Subject: re: Truth and Tolerance
From: adamson (adamson@mail.sp.myu.ac.jp)
Date: Tue 18 Jan 2000 - 02:52:06 MET
From: adamson <adamson@mail.sp.myu.ac.jp> Subject: re: Truth and Tolerance Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 10:52:06 +0900
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The Japanese have developed a very workable solution to this problem. A
person is said to have two types of beliefs: honne and tatemae. Honne, which
is made up of two Chinese characters meaning true + voice, refers to what
the person really believes to be true. Tatemae, on the other hand, is made
up of characters that mean stand + before. Tatemae refers to what you say
you believe in order to harmonize with the people around you. It is your
public face, but you are not expect to truly believe it. A tatemae belief
allows you to accept the majority opinion without actually believing it. You
just go along with the group.
This leads to a very interesting effect. For example, a Faculty Congress at
a university, a group which is much more powerful than in other countries
and controls almost all aspects of the university, is not organized in the
same way that American universities would be. For an item on the agenda,
there is first a discussion period in which people bring up points in favor
and against the item. The fact that a person brings up a point does not mean
that the person is committed to it. It only means that they think it should
be considered. On important questions, each person will be required to say
something. Finally a decision is made. The Chair will state what they think
is the sense of the discussion. This sometimes will actually be something
that was hardly mentioned. Since everyone agreed with it, it did not require
extensive discussion. Finally, the Chair will insure that everyone is there
and ask if anyone objects to the solution as stated. If there is none, the
solution is accepted. It is not necessarily an optimal solution, but it is
one that everyone will support. The group is responsible for the decision,
not an individual, although individuals will sometimes have their name
attached to a proposed solution which they prepared.
No individual is expected to believe that this is THE solution, only that
they do not object to it. If they strongly object, they will work behind
the scenes trying to change other peoples opinions, but while doing this,
they will cooperate and try their best to make the accepted plan successful.
This is a very different attitude from the one that pertains after being
forced to vote yes-or-no.
In some ways this is similar to a voting system suggested by mathematician
John Arrow. He first proved that the one-man one-vote system used in the US
and Europe will usually leave more people unsatisfied with the selection
that support it, particularly if there are more than two choices. He then
suggested a mathematically fair system: Each person votes on each choices,
indicating whether or not it is acceptable or not. The winner is then the
one with the most votes - the one that is acceptable to the largest number
of voters.
The Japanese system allows for the existence of both a social truth and an
individual's truth. In conclusion I might add that the Japanese system is
very good during the status quo, but in emergency situations it sometimes
fails badly because the solutions take a long time to develop from the
discussion and the solution is not optimal.
Charles Adamson, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Nursing
Miyagi University, Japan
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