Wednesday, February 27, 2019
One thing that has been on my mind for
a long time is distinction between naughty and evil. I used to define
evil as “knowingly doing the wrong thing,” but it occurs to me
that there are times when wrong thing done doesn't harm anyone and
does not qualify as evil.
In the film Hackers we see the
distinction between the two. The protagonists are a bunch of high
school kids who enjoy hacking, basically, for sport. The antagonist
is a security professional who tries to blow up a bunch of tankers.
In first case we see naughty; in second case we see evil. Both know
that they are doing the wrong thing. However, while the high school
kids are harming no one with their hacking, the security professional
attempts to cause huge harm.
In Judeo-Christian tradition, evil is
disobedience to God. In Greek tradition, evil is ignorance. Both have
a point. Wrong actions can have two sources: Deliberate wrongdoing
and error. Wrong can be done deliberately and wrong can be done
non-deliberately. Both can be a source of wrong things done. In one
case wrong is done knowingly, in the other case it is done
unknowingly.
Ignorance is not the only possible
source of evil; sometimes the wrongdoer very much knows what he is
doing. Some people believe that education will solve the world's
problems, but we have seen highly educated people do very wrong
things. Where education does stand to be a positive force is in
making apparent for people the wrong that such people are doing, so
that they are less likely to fall for their gag.
So what is the difference between evil
and naughty? Evil harms people; naughty does not. Every care must be
taken to prevent evil from happening. With naughty, it's usually just
kids having fun, and they will grow out of it.
Friday, February 15, 2019
The Translators' Market
Translating is something that I know
quite a bit about. I have translated five books of Russian poetry, as
well as a number of texts, into English. And one thing that a
translator understands very well is the importance of a good
translation.
Sometimes translations aren't all that
good. There was one notable occasion in my life when a translator had
fun. It happened when I was 13, at a Soviet-American youth summit. A
Chinese politician was saying that they called Mikhail Gorbachev “old
man Gor,” “old man” being a sign of respect. This got
translated as “little geezer Gor,” to a huge chorus of laughter.
You don't often call Soviet Union's head of state a little geezer.
Good translation demands effort. You
have to get the structure right, and you have to get the feeling
right. Either one or the other is demanding; both are especially
demanding. A professor once said that my translations were too
Russian. That was deliberate. I sought to convey the poem as it was,
even when it meant following the Russian rhyming and rhythm scheme.
Right now I know several good
translators on the Internet. My favorite one is Andrey Kneller. He
has produced a vast amount of excellent work
(https://sites.google.com/site/poetryandtranslations).
Mine are at https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat
and https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat/russian-songs.
Sometimes when problems arise they are
a result of bad translating; they can also be a result of inferior
original work. It is hard to do a good job of translating a bad poem,
though I have seen it done. Usually however the fault is with the
translator; and it becomes up to him to correct it.
I got into translating mainly at the
suggestion of a teacher. I had a Latin teacher named Hughlings
Himwich who had a broad knowledge of literature, and he encouraged me
to translate Russian poetry into English. I also knew a band named
Persephone's Bees. The head was a Russian woman, and when I asked how
she got the name for the band she said that it came from a poem by
Russian poet Osip Mandelshtam. I went to the library, found the poem,
translated it and sent it to her with a note, “Is this the poem?”
I enjoyed doing that so much that I kept translating. First it was a
book of Mandelshtam. Then another book of Akhmatova. Then more and
more.
Throughout the process there were many
people trying to discourage me. But now even they see the merit in
what I had done. It should make one proud to have their son's or
their ex-classmate's work used in books and dissertations. As the
founder of Cobol said, sometimes it's better to do and get yelled at
than not to do at all.
As the world is becoming Anglicized,
there is going to be a need for a lot of translations, especially of
literature in other languages. I do not expect it to be a huge field,
but I expect it to be a sizable one. For as long as you aren't
calling the Ayatollah a little geezer, your attention may be needed.
As for me, I have made my contribution, and I hope that others do as
well.
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Does The Motivation Damn The Action?
Everyone knows that the ends do not
justify the means; but I would like to talk about a related error. It
is that of damning the action because of the motivation for the
action.
I am involved with the Salvation Army,
and sometimes people who are a part of charitable organizations get
accused of having ulterior motives. My response is, Who cares?
Whatever the motivation for the good deed, a good deed is done. So
does it matter what motivates a person in doing it?
So a person may be motivated by atoning
for feelings of guilt, or by wanting to feel good about himself, or
by not wanting to go to hell, or by resume-building. Once again, the
response is, So what? A good deed is still done, regardless of what
motivates it.
We see the same thing with clean
energy. Not everyone who is involved in it is motivated by future of
humanity. Some are in it to make money. My response, once again, is
So what? The oil people are also driven by money, and they make no
apologies for it. Neither should such apology be demanded of people
involved in clean energy who are there to make a buck.
Not all good deeds come from good
motives. But whatever the motive, the good is still done. And it is
important that good deeds be allowed whatever the motivation, so that
the good is done, regardless of what motivates it.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Challenges And Compassion
I have found out something curious. The
happiest people are not the ones who had it easiest, but ones who
overcame serious challenges in their lives.
I have heard it said that love is a
harsher thing than mere kindness. What is extended is a combination
of compassion and challenge. The problems that one has faced are
acknowledged and dealt with. Then one has to apply himself and make
things happen in the world.
