It seems “dialogue” is all the rage these days…

As I sip a beer at my favorite izakaya, all sorts of memories come flooding back.

A long time ago, I was a high school student with “right-leaning” political views who eagerly read the monthly magazine *Shokun!* every month. Based on my values at the time, journalists considered “liberal” were generally “enemies.” I believed we could never possibly understand one another, and Katsuichi Honda—who, for example, was serializing *The Spirit of Poverty* in *Asahi Journal*—was a prime example of this.

However, fate works in mysterious ways. One day, Mr. Honda contacted my mother with a request to interview her about my grandfather, who had been a diplomat and essayist.

I was tasked with going to the station to meet him, but at the time, Mr. Honda was famous for always wearing sunglasses and disguising himself with a wig—he was known for “never revealing his true face.” With a somewhat combative and rather spiteful attitude—thinking, “I’m going to make sure I get a good look at this ‘enemy’!”—I headed toward the ticket gates at Toritsu-Daigaku Station.

However, when I actually met the real “Mr. Katsuichi Honda,” he was very calm, polite, and kind. I remember how the intense image of him as an adversary that I had built up in my mind quietly crumbled away.

Some time passed after that. By then, I had become a first-year office worker—someone who still occasionally read the magazine *Shokun!* and held “conservative” political views. It was then that I joined the “JFC Network,” a volunteer organization that provided legal support—such as assistance with obtaining citizenship—primarily to children born to Japanese men and Filipino women. It was there that I met Yayori Matsui (who would later become the organization’s representative).

However, unlike my experience with Mr. Honda, I first chatted with Ms. Matsui many times at events in the Philippines and here in Japan. Impressed by her easygoing personality and wide range of topics, I thought, “She’s kind of an interesting person,” and it wasn’t until later, when I first heard about her various activities, that I was surprised to realize, “Wait a minute—she was a die-hard liberal journalist all along!?”

When I think of these two people, two conflicting feelings always well up inside me.

One is the belief that, no matter who the other person is, we can surely understand one another. Even if we’re at odds to the point where, in one respect, they might seem like an “enemy,” there’s always the possibility of finding common ground in some other aspect. If we use that as a starting point, we should be able to find a “new meaning” that goes beyond an “A or B” dichotomy and instead achieves “A and B”—that’s the “hope” I hold.

The other is a certain “despair (sense of crisis)”—the feeling that even if I were to discuss “politics” with them, I would never have been able to truly “understand” each other. Even if I could reach a point of “understanding”—thinking, “Ah, so this is why they arrived at this way of thinking, given their experiences”—it seems nearly impossible to find something beyond that where we could both feel a deep sense of “empathy.”

It is said that innovation requires “intersubjectivity” — as described by the philosopher Husserl —which arises from the interaction between “you” and “me,” two distinct beings, as we clash our subjective perspectives without compromise. And this can only be achieved through a nerve-wracking, “all-out battle ” waged amid the hope that “we should be able to understand each other, no matter who the other person is” and the sense of crisis that “this conflict may never be resolved.”

Recently, “dialogue” seems to be all the rage in corporate management, but if it’s merely a half-hearted process of repeatedly “listening” to one another, it will certainly be insufficient—at least for driving “transformation.” It was a strange twist of fate that prompted me to reflect once again on the difficulty of genuine “dialogue.”

Well, well.

Tsukiji, home to the newspaper company where the two of you once worked, is a place of solace for me. Tonight, too, I’ll be raising a glass in this neighborhood.

Come to think of it, another memory comes to mind: the time I met Mr. Kengo Tanaka, the first editor-in-chief of the magazine *Shokun!*, toward the end of his life.

As our casual conversation blossomed and the atmosphere grew lively, I thought he’d surely be pleased if I confessed, “*Shokun!* has been my favorite read since high school.” But Mr. Tanaka looked somewhat troubled. “...Well, that makes you a rather unbalanced young man,” he replied. With such nostalgic memories as our accompaniment, the drinks keep flowing.

Please, help yourself!

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