So this semester I again have a class with a graded blog, so I'll be posting stuff for that grade. The good news is that this time the grade only involves about one post a week :) the bad news is that there are minimum word counts :( For the first time in the history of this blog :( In one of his poems, Jim writes:
One of the things
that is breaking my heart is that I can't trust language to
express any thanks.
In the same spirit, one of the things that always breaks my heart is a minimum word count :( Every time I see a minimum word count, I find myself wishing we had never invented numbers in the first place :(
The class in question is Communication Ethics with Dr. Borton, and the first post needs to be about something we're required to read from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Now, Greek isn't a language I speak (and I wonder how many of my classmates speak it), but what we're actually reading is, of course, an English translation of the book :( So tonight I am posting an advance disclaimer about whatever it is that I end up posting tomorrow (or soon after) about my impending hot date with Aristotle.
So once upon a time Aristotle had something on his mind. Let's call that thing (the thing that he was thinking) "A". "A" for "Aristotle's actual thoughts".
Then Aristotle wrote this book (the Greek original). Let's call this book "B" ("B" for "book"). Now, even A and B can't really be the exact same, simply because languages aren't perfect (see, for example, the thing that is breaking Jim's heart above).
Then the translator read Aristotle's book, upon which the translator formed his/her own understanding of ... A? Or B? Was this particular translator even conscious of the fact that A and B are not likely to be identical? Who knows :( Only this much is certain: The translator's understanding of the text was some third very possibly different thing. Let's call it "C", if only to "continue" the pattern we have already established with the "A" and the "B" in the two preceding paragraphs.
And then the translator wrote this translation, which is some fourth different thing. Let's call it "D" for "different".
And now I'm supposed to read this translation, and I'm supposed to form my own understanding "E" of the "entire" mess :( and then I'm supposed to blog about it :( so, when I post "about Aristotle", what I'll be having in my head will only be Aristotle at five removes :( and what I'll end up actually posting will only be Aristotle at six removes :( sorry :( It's predestined to be an unqualified disaster :( but that's just the way that particular game works :(
On the other hand, maybe I won't have to post that disaster after all :) Here's my hope: When I e-mail this post (the one I'm writing right now, including the above explanation of why reading the translation is quite pointless) to Dr. Borton tonight, maybe he will accept this as my post on the Aristotle reading already :) The minimum word count for the Aristotle post is 200 words, and this post is over 500 words already, so it might even actually work :) wish me luck :)
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