Bias in Translation: How one culture misrepresents another

Fairness in Translation

This is a HUGE issue in Asian studies. We have had multiple separate posts on EACH of these problems:

1. the West misrepresenting the East,
   • Famous book at the core of the history of this debate: Orientalism
   • Much that was written in between 1950-1980 by Westerners
2. Buddhists misrepresenting Zen,
   • Anything by scholars who "graduated" religious schools in Japan
   • Anything by any scholar who "graduated" from a religious school anywhere (Heinrich Dumoulin)
3. Japanese misrepresenting Chinese
   • Dogenism as a basis for understand Rujing, who's text has never been translated
4. Chinese of Today misrepresenting Chinese of Antiquity,
   • Shengyen, a very controversial figure, and the topic of many posts in r/zen
5. Chinese of Antiquity misrepresenting Zen.
   • The controversy surrounding Compendium of Five Lamps and other compilations of "biographies" of famous people written in China.
   • I was reading a paper yesterday written by an academic who approached Zen entirely through biographies obviously written by Chinese of Antiquity misrepresenting Zen.
     

It's a lot to take in. https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/fraudulent_texts is a lot to have read in order to debate.

Gosh, how does that go unremarked?

Further, how do these misrepresentations tie into Reddit's new blocking policy? Reddit is now asking redditors to block people for misinformation and abuse... when do translations qualify?

The deeper background to this question is transparency. Do people who translate acknowledge their biases as a part of their translation work? When we raise questions about a translator's objectivity, we raise questions about all their translations.

Undisclosed Bias in Translation

In order to avoid making this post about a particular translator, let's focus on statements made not accounts used:

One paraphrased Reddit comment, unattributed, can provide examples that tie into this discussion:

There's a lie spread on r/Zen, that the question of AMAs always applies to meditation; r/Zen has suffered years of aggressive propaganda, people tow the line and push the practice of AMA, and other dumb r/Zen practices, like avoiding meditation at all costs.

If I can prove that this comment is irrational then can we see how the irrationality that motivated these views could clearly distort translation?

Testing the beliefs/intentions behind the translation?

1. Can "lie" be proven? Or is this simply an ongoing debate where reasonable people disagree?

   • Can the "lie" be proven to a reasonable and objective third party?
   • What does it mean that nobody has ever tried?

2. Is this a dishonest representation of "meditation"

   • I have argued that the term "meditation" is inherently and intentionally misleading
   • If we say "sitting-meditation-tradition-first-outlined-in-text-XYZ" then it is VERY CLEAR that Zen Masters said "avoid these [sitting meditation practices] at all costs.

3. Can "propaganda" the intentional spread of misinformation, be proven?

   • If this is intentional rhetoric by a translator, might that translator resort to rhetoric in their translation work?

4. it's a dishonest representation of AMA

   • The Zen tradition is clearly a culture where Q&A is the means of education AND the testing of insight... how is AMA different?
   • If AMA is different, where is that argument made openly and sincerely?

5. it's a dishonest representation of Zen culture.

   • Fact: EVERY ZEN TEXT EVER is concerned with and overtly tied to Zen's dialogue tradition.
   • The fact that enlightenment is not concerned with tradition... is that a reason to ignore tradition?
   • What is a translator's obligation toward acknowledging Zen tradition?

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Welcome! ewk comment: I regularly include these links when I post because I want my background on this conversation to be really really clear to everyone. Translators do not do this. They don't talk about their personal spiritual values nor about scandals that dog their "careers". Japanese Dogenism attacked D.T. Suzuki for not being transparent about his biases... and they did this without being transparent about their own biases.

If we want to be fair, we have to be transparent about our backgrounds and the controversies surrounding our public statements.

We aren't getting that from most translators, especially those translators who have been publicly called out over their controversies.

Submitted June 16, 2022 at 08:59AM by ewk https://ift.tt/UuWwe5m