LINK: https://youtu.be/TC2EOC-fE8A
All new. All different. Not a curated copy of something from the past. Not a remix of earlier materials. And yes, I keep wonder if this is the last time I'm going to make a video of this kind: there was a first time, there has to be a last time.
天下大勢分久必合，合久必分。
LINK: https://youtu.be/swASb2Y2h0o
(This will eventually be re-posted as a podcast on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, etc., but not today.)
New, posted publicly within the last twelve hours or so: the Spanish edition of Blood in the Snow, also including the English and the French.
[Link 1:] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GRGP2TDZ
[Link 2:] https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0GRGP2TDZ —each country's Amazon page follows the same pattern, e.g., you can replace "ES" with "DE", to order the book from another country.
Trilingual Edition: English, Spanish and French. Edición trilingüe: inglés, español y francés. Édition trilingue : anglais, espagnol et français.
Se nos enseña que bajo el totalitarismo todos viven con miedo, mientras que en una democracia todos deberíamos estar bastante relajados, pero esto es lo contrario de la verdad: bajo un gobierno totalitario puedes relajarte sabiendo que todo es problema de otra persona—no tienes sentido de responsabilidad política. Los israelíes deben vivir con la agonía de saber que las masacres cometidas por ellos también son cometidas por ellos: son responsables, democráticamente. Y el resultado es un miedo constante: es un tipo de miedo que no puedes imaginar porque nunca has vivido en una democracia. Esta es la realidad moral de la democracia, y al igual que el Imperio Romano, las masacres nunca terminan: el proceso de conquista, interna y externamente, es infinito. Soportamos la tiranía como los cambios en el clima, pero soportamos la democracia sabiendo que nosotros mismos somos el clima: hay un tipo único de pavor moral al ahogarse, sabiendo que somos la inundación.
On nous enseigne que sous un régime totalitaire tout le monde vit dans la peur, alors que dans une démocratie nous devrions être parfaitement détendus ; or c’est l’inverse qui est vrai. Sous un gouvernement totalitaire, vous pouvez vous détendre en sachant que tout est le problème de quelqu’un d’autre — vous n’avez aucun sentiment de responsabilité politique. Les Israéliens doivent vivre avec l’agonie de savoir que les massacres commis pour eux sont aussi commis par eux : ils en sont responsables, démocratiquement. Et le résultat est une peur constante — une peur que vous ne pouvez pas imaginer, parce que vous n’avez jamais vécu dans une démocratie. Telle est la réalité morale de la démocratie, et tout comme dans l’Empire romain, les massacres ne s’arrêtent jamais : le processus de conquête, interne et externe, est infini. Nous endurons la tyrannie comme on endure les changements de temps ; mais nous endurons la démocratie en sachant que nous sommes nous-mêmes le temps qu’il fait : il y a une forme unique d’effroi moral à se noyer en sachant que nous sommes le déluge.
We are taught that under totalitarianism everyone lives in fear, whereas in a democracy we should all be quite relaxed, but this is the opposite of the truth: under a totalitarian government you may relax in knowing that everything is someone else's problem --you have no sense of political responsibility. The Israelis must live with the agony of knowing that the massacres committed for them are also committed by them: they are responsible, democratically. And the result is constant fear: it is a kind of fear you cannot imagine because you've never lived in a democracy. This is the moral reality of democracy, and just like the Roman Empire, the massacres never end: the process of conquest, internally and externally, is infinite. We endure tyranny like the changes in the weather, but we endure democracy knowing that we ourselves are the weather: there is a unique kind of moral dread in drowning, knowing that we are the flood.
Altruism is not an alternative to egoism: altruism can be egoistic, and egoism can be altruistic. Often enough, I stand accused of smuggling ethics into nihilism: there is a perceived problem with my philosophy in that it is neither egoistic in Stirner's sense nor in any other. I have been told that I fail to apply my own standards of skepticism to ethical concepts. Is Historical Nihilism a Trojan horse for conventional morality? Will you be ruined by believing in good and evil if you at first open the door to allow in my wooden promise that there is nothing to be believed in at all?
Have you ever felt angry at a lamp for failing to light up at the touch of a button and then realized, after a few moments' investigation, that you had unplugged it for some particular purpose a few days ago and then forgot to plug it back in? Have you ever reflected, "Oh, I shouldn't have been angry, because it wasn't the lamp's fault after all"? What if the lamp had been plugged in, should you have felt some other way about it? Are we going to seriously propose a philosophy of forgiveness for the failings of inanimate objects? Whether it is the lamp's fault for not working or our own fault for not plugging it in, why should we feel angry toward the lamp at all? Emotions are signals; signals must serve a purpose, no matter how ludicrous, arbitrary or self-indulgent; nothing is accomplished by letting the lamp know how you feel.