I suppose after one has survived a
Holocaust anything is an improvement and anything is a blessing.
People are happy that they are not going through difficulties any
more. People are proud of themselves for having overcome the
difficulties. People are happy that it is over, and they are happy
that they have survived it intact.
One claim being made about the former
Obama administration is that it tried to be everyone's mommy and
shield people from life's challenges. When people have to choose
between sending the grandfather to the hospital and sending the son
to college, that does not qualify as legitimate challenges. Here
someone is being robbed of opportunity; and it does not take
“ObamaMama” to see that. It is important that people be able to
have an affordable health care, and I don't care how it is done for
as long as it is done.
Whereas there are challenges that are
good. Some things that happen to us improve us, and we get stronger
and wiser by facing them. And when it is over we are happy.
So it is valid that there be a healthy
dose of challenge in people's lives, whether it come from within or
from without. At the same time this has to be balanced with
compassion. And then people become happy for real.
Saturday, February 09, 2019
Ayn Rand, Ward Churchill And The Incas
Two writers who have been highly
influential to me were Ayn Rand and Ward Churchill. If these two
co-existed, they would have been at each other's throats. Ayn Rand
would have called Ward Churchill a savage, and Ward Churchill would
have called Ayn Rand a psychopath.
However both have one major thing in
common. They are life-affirming. Ward Churchill affirms life of
nature that man hasn't created; and Ayn Rand affirmed life of
civilization that man has.
Of course there is a need for both.
We see some arrangements that lack both
nature and civilization, such as Brazilian farmers burning down
rainforest to make ranches that turn into wasteland in two years. We
see arrangements such as that of the Native Americans, where there
was respect for nature but not much produced in favor of technology.
We see arrangements such as many in the West, where there is
civilization and no nature. And we have also seen what I regard as an
optimal arrangement – having both nature and civilization at the
same time.
We see this with the Incas. The Incas
trod lightly on nature while producing magnificent architecture and
first-rate agriculture. Incan structures look like extensions upon
the mountains on which the were built. Incan agriculture used
terracing that prevented soil erosion. They made the most of
civilization and the most of nature.
We are seeing some of this being
re-created by environmentalism in places such as California. Now
there are some who think it hypocritical for a person to value nature
even as he is living prosperously; but that is entirely not the case.
At fault is not technology or prosperity. At fault is wrong
technology and short-sightedness that has people use wrongful
technologies when there are better technologies out there. The stance
of the technological environmentalism is the best one out there.
Here, people provide for their needs at present or greater levels
while treading lightly upon the nature that man has not created and
cannot re-create.
The problem is not technology and it is
not capitalism. A lot of the environmental destruction is low-tech.
The problem is short-sightedness and conmanship. Wrong technology got
us into this mess; better technology will lead us out of it. Nor is
the problem “progress.” Oil is no more progress now than horse
and buggy was at the beginning of 20th century. The
problem is reliance on destructive technologies when there are better
technologies out there.
I support both nature and civilization.
There is much that is good in both worlds. We need to quantify nature
in the same way as we quantify everything else. Burning rainforest
should be prohibitively expensive. And better energy technologies
should be put into place to provide for people's energy needs while
treading lighter on nature that man has not created and cannot
re-create.
In this, once again, we can look back
to the Incas. They were one of the most impressive civilizations ever
to have graced the earth. In less than 100 years they achieved the
level of development comparable to that of the Roman Empire. And they
did that in a way that allowed their mountains to continue to bloom.
It is time to restore the world to the
same level of understanding. Keep the civilization and make it
blossom through use of better technologies. And make your
contribution to life a positive one all around, so that you are not
destroying what you have not created and cannot re-create while also
allowing the civilization to reach ever greater heights.
Monday, February 04, 2019
Why The Law Of Attraction Is Wrong
One of the central claims in Buddhism
and a variety of other religions is the law of attraction: That the
like attracts like. This claim does not pass the muster of scrutiny.
The same person can attract completely
different people in their lives. One can attract great people and
terrible people within a few days of one another. I myself have
attracted into my life both people who were inspirational and people
who were down and out. That would not have been the case if the like
attracts like.
Am I like the inspirational people and
the down-and-out people at the same time? Is a woman like both the
man who batters her and the man who adores her? Melanie had the
attention of men who were horrible to her and men who loved her. That
would not have been the case if the like attracted like.
Are we in control of what we attract?
We can certainly do a lot to improve what we attract; but we also
have to be mindful of things over which we have no control. We are
not in control if a tsunami strikes us. If it does, it doesn't happen
because of negativity in our consciousness. It happens because a
tsunami has happened, which is nobody's fault.
The law of attraction is obviously
wrong. Am I both my Latin teacher and the people who
attacked me on the Internet? Is Melanie both the brutes that she was
with and the good people that she is with now? All this would point
to people being many self-contradictory things at the same time. And
that makes such beliefs outside the province of reason.
I am not driven here by wanting to be a
victim or anything of the sort. I am driven here by simple
rationality. If a person can attract people who are nothing like one
another, then that cannot be an outcome of what's in her
consciousness. People can attract people for any number of reasons,
some of which are compatible with them and some of which are not.
So it is time that more people be
skeptical of such sentiments. If I can attract great people and
terrible people in days of each other, then that means that the
mechanism is something besides my consciousness. Sometimes people
will make rightful choices; sometimes they won't. The reason is not
anything in their consciousness. The reason is choice.