What Is Rashomon Effect?|罗生门

The concept of Rashomon Effect comes from a movie which is adapted from a short story called<In the Woods>. It was written by one of the most excellent Japanese short story writer,Ryunosuke Akutagawa(芥川龙之介), in nineteen-twenties. 

This famous story is about a murder taken place in the woods. In spite of the local authorities thinks they has caught the murderer, each person who is involved in tells totally different story in their own sights, which makes things really complicated. What is the exact truth? No one will ever know.

The Rashomon Effect is a term used to describe how a single event can be described in a variety of ways due to the unreliability of multiple witnesses. The witnesses’ unreliability and subjectivity are a result of situational, social and cultural differences. It’s in human nature that people either forget or hide the details that show their sins and weaknesses. The topic of Rashomon is that as a human being without omniscient point of view, sometimes we would never get to know the truth, or , there is no truth at all. Today, the word “Rashomon” refers to an unsolvable mystery.

We can see Rashomon Effect happens every day. For example, take a look at the current politic news, or this sexual-abuse scandal which involves many high-status people, or the controversy over Lin Sheng Bin. We ourselves have different sights of the same thing! We valued things differently. We have hates and likes.

As Nietzsche said, “Our eyes are our prison, and where we can see is the prison wall.” Sometimes people are too much dying to know the truth that nothing seemed to satisfy their hunger, so they stick in one statement easily, and become others tool to achieve their ulterior goals. Rashomon Effect warns us to be aware of the complexity of human and our weaknesses. All in all, there’s no definite good or bad person. Everyone is a mixture of righteous and evil. So if we will never reach the truth, what should we do about this? In my opinion, it’s of great importance to always stay sensitive when people in each side express their viewpoints, even the authority is speaking.

To be continued...