The importance of questioning
fearlessly and answering honestly
(This article, which first appeared in the
Japan Times of November 15, 2004,
is reproduced here in Eyes on Japan by kind permission of the
author.)
"Any damn fool can answer a
question. The important thing is to ask one."
These truly insightful words were
spoken by Joan Robinson, easily one of the most celebrated economists of
the 20th century. Her words of wisdom are many and varied.
The very title
of one of her pieces of writing in 1932 states that: "Economics is a
Serious Subject: The apologies of an economist to the mathematician, the
scientist and the plain man." Anyone with the perceptiveness and
courage to write something like this is bound to be a questioner par
excellence.
Such a person however, is clearly not
welcome in the eyes of politicians, policymakers, bureaucrats, CEOs and
other people in positions of responsibility. This is certainly the
impression one gets as one watches those responsible people in action in
the media and elsewhere. That impression, alas, is most acutely felt when
those people happen to be Japanese.
The question-averseness was painfully
in evidence as the first news of the Niigata earth- quakes hit the nation
last month. The very body language of the officials supposedly in charge
conveyed, as no words can, their terror of questions, their paralysis in
the face of them, and their deeply rooted suspicion of ulterior motives.
To be sure, Japanese officialdom does
not have the monopoly on the general dislike of questions. Indeed, had
Joan Robinson been present today to watch the winner of the most recent
U.S. presidential election, she would surely feel compelled to admit to
erring in parts of her sagacious statement. At the very least, she would
feel the need to qualify it and say something like: "Any damn fool
can answer a question, provided he is carrying a strange oblong object on
his back, strategically concealed under his jacket."
That said, the feeling still remains
that Japan is the place where questions tend to be most widely abhorred.
Those in the position to answer them seem to regard questions as
accusations, if not inquisitions. Questions make them feel threatened. Or
humiliated. Or both. That psyche makes them paranoid. They become totally
defensive. They try as best they can to get away with saying nothing.
Alternatively, they become totally vicious and vindictive. If they have a
nimble tongue, they fight back with facetious cynicism, as is the case
with the guy with the top job in Japanese government at present.
Such attitudes are off-putting for
the questioner, too. The more feebleminded will tend to forego asking the
question, for fear of what revenge may be in store.
None of this, of course, is at all
helpful. In times of crisis, we all just want to know what is going on.
Nobody is accusing anybody of anything. Nobody wants to hear excuses.
Nobody is trying to make people say things that they do not know. As yet
another high-ranking U.S. official once famously observed, the known
unknowns can be very significant. Not to say the unknown unknowns, of
course. Here, clearly, is somebody who does not need the aid of strange
objects concealed about his person to tackle tricky questions.
The supreme question-dodger is
somebody who ignores the question and chooses to answer an unasked
question of his own making. That way, any damn fool can, unquestionably,
always answer a question. But that brings us no nearer to the truth under
any circum- stances. When lives are at stake, which is unfortunately and
increasingly the case in this time of typhoons, earthquakes, terrorist
attacks and hostage-taking, what we need more of are good questions and
honest answers.
May Heaven send us more questioners
of Joan Robinson's caliber. And people with the courage to respond to
them.
©Noriko Hama for the Japan Times 2004 All rights
reserved
About the author:
NORIKO HAMA is
currently professor at the Doshisha University Business School. She
studied international economics at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.
Having graduated from the university in 1975, she joined the Mitsubishi
Research Institute where she has addressed a variety of macroeconomic
issues, including the United States economy, European integration and
financial deregulation in Japan.
In
1990 Ms Hama was appointed to the post of the Institute’s first resident
economist and chief representative in London. She returned to Japan in
1998, and served as research director in the Research Center for Policy
and Economy in Mitsubishi Research Institute’s Tokyo headquarters. In
2002, she moved to Doshisha University Business School to take up a
professorship in international economics there.
Ms
Hama writes regularly on current issues in newspapers and economic
journals including the Mainichi Shimbun, Japan Times, Les Echos and the
Financial Times. She is a frequent commentator for the BBC’s World
Service Radio and Television broadcasts, Japan’s NHK Television, CNN and
other current affairs media.
Ms
Hama also serves on a variety of committees advising the major central
government ministries as well as local authorities in Japan.
Publications
include: Can the Dollar Recover? (Nihon-Hyoronsha Japan,
co-authored 1992);
Visions for the 21st Century (Adamantine Press UK & Praeger
Publishers USA, contribution, 1992); Disintegrating
Europe (Adamantine Press UK & Praeger Publishers USA, 1996); Pirates
Wearing Neckties (Nikkei Shinbun Japan, 1998); The Economics of
Euroland: new currency, old politics (PHP Books Japan, 2001)); How
the Global Economy Goes Round (Chikuma Shobo Japan, 2001); How Can
the Japanese Economy Recover? (Chikuma Shobo Japan, contribution,
2003); Common Sense and Beyond (Jitsugyo-no-Nihon Sha Japan, 2003);
and The Japanese Economy in Synopsis (contribution, 2005).
This page last updated 2008-06-16
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