Adults make errors about the relationships between feelings and things because they enjoy confusing their feelings with the objective reality of the things themselves. This is not an error made merely due to carelessness, but because most of us enjoy it. In the absence of compulsion, people are doing what they want to do: there is some sense in which most people (i.e., some unknown percentage of people with a certain kind of character) genuinely enjoy feeling angry at a lamp —otherwise they wouldn't do it at all, as the feeling is accomplishing nothing. There is a kind of self-assertion involved in the hatred felt (however briefly) toward the nonfunctional lamp: you are demonstrating to yourself that you are not the one at fault here —although, perhaps, a few moments later you'll realize that (in fact) you are.
Egoism is self-serving: what we are discussing here is self-defeating. I once read a book-length analysis of the humor of the Navaho (Navajo): in their culture, in their language, it was normal to mock and ridicule white people for lashing out at inanimate objects, for punching the hood of a car, or for verbally reproaching a radio that "refuses" to tune in properly. The Navaho perceived this as utterly absurd, and their humor on the subject expressed consistent confidence that this is a mistake they'd never make themselves: they would never try to punish or motivate an inanimate object. But if we do not blame the car, do we blame ourselves?
"I look fat in this mirror." Presumably the mirror should be destroyed.
Whoever may be reading this article has probably heard me say many times (with many variations) that doing things for the sake of happiness entails a kind of evil and is predicated upon a kind of error: happiness, properly understood, is something that enters into our lives unexpectedly and that remains unknowable and unknown. Suppose I have a distant memory of a comic book that I read as a child and I now decide I should read it again, having thought nothing of it for more than 30 years: is this going to make me happy? Will it make me miserable? Will I respond in an entirely calm, cerebral fashion? Will I analyze how my distant memory of it differs from the newfound immediacy of the thing itself, or will I simply analyze the quality of the writing? What is utterly insane is the presumption that you can know the answer in advance and then commit to a course of action on the basis of that knowledge: if you think you know what will make you happy, you will be dragged into a life of real evil —destroying something real for the sake of something unreal, again and again. It would not be insane, by contrast, to buy a copy of this same comic book for the sake of mere curiosity: yes it is possible that reading it again will make you happy, but it's possible it will horrify you, it's possible it will make you reflect on tremendously sad memories from your own childhood tangentially linked to the object, and so on.
You can climb a mountain for the sake of the view, not knowing what that view will mean to you: it is quite another thing to presume that this mountain has the power to make you feel happy. The stakes are high: people don't just buy comic books for the sake of happiness, but raise children and then force their children to read the same comic books that they once read themselves.
Egoism cannot exist in the aftermath of this critique of happiness: architecture cannot exist in a world without solid land. What the egoists think they are standing on, from my perspective, instead, they are drowning in. They are drowning in misery misperceived as happiness. The darkness comes not from the lamp but our expectation of it —and yet we blame the lamp for the darkness.
The common conceit of pseudo-nihilistic philosophers (who have lived before) is that egoistic self-interest is this tremendously powerful wind, forever blowing in one direction: we must steer our little sailboat assiduously to accomplish anything altruistic despite this gale force. I say, instead, that good and evil turn on one hinge, as one and the same door. An open door is neither good nor evil. If you wanted the door to be locked shut, but in fact you've left it open, then you call that an evil; and, conversely, if you wanted the door to be open (or unlocked) to let someone else in while you were away, but you forgot to do so, then you'd complain that was an evil as well. It swings open when you want it to be open: that's good. However, it is a false inference to say that when it's locked shut it is therefore evil.
Egoism does not exist: good and evil are equally effortless —as painting with one color is neither more nor less work than another, although it may be quite a lot of work if you're not an experienced painter and haven't yet developed the skill, meaning only that you'll struggle with each color equally or not at all. The tree neither serves the forest nor rebels against it. The tree cannot subtract itself from the forest nor add anything more to the collective sum than it has already given simply "in being itself". The egoism of the tree cannot be contrasted to an altruism that is subordinated to the egoism of the forest: neither tree nor forest have any ego at all.
