stagger around senseless for days, or simply to lie
unconscious and bleeding in the sun and rain. All these symptoms
together prevented the natives from caring for their personal lives,
and so they lived in deplorable squalor, with their huts falling
apart, and their children and themselves half starved and wholly naked.
Another odd effect of the mental distraction was an unnatural craving
for firewood. Unlike the other natives in the area, the members of
this tribe collected--and stole, and cheated and betrayed for--log upon
stick to pile next to their huts, even though in twenty very cold years
they couldn't use half as much as they already possessed. A few
natives had been crushed to death by collapsing woodpiles; many more
had died from fighting over decidedly unimpressive old branches.
One day a doctor came from the East to the village, and he immediately
recognized the symptoms of the disease (a common one) for which he
carried the cure. He went gladly and confidently to the chief of the
tribe and announced his ability to remedy the ills of the people,
expecting to be praised and welcomed for his offer of help. To his
surprise, however, the chief rebuffed him with contempt and asserted
boldly that there was nothing at all wrong with his people, that they
had always acted that way since he could remember, that it was the
human condition, and that they were all perfectly happy. Then,
after ordering the doctor to leave immediately, the chief jumped
out of a tree into the tribal latrine and was unavailable for any
further discussion.
Substantially taken aback but firm in his resolution, the doctor
decided to take his offer directly to the natives. Most received
him with laughter, contempt, or violence; many ignored him; a few
beat him up; some said he just wanted to get at their firewood;
most said they, like the chief, felt fine. But a dozen or so
natives came to him privately where he had been tossed into the
bushes after his most recent beating, and asked him for the medicine.
"We are somehow not really happy living like this," they said, "even
though it is the way of the world." The doctor gladly gave them the
medicine, and in a few days they began to show remarkable signs of
recovery. No longer desiring to eat dirt or jump out of trees, these
natives corrected their diet, improved in health, and began to apply
themselves to such activities as making baskets, repairing their huts,
caring for their children, and gathering food. Some even began to
question the wisdom of collecting stacks of wood more than twenty
feet high.
Such wild, unusual, and anti-social behavior did not go unnoticed by
the other natives, who quickly ostracized the cured natives from the
tribal camp, calling them enemies of the current system. And even
though many of the delirious natives began to suspect that the cured
natives were somehow better off than they, and that there might be
more to living than sleeping on dunghills and finding new trees to
jump out of, resistance to the cure was strong. First, almost all
the educated and respectable people--the chief and his council--spoke
against it, and the example of their sophistication and wealth (the
chief's woodpile was ninety feet high) was very strong. Many others,
from the gossips to the wise man, said that the old way was right,
and that the tribe had always behaved that way. There were few real
individuals in the tribe, so that even though scores would have been
glad to try the cure, they were afraid to stand against the rest and
did what everyone else was doing, which was nothing.
The witch doctor had a stronger argument against the new regimen. He
pointed out that the cure was harder to take than the cures he
dispensed. The Eastern doctor's cure was painful, and though many of
the witch doctor's cures caused vomiting, hives, convulsions, and
hallucinations, the natives were all familiar with these effects and
attributed them to swallowing the medicine wrong, rather than to the
medicine itself. But who knew what the fate of the cured natives
would eventually be?
The cured natives said they felt fine, but they might have been lying.
And who was fool enough to trust an outsider, a stranger, rather than
the familiar witch doctor, who cursed those who took the cure because
they rejected his medicines as false and pernicious? The cured natives
said that a commitment must be made to trust the Eastern doctor; this
was too difficult or uncertain a step for many, especially in the face
of the social pressure around them. A decision accompanied by fear,
decried by the important, and rejected by society could not be made
by everyone.
After the time of his stay was over, the Eastern doctor showed the
cured natives how to compound the medicine and then left. As
generations passed, most of the natives remained loyal to the
dunghill, but a few took the cure.