The Rashomon Effect: Narratives of Doubt and Consensus from the Age of the Book to Game (Dr. Mike Sugimoto, Professor of Asian Studies at Pepperdine University in California)

What does it mean for a society or individual to believe things in common, when contemporary society is marked increasingly by customized news sources, a collapse of consensus, loss of societal authority, and the normalization of doubt?

Rashomon, the 1951 landmark film by Akira Kurosawa, shook the notion of a single narrative account of a crime by presenting multiple, conflicting viewpoints — marking the postwar collapse of binding narratives concerning Japanese society.

This lecture explores the contradictions of today’s Rashomon moment for the West, which on the one hand is experiencing fragmentation, a loss of narrative unity — owing to digital, consumer technology — while on the other hand exhibiting the opposite, i.e. new forms of conformity expressed across various fields.

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Please note that the ideas expressed in this lecture do not necessarily represent the views of L’Abri Fellowship.

For more resources, visit the L'Abri Ideas Library at labriideaslibrary.org. The library contains over two thousand lectures and discussions that explore questions about the reality and relevance of Christianity.

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