The nihilists (now alive) who complain that I am not nihilistic enough still imagine their own lives as if they were divided between egoism and altruism: they assume that altruism is motivated by belief whereas the extirpation of belief will return them to their natural state of self-indulgence and inertia. This division does not exist: the real division is between the life of an adult and the life of a child. Overcoming belief will not return you to the simple (selfish) pleasures of childhood, nor will it liberate you from the temptation of exclusively adult forms of ambition and self-sacrifice. Can you remember how amusing it once was just to play with a light switch? Can you remember how amusing it once was to hide beneath a blanket? To crawl through a tunnel? To be tickled? The happiness you remember from your childhood is something to which you can never return: nihilism is a kind of purification, yes, but the purified adult cannot enjoy childish self-indulgence any more than the contaminated true believer —on the contrary, less.
What if a man believes in nothing but becomes incredibly passionate about (i) stand up comedy, (ii) foreign language education or (iii) architecture? If he starts serving this passion, will he be sacrificing his self-interest for the sake of a greater whole? What if, instead of even trying to be happy, he sacrifices everything for the advancement of foreign language education: will you claim that he still secretly prays to unseen gods because of his lack of egoism? As miserable as it may be to pour your time and money into a foreign language institute, trust me, operating a stand up comedy club is worse: you must spend many hours listening to examples of what other people think is funny, but you do not. And you must hear the same jokes performed again and again. Either you're passionate about comedy or you're not: either you're willing to hear a hundred bad jokes for the sake of a few moments of brilliance, or else you're doing this for nothing at all. Either you're willing to endure the company of a hundred bad students (who are learning the language for the wrong reasons, etc.) for the sake of a few brilliant ones, or else you're doing this for nothing at all. Do you therefore "believe in" a language because you're enduring such misery? Do you "believe in" comedy? There is no viable distinction between egoism and altruism: the tree is not something totally separable from the forest and the architect is not totally separable from architecture —not even if he perceives himself as living in a state of rebellion against the intransigence of architecture (as I see myself in a kind of rebellion against the intransigence of stand up comedy, and the intransigence of language education, etc.).
I have shifted the question (and its answer) from the struggle of altruism against egoism to the struggle of this man for his passion —which is neither egoistic nor altruistic nor both. If he suffers for the sake of education it is because he is an educator; if he suffers for the sake of architecture it is because he's an architect; if he suffers for the sake of comedy it is because he is a comedian. And even then, it is only "his own" notion of education, architecture and comedy, hm? And this is not a relationship to an abstraction: the farmer does not relate to farming as an abstraction, but as a series of manual and mental tasks that are entirely real (so too for the educator, architect and comedian).
So why would anyone rage against the lamp and the mirror? Making excuses for the evils of Communism: this is a declaration of who you are, it is a declaration of what kind of person you aspire to be, and it is a kind of advertisement for the friends and lovers you wish to have. The social and psychological mechanism I'm describing here works in much the same way with Satanism: you start making excuses for one kind of evil or another, publicly, and soon enough you discover you've created a crossroads for everyone who has a certain set of unspecified desires in common with you. Look at the utilitarians who make excuses for paying prostitutes: this serves a real function in their lives and isn't merely a matter of crafting an ideological identity for the satisfaction of judging oneself when standing in front of the mirror. When we indulge in feeling angry at the lamp we are asserting (on a childishly simple level) that our feelings are more real than the things that inspire them: what matters is not the reality of the bourgeois class, for example, but the feelings the Communist assigns to them and then "finds" in them as if they were actually existing. He blames them for how he feels about them, and this functions as a declaration of his own moral identity. In the condemnation of witches, the Christian becomes confident that his own barbaric beliefs are something better than witchcraft; when he prays and conducts his own magical rituals he is becoming something quite different from a witch himself. The fault in the lamp, dear reader, is a fault we must find within ourselves: as shallow and obvious as that may be, it is a riddle the majority of humanity never will solve.
Personal desire for personal identity perpetually creates and recreates a false system of morality: the majority of people caught in this cycle of asserting feelings to be innate in the real things that surround them can never break out of the cycle. The bourgeois class is a lamp that you, yourself, failed to plug in: it is not broken and cannot be fixed. It is a door that you yourself left unlocked. It is a mirror showing you how fat and ugly you are. And yet for the vast majority of people, the feelings they have arising from these hated and reviled objects (social classes, lamps and mirrors alike) are so seemingly real that they inspire one moral system after another, crowding out doubt, filling the world with false certainties.
I have said it is a personal desire for personal identity: what is it that the Communist wants? To be a good person while regarding others as bad, perhaps? To feel that they, personally, know the esoteric truth, while so many others labor in ignorance? Moral superiority, intellectual superiority, physical superiority, sexual superiority: common, animal desires. People make use of abstractions to serve these carnal interests, as if they could use a pencil and an eraser to edit human nature. Wanting to be loved isn't evil: wanting to believe, and wanting others to believe as you do, so that you can be loved, is the greatest evil of all.
