Naughty Vs. Evil

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 20^th 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.

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.