Isn't He Adorable? : Thoughts on the Value of Translation

(photo by Makoto Kaku)

This afternoon I watched an NHK documentary on Donald Keene, a famous Japanologist who translated and analyzed a corpus of Japanese literature from ancient times to modern times.

He talked about how as a European literature major from Columbia university, he stumbled on Arthur Wiley's translation of "The Tale of Genji" at a  Times Square bookstore.

In his interview he described  "The Tale of Genji" as an escape to the uncertainties of reality.  The book was written simply for the sake of beauty and a beautiful society.  The moment defined the beginning of his career in Japanese literature.

I realized that his success stems from illuminating a part of the human experience that was unknown to the West. He had no competition because no one wanted to go to the wreckage of post-war Japan.

I'm REALLY jealous that he was able to live the life of a mind.   In many ways the life of a literary translator requires the mentality of an artist.  A computer could never translate literary text because translation isn't an algorithm that automatically converts one symbol to another. The first and foremost must communicate the feelings of the human condition.

I'm confused about how to express the relevance of the humanities.  Unlike Keene's career where communication and publication was heavily scrutinized, contemporary society has the opposite problem in that we are barraged with too much unfiltered information that it drowns out authoritative voices like Donald Keene.   The most popular person on the internet has the most credentials, not the person with the most comprehensive line of thought.

Personally I'm conflicted between getting a PhD versus finding an alternative path to study China.  I would have access to resources and connections to professional expertise on the humanities, but this resource is locked behind an ivory tower or digital subscription paywalls.  The alternative  is exploring the humanities without authoritative resources shaped by the internet.  How should this look like?

At least Donald Keene doesn't have to keep justifying the value of his work to the rest of society.  After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, Keene renounced his US citizenship and moved to Japan.  I've never met Keene, but it's safe to say that he's one of the few rare people in the world that lived a passionate life.

 

How Do We Make The Humanities Relevant?

Okay, you've heard  the cliché that internet is revolutionary and how everyone's life has changed, blah blah.

The internet is a Catch 22.  Information can easy disseminate, but its  horrendously huge size overloads the typical surfer.  Sometimes I read webpage after webpage, only to realize I don't remember anything.

So far the humanities was built from mostly rich or high status people.  Most academic work require similar professionals who painstakingly evaluate the thoughts another human being.

People arguing against the humanities say the results of this process are irrelevant to the present.  It's old, snobby, and too high-brow for the average person.  Who has time to go the library to borrow paper when you can download?  Humanities journals cost thousands of dollars to subscribe annually, Netflix is only $8 dollars a month.

Those in history who had access to this material were either filthy rich, or cloistered within a scholarly community.

People are more willing to fund STEM related degrees because STEM can demonstrate it's relevance to society.  A person with a STEM degree can quantify and solve society's utilitarian problems.

But modern culture is insufficient to satisfy the present moral needs of the individual.  It can't express death because its still progressing forward.  The general public wants a predictable sitcom.  Harry Potter needs children.

Unlike a blogpost or a movie, the humanities wants to express human beings before they disappear.  I don't literally mean an act of death, but all the humanities subjects recognize that the human must die.  Documenting material accounts for their existence.

Sadly modern academia fortresses the wealth of the humanities away from the general public.   Physical libraries only hold books that it assumes a certain number will read.  Public education only wants to follow standardized tests and government curricula, students don't have time to learn.

How Do We Make The Humanities Relevant?

I don't think a large, accessible, open source institution exists yet, but the internet might be the start to an answer.

Institutions that traditionally hold knowledge are slowly eroding in legitimacy. Resources like the links on UnCollege are building communities that study without professional instruction.  Of course, internet self-study isn't the silver bullet.  It can't provide the instant reaction of another human being.

I dream that 10-20 years from now traditional public education as we know it will disappear. We'll have so much Youtube videos that any person interested in any subject can watch a lecture.  We would completely erase the neurotic need to subdivide students by age, and again by subject, and then again by grades.  Active students create their own projects, choose their own mentors/communities, work with their own style.  Because isn't that what happens when they leave school anyways?

I end by repeating this open ended question:

How Do We Make The Humanities Relevant?
Comment to conversate!