If the Christians say, "These Communists are climbing the wrong mountain, trying to get to happiness", we all can understand what they mean well enough. The Communists from their side could say the same: they see the Christians doing all sorts of Communist things, such as caring for the poor and living in voluntary poverty themselves, to then remark on how unfortunate it is that this hiking instinct is being applied to the wrong mountain. What if you genuinely do not believe there is any mountain, anywhere, that could make you happy? What if the whole sport of mountain climbing relies on a cycle of self-deception no less pathetic than gambling and drug addiction? What if the view from the top and the view from the bottom are one and the same? That is where nihilism escapes from the ancient, narrow path: where the bottom and top of the mountain meet and become equal, where the cycle of climbing (our cycle of meaningless suffering) begins and ends, forever.
On December 18th of 2020, I made a video quizzically titled, Nihilism: Advice for my Daughter, Advice for the Next Generation. As already indicated by the "new" title above (quoting a turn of phrase from the middle of the video) this was (and is) a sort of introductory course: "Nihilism 101".
This is not a video I would make today. It's an interesting stylistic contrast to the occult mystique of Blood in the Snow.
Here's the long, long comment that led to my searching for, finding and watching the video again today, posted from a viewer using the Sanskrit name Dasyuhan. A block quotation ensuses.
Hey brother, I hope you're doing well. You recently made a post about nihilism in relation to the events unfolding in the Middle East [i.e., the war in Iran], I assume. Since the comments were turned off, I'm leaving my response here instead.
As you know, I'm not a native English speaker and am still learning, but from what I can gather from that post, when you said "Nihilism: the least esoteric of the major faiths," you meant that nihilism isn't some obscure or complex philosophy, and that reality itself constantly provides obvious, brutal evidence for it. Then there is the picture of that Iranian man discussing all of this, paired with the quote about the just world fallacy, which I looked up and found to be the cognitive bias whereby people assume the world is fundamentally fair, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. It is essentially a psychological comfort mechanism. If you believe in a just world, witnessing everything that is happening creates an irresolvable contradiction, hence the anguished question: "why did they deserve to..."
A nihilist, by contrast, has no such confusion. Bad things happen to good people because the universe operates without any moral logic. So nihilism is "the least esoteric faith" because you don't need scripture or theology to arrive at it. Reality teaches it constantly and plainly.
The just world fallacy sets people up for perpetual moral bewilderment, while nihilism, however bleak, is at least consistent with observable reality.
That is my understanding of what you posted. I'd love to know if I got it right. The reason I'm writing this is that what you described is something very close to what I have always observed about the world and believed in from a very young age, so it resonates deeply with me. Would you consider making a video about this, exploring it in depth? Something that lays out the evidence for how reality itself gives rise to this worldview, where we don't have to pretend otherwise. I know I'm not articulating this very well, but you have a way of expressing these things far more coherently than I do, and I think you'd do it justice. I would really appreciate it.
And here is my reply, including the link to the video aforementioned as "nihilism for beginners".
Yes, my own "school of thought" is called Historical Nihilism, and it is discussed both in many of my own youtube videos, and in several books and articles (that are generally available for free on the internet, and also for the lowest possible purchase price, on paper, on Amazon). Search for my name (Eisel Mazard) plus "Blood in the Snow": the whole book available on my blog for free, and you can then work with Google Translate, paragraph by paragraph. As English is your second language, this may be better for you than trying to follow my videos on the matter. There is quite a stark contrast between that book and this "nihilism for beginners" video: https://youtu.be/_cN1S6yk0H0 Quite a stark contrast again with this more advanced video, here: https://youtu.be/HxNB1YCzLjQ Again, with this second link, I imagine it would be easier for you to work with the text, copying and pasting into Google translate, and then comparing the two languages as you read, rather than hearing it as a video.
(1) I am aware that I may not have answered his question (i.e., I do not seem to be interested in "the evidence for how reality itself gives rise to this worldview"). (2) It is interesting that none of the texts or videos I've alluded to in my reply take the "easy" route of expanding the meaning of atheism to establish a broader and deeper meaning for nihilism. I believe I did take that easy route, once, when I was being interviewed by an unsophisticated imbecile about the meaning of nihilism (i.e., in a video that still remains on my channel). Many people find nihilism easy enough to visualize if you just draw their attention to the beliefs that atheism fails to challenge; however, that very ease may end up trivializing the concept.
