THE RASHOMON EFFECT:
THE MANY FACES OF TRUTH
BY DR. NURIT ISRAELI
“Truth is forever elusive.”
- Harold Pinter
In my years of treating families,
I was amazed time and again by
the ways family members’ di-verse
realities were juxtapositioned
in my office. After all, these family
members were present in the same
households and shared the same
events. Sometimes siblings, even
twins, would describe a parent so
differently that I had to remind my-self
they were discussing the same
person.
What was the “truth”? Is there
an absolute “truth” when we rely
on individual perception and
individual interpretation? Does
“truth” have many faces? Can the
same “reality” be described in dis-tinctly
different ways by different
persons without any of them being
intentionally deceitful?
The Rashomon Effect is defined
by psychology dictionaries as as the
effect of the subjectivity of percep-tion
upon recollection. It is a phe-nomenon
where the same event is
perceived and interpreted in mark-edly
different yet equally plausible
ways by different witnesses.
The Rashomon Effect is named
after a classic 1950 Akira Kurosawa
movie, Rashomon, in which a
crime is witnessed by four observ-ers
who recount four very different
versions of the same events. The
different versions contradict each
other, making it impossible to know
for sure who is telling the “truth,”
what the “truth” is, and whether
there is an absolute “truth.”
Rashomon is the name of a
historical gate (now destroyed) in
Kyoto, Japan. The film is set under
the ruins of this gate, which became
a hideout for criminals, and which,
in the film, may represent a loss of
morality and civility. In the film, the
only known witnesses to a crime
recount conflicting tales of events
that transpired. Their differing ver-sions
don’t add up yet each testi-mony
is plausible. We are unable to
figure out who to believe, and the
film does not issue a verdict. Every
new piece of information alters our
perception as we are prompted to
face a sequence of puzzling ques-tions.
The script does not tell us
who is right and who is wrong. The
film does not interpret and does
not endorse. Nothing is clear-cut.
This is a participatory movie, and
Kurosawa lets us decide. We are the
jury in this film – we must decide for
ourselves, come up with our own
conclusions. The film demonstrates
what has been studied scientifical-ly:
different observers of the same
event may generate significantly
different yet equally conceivable
accounts.
Writer Sheila Marie Orlano
reflects on these ideas in her Ted
Talk: How Do You Know What’s
True? She states that the Rashomon
Effect tends to occur under two
conditions. First, when there is no
evidence to verify what actually
happened. Second, when there
is external pressure to achieve
closure by identifying a definitive
truth. Orlano poses fundamental
questions:
“What is truth anyway? Are
there situations when an ‘objec-tive
truth’ doesn’t exist? What
can different versions of the same
event tell us about the time, place,
and people involved?”
The novelist Jodi Picoult express-es
this idea in simple terms:
“There is no one truth. There’s
only what happened, based on
how you perceive it.”
So, when we rely on people’s
recollection, how can we deter-mine
the “truth”? Can we rely on a
single account? How do we deter-mine
which report is most trust-worthy
when there are differing
accounts? How do we deal with
accounts that are self-serving?
How can we know what, exactly,
happened?
The subjectivity of perception on
recollection – the essence of the
Rashomon Effect – is applied to
psychology, law, philosophy, and
art. We frequently encounter this
subjectivity. One of my favorite
playwrights is Harold Pinter. A few
years ago, I saw a beautiful revival
of his play “Betrayal” on Broadway.
In it, as in most his plays, Pinter
exposes the multiplicity of truth.
In his Nobel Prize Acceptance
Speech, Pinter said:
“Truth is forever elusive, but...
the search for it is compulsive.
The search is your task. The real
truth is that there never is any
such thing as one truth... There
are many... These truths challenge
each other, recoil from each oth-er,
ignore each other, are blind to
each other.”
The ancient Indian parable, The
Blind Men and the Elephant, illus-trates
how different perspectives
lead to different ways of viewing
things, and how absolute truth can-not
be based on limited, subjective
experience. The parable tells the
story of a group of six men who
were born blind and who tried to
learn what an elephant is by touch-ing
it. Each man touched a different
part of the elephant’s body. The first
man happened to put his hand on
the elephant’s side. “An elephant
is as smooth and solid as a wall,”
the man declared. The second man
touched the elephant’s trunk. “An
elephant is like a thick snake,” he
announced. The third man felt only
the elephant’s pointed tusk. “An
elephant is hard and sharp like a
spear,” he decided. the fourth man
touched one of the elephant’s legs.
“An elephant is a pillar, like a tree
trunk,” he concluded. The fifth
man was tall and his hand reached
the elephant’s ear. “An elephant is
like a huge fan,” he asserted. The
sixth man happened to touch the
tail. “This is nothing more than
a piece of rope,” he scoffed. This
parable provides insight into rela-tivism:
Each blind man created his
own version of reality from his cir-cumscribed
experience and narrow
perspective. We have to be careful
not to claim absolute truth based
on a limited, subjective experience.
Years ago, I invited a Family
Court judge to talk in a Couples
and Family Therapy course I
was teaching. I asked him to talk
about the challenges judges face
in their efforts to execute justice.
He described an experiment that
used to be employed in introduc-tory
classes at a reputable law
school: The professor would plan
an enactment of a crime scene. A
group of people would barge into
the classroom and engage in a fight.
They would yell, push, shove, then
abruptly leave the room. The pro-fessor
would then ask his students,
a select group conceivably includ-ing
future judges, to write down
what had happened. Each time,
there were as many descriptions
as there were students in the class...
There is a similar story highlight-ing
the multiplicity of “truth”: In
a small Eastern European village,
where the rabbi served as an arbi-trator
of marital disputes, a husband
and wife came to the rabbi seeking
conflict resolution. First, the man
outlined his arguments, focusing on
his wife’s faults and imperfections.
The rabbi listened attentively and,
impressed by the man’s reasoning,
declared: “you are right!” Then
the wife presented her side. The
rabbi listened just as attentively
and, impressed by her testimony,
concluded: “You are right too!”
The rabbi’s assistant, attending
the session as part of his training,
approached the rabbi puzzled as
soon as the couple left the room
and asked: “How can both of them
be right? Their versions contradict
one another!” The rabbi listened to
his assistant patiently, thought for a
short while, and responded: “You
know, you are right too!”
In my work with families, I
often asked family members to
describe specific events in their
family history. It was striking how
all too often different adult siblings
had completely different memories
of the same events that occurred
during their childhood. Some, for
example, had fonder memories
of a parent than others, and were
accused by the ones with dispar-aging
memories of being wrong,
suppressing information, or being
in denial.
Neuroscientific studies on the
formation of memories explain
these phenomena: When we form
a memory, we interpret what we
witness, and our interpretation is
affected by our earlier experiences
and by our personal preconcep-tions.
Even when we encode a
memory precisely, the process of
recollection at a later point in time
may encompass new information
that changes the original memory.
Since what we remember may be
24 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ December 2021