I’m embarrassed to admit that when I wrote my book Daddy Issues, I’d never heard of the movie Rashomon, even though I play around a lot with perspective in my story. Clearly this classic movie has seeped enough into our culture that I’d been influenced by it unconsciously (or maybe it was this Star Trek episode that taught it to me).
A Rashomon Style story is where the same event is recounted by several characters. The stories [may] differ in ways that are impossible to reconcile. It shows that two or more people can view the same event quite differently. The author invites the audience to hear them all out and then compare and contrast these divergent points of view. Sometimes the work provides no definitive answer as to what actually happened. (from tvtropes.org)
I did finally watch the movie when a reader told me my story reminded her of it. And I found I had a philosophical difference with what it seemed to be saying. The perspectives in the movie are impossible to reconcile. Someone has to be lying or wrong for the story to make sense. But for me, that’s not the way life works. Usually, something takes place where several people have experienced the same events, but have widely different views of what actually happened and why. People aren’t trying to lie and they’re not straight up wrong, they just have different perspectives.
The thing is, we believe in the reality our perspective has given us. To us, it’s not just perspective, but the facts as we experienced them. If I see things from a liberal-leaning point of view and my uncle sees only from a conservative-leaning point of view, we can look at, say, a gay couple getting married and have two completely different reactions. And, this could set off one helluva an argument.
What I’m becoming more convinced of over time is that there is no one “right” perspective. There is no objective fact out there. Even with things like the sun going around the earth, I only know what I’m told. The science makes sense to me, so I believe what I was taught in grade school. But do I myself know for a fact, in a way that I’ve observed and measured, that the sun is not going around the earth? Nope. To me, it looks like it’s coming up on one horizon and going down on the other. I have to use my ability to conceptualize abstraction to believe that I’m actually on a rotating planet instead.
So when I try to understand another’s point of view, I also have to employ that ability to conceptualize abstraction. I have to be able to put myself in their shoes. What makes my uncle the way he is? What is he trying to protect, what is it that frightens him? In that way, I can learn to respect his conclusions without necessarily agreeing with him. And maybe I can tell him a little of my life experience so he can learn from me as well. Will I ever be in someone else’s shoes? No, I can never walk the walk of life that another has walked. Even if I could for a day, I never could walk through their entire life, bringing myself to the same spot they are today. So it’s not up to me to correct them or judge them.
The first time I realized this was with a much older person, someone who was very successful in a field I wanted to pursue. He’d achieved wealth and status, and had just earned a prestigious award. He also happened to be the same religion as I was. We got to talking about some theological points, and sure enough, he had different views than the ones I’d been taught. Up until then, I’d been very dogmatic in my religious life, certain I knew right from wrong and black from white. But faced with this man’s conclusions from his own experience, I remember thinking for the first time, “Who am I to question the conclusions he’s come to in his life? His perspective is as valid as mine.” That was my first step away from dogmatism and into a more open-minded view of religion, even of God.
I try (it’s not always easy!) to keep this in mind when hearing things that jar my sensibilities. I try to remember it’s my perspective that’s being jarred, and maybe I can still learn something.
By Lindsay Marks 
Comments on: "Perspective alters reality" (3)
“What I’m becoming more convinced of over time is that there is no one “right” perspective. There is no objective fact out there. Even with things like the sun going around the earth, I only know what I’m told.”
Gotta disagree with you here. There IS a right perspective, although at any one moment any given individual may not grasp it. But reality is real and everything else is interpretation. That’s what you might call a “perspective.” Anyone can have a “perspective,” and it will be more or less consonant with reality. In the above quoted passage, you immediately say that the “science makes sense to you,” but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that IN FACT the earth rotates around the sun. As someone aptly said, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
Glad you moved away from dogmatism, but in my opinion you haven’t moved away far enough, otherwise you wouldn’t say that you have an “open-minded view of religion, even of God.” To be truly OPEN-minded, you would need to discern if there is any factual basis for your view. It’s not enough that you have the view, but that it be consonant with facts. True, some “perspectives” provide varying degrees of psychological comfort while reality is having its way with you, but that’s like saying that an anesthetic eliminates the fact of a wound.
When I finally ditched the claptrap of religion I did not feel better. I felt worse. I longed for the drug of belief in a better state of reality. I wrote a song, “Bone On Bone” that alluded to this bereft state. But there is no way to alter reality. Sure, you can change the way you perceive it. And if a certain “perspective” dulls the pain, then congratulations. But it is still a drug, a barrier between your perception and reality. And nothing makes this more clear than being conscious in an aging body.
I found you after seeing you were a twitter follower of mine and I was interested when I saw BDSM mixed with OCD/Aspergers. I must say I enjoyed this post quite a bit. 🙂
I always mention how different things can appear based on where you sit at a football game. A big tackle/fumble/recover happens at the 50 yard line. Someone from each 20 yard line and someone from the 50 yard line would all have a different vantage point/perspective of what happened from the ref or even one of the players. Where we sit in life does change our view of the situation. It doesn’t mean it is wrong…just different.
I wonder if Mario understood your point that each person’s perspective IS the reality of their life. It is a fact that your uncle sees Gay marriage as wrong (I am assuming since he is conservative and you liberal that is the lay of the land). I have this perspective due to the fact that I’ve never met a liberal anti-gay person but I have met conservative anti-gay individuals. Based upon the facts of MY life…not opinions…only conservative people would be anti-gay. And, while different from Mario’s, based upon the facts of my life, God is real, science is real and they are two sides of the same coin.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. Thank you for sharing it! 🙂
~Honey
Hi, Honey, so glad we’ve connected. Welcome to the blog, and thanks for your comments! You made my morning.
Yes, to me, understanding that the other person’s perspective IS their reality is the only way to then really communicate. Which to me is the goal. Rather than trying to make them agree with my perspective or force them to accept something they can’t, can we instead find a way to reach common ground? And maybe shift perspective (if it needs it) via persuasion and understanding rather than hitting people over the head.
cheers,
L