Yes, admittedly, the Vietnamese claim that they're the most atheistic country in the world, and I'm sure North Korea could muster up some statistics to challenge the claim, BUT NEVERTHELESS…
According to GE2015, 24% of Finns identify positively as nonreligious (see Table 1). There has been some increase since 2011 (19%), when this option was introduced to the identification question. The percentage of religious identification was 36%. It is much smaller than Christian identification (67%), which most likely demonstrates that Finns consider themselves to be culturally Christian even when not regarding themselves as religious. Altogether 16% said that they were atheists.
[…]
Among those with only basic level education, 28% identify as nonreligious, whereas among those with tertiary-level education the figure is 23%.
[…]
For them, contrary to the older generations, being nonreligious or atheist has very little to do with the Soviet Union or Communism. At the same time, however, the historical filter that has connected Lutheranism and national identity explains (partly) why nonreligious identification is not more popular. In other words, the drift away from organic nationalism that combines ethnicity and religion towards the situation where national identity (or the idea of what it is to be an ordinary Finn) is divorced from religion advances the normalisation of nonreligious identities. At the same time, being religious is increasingly becoming a reflective choice rather than a taken-for-granted identification, as it should be in a scenario of weakening cultural Christianity.
So, we are led to suppose, the new Russophobia is not anti-atheist whereas the old Russophobia was precisely that: a sort of defensive Christianity erected as a barrier against Communism. This would be counterproductive, of course: Christianity leads to Communism in much the same way that Judaism leads to Christianity —Karl Marx is merely the author of another "new testament" —he offers neither an antithesis nor an antidote to the beliefs that came before.
Source:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2022.2138020#abstract
AFAIK, what I've been suffering with is a herniated disc down at the bottom of the lumbar region. Yes, that "AFAIK" disclaimer could be significant.
This website presents a perspective on the illness and the process of recovery different from what I've seen before:
https://buffalorehab.com/blog/the-recovery-time-for-a-lumbar-disc-herniation/
This makes sense to me...
however, sadly, I have been making the injury worse, not better, by returning to the gym as quickly as possible, again and again…
whereas, in reality I shouldn't have even been sitting in a chair at all, but should have limited myself to bed rest (FOR SEVERAL MONTHS).
Within the last few days, I was evidently making the condition worse when I was working on the German translation (sitting at a desk) whereas I previously thought of that type of mild strain as a positive exercise, helping rather than hindering recovery (i.e., I could feel that sitting and working at desk caused strain / pain).
I am now really limited: all I can do is lie down flat. And I do not know for how long that will last.
-----
Activities that will cause more fluid to leak are bending, lifting, twisting, sitting, and any impact (running or jumping). The more we stick to the “good” positions and limit the “bad,” the sooner our discs start to heal.
Typically, it takes three to four weeks for the fluid to stop leaking from the outer layer. Keep in mind, this only applies if you start limiting the bad positions and promoting those good positions.
At this time, the point of leakage will scar over and trap the fluid within the outer layer. This is the point in treatment when you can start to tolerate sitting for a little longer.
Over the next four weeks, the fluid will continue to work its way back toward the center of the disc, and eventually, the inner layer will scar over
-----
This is significantly different from how I'd visualized the problem before.
-----
When following the ideal plan, after about twelve weeks your disc is healed enough to tolerate impact, such as running or jumping
...
Suffering a back injury may seem catastrophic, however, it does not mean you will have back issues for the rest of your life. With proper guidance, patience, and a little bit of hard work, you can heal your disc injury within twelve weeks!
-----
Well... I could still cancel my gym membership. :-/
It does not seem reasonable to imagine I'll be back at the gym FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS… whereas, instead, I've been injuring myself anew pretty much every time I returned to the gym (for many, many months now) trying to increase the strength of the muscles surrounding the injury in the back.
Everything that was supposed to change hasn't changed. The ideological stagnation of the 21st century is worse than the broken promises of the 20th century were before.
Professor _______,
[…] [Many boring details have been omitted.] […]
I am asking a very broad question: do you have any advice or
suggestions if I were trying to find a Russian language tutor or
teacher, so that I am not learning the language entirely alone (with
books and the internet)?
This message is brief to avoid wasting your time. I hope you will not
find this message rude.
I have studied other languages before, including languages that are
much more difficult than Russian (e.g., Chinese). Grammatically, the
language I've studied that most closely resembled Modern Russian is
Ancient Pali (it has the locative, genitive, dative, instrumental and
accusative cases). So, in some sense, I am prepared for how difficult
the work will be.
With thanks for your time and consideration,
Eisel Mazard (Mr.)
—————
[In her reply, the professor seemed to be primarily interested in my motivation for learning the language: she asked if I needed it "for work" or not. Work or play, hm?]
