(Mainichi)

       Re-reading the classic "Shippai no honshitsu: Nihon-gun no soshikironteki kenkyu" (The essence of failure: research on the Japanese military's organizational theory), one cannot help but notice the overlaps between the operations command of the then Imperial Japanese Army's lack of a grand strategy, its myopia, and its haphazardness, with the misadministration of the current Japanese government with regard to the coronavirus pandemic.

       "There was a climate of ignoring military logistics, downplaying information power, and giving little weight to scientific ways of thinking at operations command," the book reads.

       Where is this ship called "Japan" -- where reckless steering has become normalized -- headed? The public has not been shown a navigation chart, and has continued to drift in a sea of ambiguity since the coronavirus pandemic began. The prospects of everything from the economy and work to schools and vaccinations have been hidden behind an opaque haze.

       In the field of psychology, there is a concept called "ambiguity tolerance." The real world is ambiguous and complex. But we all use the frontal lobes of our brains to give the world careful consideration, and without forcing ambiguities into clean-cut categories of black or white, we try to make the best decisions we can while tolerating uncertainty. This is ambiguity tolerance.

       But during times of emergency such as war and coronavirus pandemics, great burden is placed on people's hearts and bodies, stripping them of the power for careful consideration, and making them susceptible to ideas that are simple and easy to understand.

       When we become unable to tolerate ambiguity, we are easily drawn to leaders who liberally dish out definitive statements, and to conspiracy theories. Supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump favored good and evil dualistic thinking, and the fact that Japan in the past experienced fascism and totalitarianism is not unrelated to the Japanese people's relinquishment of themselves to dictatorial politics that eliminated ambiguities.

       According to a psychology paper released in the U.K. in 2020, under the coronavirus pandemic, when uncertainties abound, the drop in ambiguity tolerance could lead to situations in which people develop emotional problems.

       What must also be pointed out is that a downturn in ambiguity tolerance is very compatible with a cognitive habit that human beings have -- that is, cognitive dissonance. It is the tendency that we have when we encounter information that is contradictory to become upset and ignore or belittle information that we do not like.

       The Japanese government's policy of holding the Tokyo Olympics but asking the Japanese public to refrain from going out or gathering in groups was ambiguous and filled with contradictions. Can people, who in the first place have been stressed out from the coronavirus crisis, and whose ambiguity tolerance has plummeted, be held fully responsible for ignoring an option that they do not like -- in this case, staying home -- and going out on the town? It would be more appropriate to see the current situation as one in which society has become so overwhelmed to the point that people can no longer accept any more ambiguity.

       I will say this again: a drop in ambiguity tolerance is very compatible with dictatorial politics. We must carry out careful considerations in the general elections this fall in order not to repeat negative history.

       (Japanese original by Tomoko Ohji, Expert Writer)

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