Have you ever thought what it means to be rational?  I am prompted to write this because of a most interesting article about North Korea which very recently appeared in a Stratfor online communication.  The basis of that article is to argue that North Korea’s ‘dear leader’, Kim Jong-un, is behaving quite rationally in regularly casting ballistic missiles in the direction of Japan.

My wife, who is an extremely articulate and very able psychologist, frequently tells me that I am at the very least irrational.  This irrationality may be expressed by wandering round the house with the words “who’s there?”  She has often threatened to bring in men in white coats to take me away but that does not seem to be an easy call since she would no doubt need to convince them of my generally unpredictable behaviour.

More to the point, have you ever wondered whether you normally behave rationally?  Suppose that you examine your domestic relationships (partner, children, family in general), do you think that your conduct stands up to close scrutiny?  For example, suppose you have young children and you want them to do your bidding.  Suppose they ask ‘why should I?”.  Suppose that you answer “because I say so”.  Do you think that is a truly rational response?  Do you think that it is likely to command respect?

Turn to business, whether it’s your colleagues or employees or customers.  A lot is written about this subject.  In whose interests are you acting?  It’s unfortunate that there is so much evidence that behaviour is, to say the least, irrational.  It may not seem irrational at the time but, for example, when the regulators, who seem to multiply and wax far too fruitful, descend upon a company and its directors or senior employees, raising substantial fines for apparent/proven misconduct, can the behaviour which led to this aggressive response be regarded as rational?

Then, I may be driving along and not in a totally good mood.  The reaction may well be some form of ‘road rage’.  I will then behave in a manner which is completely inappropriate and unjustified.  To what end?  I may be trying to relieve some undesirable tension but am I behaving rationally?  And what about when I am tired?  I may be at the bridge table (one of favourite locations) and my partner may make a bid or a play which I find objectionable.  Is it going to be a rational reaction to berate him or her?  Is that likely to bring out the best in subsequent hands?  Surely not.

Being rational is not so easy.  As for Kim Jong-un, for most of us we probably find nothing about North Korea to be rational.  But he is running a country on a knife edge with frustrated support from the Chinese (is that support rational?).  So long as his family is running the country his behaviour will be rational at least in his terms.