—————
(1) My interest is in (i) politics, (ii) philosophy and (iii) history.
I have studied several languages for these reasons (and, admittedly,
these reasons may not be enough).
(2) I am genetically half Jewish, and my grandparents were
specifically Russian Jewish, so it is possible I will try to make some
kind of contact with the Russian-speaking Jews of Israel and New York,
etc., simply to counteract the isolation of living in Newfoundland. I
am aware of the intensity of antisemitism in Eastern Europe,
generally, and amongst Russians, specifically. I am a visible
minority: although I'm an atheist, I look Jewish, and I am hated for
it. This is a major factor in the decision I now make for the next
ten years of my life.
(3) I am a real intellectual: in Canada, there are none. Learning
Russian would allow me to fly back and forth to various parts of
Europe (and Israel) where some intellectuals exist. Some. I am not
deluding myself into thinking that Eastern Europe is an intellectual
paradise (nor Israel) but I have some optimism about knowing other
intellectuals (who care about history, philosophy and politics) via
the Russian language. With many other languages I've studied (e.g.
Lao and Cambodian) there is no such hope.
I have now published one book in Russian translation. The cover
illustration is attached. It will be published in five or six
languages in total.
E.M.
After the End of the Vegan Movement: What Now, What Next?
This is, in fact, the sequel to a podcast titled, "Leviathan: the Vegan Movement's Decade of Decline, 2015 to 2025."
(1 of 2)
America vs Israel: Old Empires, New Enemies, Perpetual Bankruptcies.
https://youtube.com/shorts/WwMgIfHgYKU [Two minutes long.]
(2 of 2)
The "Israel Has a Right to Exist" Discourse is Corny.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Hy5bJhPtirw [Two and a half minutes long.]
I was tempted to title this post, simply, Israel: THE USUAL.
Instead, the title here alludes to my (still shocking?) statement about the primacy of local democracy in Ukraine, Crimea, etc., The American Empire with the Mask Off: the Canadian Empire with the Mask On.
"Let us be blunt: if Quebec has the right to establish its independence by a referendum, then the Crimea does, too —along with the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk) and Taiwan and everyone else, everywhere else. If not, we're back to the phony sovereignty (and even phonier empire-building) of the Napoleonic wars."
^ Still worth reading. Still dangerous in principle and in practice. https://a-bas-le-ciel.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-american-empire-with-mask-off.html
It's still worth listening to the sequel that was published as a podcast, too. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5bXnSQIGAdvbu3B0REfG4Q
What I have to say about Israel is pretty closely parallel to what I have to say about Quebec, Scotland, Taiwan, etc. The making of history is a high-stakes game; perhaps that's why so many prefer, instead, to watch it transpire, passively.
I begin with a fragment rendered into English by Google translate:
🏛️ Tam illud est admirandum [Terentio] quod et morem retinuit ut comoedian scriberet et temperauit affectum ne in tragoediam transiliret, quod cum aliis rebus minime obtentum et a Plauto et ab Afranio et Appio et multis fere comicis inuemimus.
🤖 It is so admirable in [Terentius] that he both retained the habit of writing comedy and tempered his passion so as not to leap into tragedy, which, along with other things, we find not achieved at all by Plautus, Afranius, Appius, and many other comedians.
The source of this statement is the ancient author Euanthius (no typo) about whom no Wikipedia article yet exists, admirably. We should all be so lucky as to write influential works of major historical significance and then disappear from this world without polluting it with a Wikipedia article. And so, while Wikipedia maintains its glacial silence, we find a blog entry by Roger Pearce (June 18th, 2011) offering us the following red hot noise:
Evanthius wrote a commentary on Terence which included or was introduced by a discussion of the genre. This is entitled De Fabula, but it is not clear how it became attached to the work of Donatus. […]
Here’s the first couple of lines of De Fabula, which I have converted from the French. It looks like an interesting work.
1. Both tragedy and comedy had their first manifestations in the religious ceremonies with which the ancients consecrated themselves in fulfillment of vows made for benefits received. 2 In fact, when a fire had been lit on the altar and a goat brought, the type of incantations that the sacred choir made in honour of the god Liber was called tragedy. The etymology of this is either from τράγος and ᾠδή, i.e. the word for a goat, the enemy of the vines, and the word for song (of which Virgil gives full details); or it is because the creator of this poem received a goat in return; or because a full cup of grape wine was given in solemn recompense to the singers or because actors smeared their faces with wine lees, before the invention of masks by Aeschylus. Indeed in Greek the lee is called τρύγες. This is why tragedy is so called.
