Same question, 10 truths: the Rashomon effect and your question box

Four testimonies, four truths

In 1950, director Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon stunned the world. Set in Kyoto in the Heian period (Japan's classical era), it has four people involved in a single killing each tell the story from their own point of view: a bandit, a samurai's wife, the samurai's ghost, and a woodcutter who saw it happen. All four testimonies contradict one another, and the film never reveals which one is "the truth."

The problem this film raised came to be taken up in the humanities and social sciences after anthropologist Karl Heider discussed it in 1988 under the title "the Rashomon effect." Even when people go through the same event, each of them forms different memories and builds a different story. This isn't lying. It's a sign that human perception is subjective by nature.

We don't perceive the world as it is. We perceive it through filters made of our own experiences, values, and emotions. Looking at the same sunset, a painter sees a composition of colors, a meteorologist sees the state of the atmosphere, and someone who just had their heart broken sees loneliness. Perception comes with interpretation, and interpretation brings in subjectivity.

The Rashomon effect in a question box

In question box exchanges, the Rashomon effect works on two levels.

First, the sender and the person answering may understand the same question in different ways. The person answering may take a question like "How have you been lately?" as being about their health, while the sender may have meant to ask how work is going. The same text takes on different meanings depending on the reader's context.

Second, third parties who read the posted answer each interpret it differently, too. A line the person answering wrote as a light joke may strike one reader as funny, another as inappropriate, and yet another as having a deep meaning. A single answer takes on as many different meanings as it has readers.

This isn't a flaw in question boxes. It's a basic trait of text communication. The Rashomon effect also happens in face-to-face communication, but facial expressions and tone of voice narrow the range of interpretation. Text lacks those clues, so the range of interpretation widens.

Use multiple viewpoints on purpose

There's a way to use the Rashomon effect not as a problem but as a resource.

It's the skill of deliberately answering a single question from several viewpoints. You start with something like "This question can be read two ways, so I'll answer both," and then line up answers from different angles. This avoids the risk of misreading the sender's intent, and at the same time it gives your answer depth.

For example, to a question like "What's the most important thing in life?", you might answer: "In my 20s, I think I would have said 'freedom.' Now I'd say 'health.' Ten years from now, I might say something different again." This answer lines up several "truths" for one question along a timeline.

Or you can say clearly, "This is a question where the answer changes depending on where you stand," and then introduce how it looks from different positions: "From a business owner's point of view, efficiency matters. From an employee's point of view, a good work environment matters. Both are right, and neither alone is enough." This kind of answer gives the sender the intellectual spark that "the world can't be summed up with a single right answer."

The richness of "having no right answer"

Society today is full of pressure to find the right answer. Search engines return a single answer, social media sorts opinions sharply into "right" and "wrong," and debates are framed in terms of winning and losing.

A question box is a rare place where you can step away from this obsession with right answers. An answer to an anonymous question isn't a model answer from a textbook. It's one person's subjective view. And that subjectivity is exactly what gives it value.

When someone asks "What book do you recommend?", you don't need to name a book of great literary merit. You can pick a book that changed your life, a book you reread again and again, or a book you love for reasons you can't explain. That subjective choice, and the personal story inside your reasons for choosing it, is what holds value for the sender.

What the Rashomon effect teaches us is that there isn't just one truth. And it's in places where several truths can exist side by side that rich conversations are born. A question box is a place where you throw out questions with no right answer and receive answers with no right answer. Instead of fearing that "lack of a right answer," enjoy it. That's the way to get the most out of a question box.

Tell your own Rashomon

At the end of the film Rashomon, the woodcutter takes in an abandoned baby and walks away. After four contradicting testimonies, what Kurosawa showed was the message that "even if you can't know the truth, people can still live good lives."

The same can be said of question boxes. You can't fully understand what the sender really meant. There's also no guarantee that your answer will come across exactly as you meant it. Even so, you can still answer sincerely.

Stay aware that your viewpoint isn't the only truth, and still speak honestly from your own viewpoint. There's the humility of "This is just how I see it" and the sincerity of "Even so, this is what I think." An answer where these two live together reaches the sender's heart most deeply.

If 10 people answer the same question, 10 different truths are born. That variety isn't confusion. It's richness. Tell your truth in your own words. That's the contribution only you can make inside the Rashomon called a question box.