I found the first quotation (marked with a 🏛️ for lack of a better emoji) in a footnote to the introduction to The Tragedies of Ennius by H.D. Jocelyn, 1969 (r. 2008), page 40, where it is cited as evidence that "the language of comedy" in Latin, in this period of the history of Ancient Rome, "moved away from that of tragedy and approached the common language."
The extant comedies of Plautus have inspired a saga of self-deception, with many scholars passionately arguing that his use of language preserves casual speech, as opposed to the artificiality of language used in poetry and legal arguments. That thesis has been bunked and debunked: in fact, the language used as evidence was (irrefutably) written to be performed as song (or at least chanted) and therefore represents a different kind of artificiality, not the contrast to "natural language" modern readers are looking for.
The Encyclopedia Britannica now boldly claims that Terence's "language is a purer version of contemporary colloquial Latin." If you are not already scoffing at this self-evident paradox, allow me to quote the old Encyclopedia of Genocide somewhat further: "His language was accepted as a norm of pure Latin, and his work was studied and discussed throughout antiquity."
Alas, (i) the norm of purity and (ii) evidence of informal, colloquial, casual language are two different things. Perhaps, in the end, we will be left to infer that legal arguments (presented as a kind of theater in a court of law) are closer to natural language than anything written as entertainment --comedy, tragedy or poetry.
Perhaps two thousand years from now (or perhaps just two hundred?) the only evidence of our language will be rap music, and scholars will be left to reconstruct what they imagine to be our casual mode of communication from that mix of comedy and tragedy. Not a single scrap of our ancestors' legal and political reasoning will outlast the millennium: unlike rap music, it is neither useful nor aesthetically durable.
"I do not advocate for a monoculture in contrast to multiculturalism."
Original title: Hybridity is Progress: AOC is Wrong About China vs Taiwan (and East vs West)
Less than three minutes long.
LINK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNMLT1GH/
It's listed separately on each Amazon website for each jurisdiction: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0GNMLT1GH/
Trilingual Edition: English, Russian and French. Трехъязычное издание: английский, русский и французский языки. Édition trilingue : anglais, français et russe.
We are taught that under totalitarianism everyone lives in fear, whereas in a democracy we should all be quite relaxed, but this is the opposite of the truth: under a totalitarian government you may relax in knowing that everything is someone else's problem --you have no sense of political responsibility. The Israelis must live with the agony of knowing that the massacres committed for them are also committed by them: they are responsible, democratically. And the result is constant fear: it is a kind of fear you cannot imagine because you've never lived in a democracy. This is the moral reality of democracy, and just like the Roman Empire, the massacres never end: the process of conquest, internally and externally, is infinite. We endure tyranny like the changes in the weather, but we endure democracy knowing that we ourselves are the weather: there is a unique kind of moral dread in drowning, knowing that we are the flood.
On nous enseigne que sous un régime totalitaire tout le monde vit dans la peur, alors que dans une démocratie nous devrions être parfaitement détendus ; or c’est l’inverse qui est vrai. Sous un gouvernement totalitaire, vous pouvez vous détendre en sachant que tout est le problème de quelqu’un d’autre — vous n’avez aucun sentiment de responsabilité politique. Les Israéliens doivent vivre avec l’agonie de savoir que les massacres commis pour eux sont aussi commis par eux : ils en sont responsables, démocratiquement. Et le résultat est une peur constante — une peur que vous ne pouvez pas imaginer, parce que vous n’avez jamais vécu dans une démocratie. Telle est la réalité morale de la démocratie, et tout comme dans l’Empire romain, les massacres ne s’arrêtent jamais : le processus de conquête, interne et externe, est infini. Nous endurons la tyrannie comme on endure les changements de temps ; mais nous endurons la démocratie en sachant que nous sommes nous-mêmes le temps qu’il fait : il y a une forme unique d’effroi moral à se noyer en sachant que nous sommes le déluge.
Нас учат, что при тоталитаризме все живут в страхе, в то время как при демократии мы все должны быть совершенно спокойны, но это прямо противоположно истине: при тоталитарном правительстве вы можете расслабиться, зная, что все это чужие проблемы, - у вас нет чувства политической ответственности. Израильтяне должны жить с мучительным осознанием того, что массовые убийства, совершенные ради них, также совершаются ими самими: они несут ответственность демократическим путем. И в результате возникает постоянный страх: это такой страх, который вы не можете себе представить, потому что вы никогда не жили при демократии. Такова нравственная реальность демократии, и, как и в Римской империи, массовые убийства никогда не заканчиваются: процесс завоевания, внутреннего и внешнего, бесконечен. Мы терпим тиранию, как перемены погоды, но мы терпим демократию, зная, что мы сами являемся погодой: есть особый вид морального страха, когда тонешь, зная, что ты сам и есть наводнение.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUZ-gZTYoh4 (Youtube)
LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ReAbVNxd2yALCbNBZC6YJ (Spotify)
As always, it is possible to google around to find it on practically every podcast platform, not just Spotify (although, AFAIK, video is only available on Youtube and Spotify… until the competition have caught up).
The context here, implicitly, is my "Kristen Leo trilogy":
(i) The Tradcon Housewife Trope / Trap. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Pyk11Zutdw4
(ii) The Vegan Autodidact Trope / Trap. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xcj7mL8Utv0
(iii) The Monetized Monogamy Trope / Trap. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fw3jACZ16bs
^ These are about two and a half minutes apiece.
There is a sort of fork in my philosophy, at first visible (or, perhaps, at first impossible to ignore) in the single sentence of Blood in the Snow that introduces the image of the bird's nest, then seen again in the two hour lecture on Iran that explains this allegory of the bird's nest as the bridge between generations at greater length —and in dramatic fashion.
Although in some ways this is just a return to the concerns stated in the old manifesto video in Season One (i.e., long before No More Manifestos) I've made a subtle shift from a two-category to a three-category system of thinking about the lives and immediate futures of myself, my colleagues and contemporaries. The first two categories, perhaps excessively familiar to the few who will read this note, contrast (i) the life of the mind to (ii) the pursuit of short-term self-indulgence, a false model of happiness. We now have a third category of (iii) building the bird's nest, the bridge between generations. Although I was many years younger when the old manifesto video was recorded, you might recall the greater emphasis on retirement homes (and medical care for the elderly, etc.) at that time.
Empirically, I think the third category is fictional, or at least much more fictional than the first two: some people passionately, directly desire to live the life of the mind, and directly experience some kind of joy from living it. I doubt anyone would be able to muster up much skepticism if I were to say something parallel about the pseudo-hedonism of the second category. These two categories exist: that people desire them, perceive them, and experience suffering and sorrow as a result, sometimes misperceiving misery as happiness, sometimes experiencing true elation, joy and happiness. What I doubt is that the bird's nest (and the bridge to the next generation) is real for anyone in this same way: all I ever hear is women who were brainwashed into maternity by one oppressive religion or another regretting that they'd ever agreed to raise kids at all, looking back at their prior lives as a succession of submissive mistakes. Atheism neither liberates us from the chains of sexual desire nor sexual morality; it does, apparently, liberate us from having any interest whatsoever in sexual reproduction.
You will think that I am joking because I am joking, but my point is sincere: the human species seems to truly lack instincts or interests related to building this nest. I've had a few encounters lately with women who suddenly decide that they want to become mothers, but their passion for this is not even enough to compel them to quit smoking, quit drinking, or quit uploading hardcore pornography videos of themselves to Onlyfans. When the simplest of questions are asked about the most immediately obvious prerequisites (i.e., nest building activities) they stare blankly into a future they have no practice imagining. I do not think these women are exceptional, and I do not think the men are better than them (i.e., I would tend to assume most men are even worse).
All three categories involve vanity. All three categories involve egoism and self-serving delusion. However, the first two categories have some power to tempt people, whereas the third does not: there is a temptation to live, broadly, then a temptation to live a meaningful life, much more narrowly, in part arising from the experience of the meaninglessness of the pursuit of many different kinds of happiness. In this sense, nobody really needs to advocate for the life of the mind: it is seductive in its own way, whereas cocaine and prostitution are rebarbative in their own way as well. The lack of human interest in that third category is remarkable, however: we have no instinct to build this bridge between the generations, and so —it seems— all our bridges to the future may soon be burned.
The enjoyment of life and the meaning of life are two different things. However, if you are at a high enough level of intellectual sophistication, raising children is both enjoyable and meaningful —whereas going to Coachella is neither one nor the other —whereas watching televised ice hockey is neither one nor the other, and so on. I suspect we are members of a species that has just enough "low cunning" to become entirely consumed with short-term self-indulgence (video game addiction and drug addiction included) without reaching that level of intellectual sophistication that would make the miseries of raising children enjoyable to endure.
Elitism is not the problem: elitism is the solution. #trump #billgates #epstein #mandelson
Link: https://youtube.com/shorts/BYx0SnhqTgw
This is one of many, many three minute monologues on moral matters I've uploaded in the last few days.
Little fragments of the philosophy of No More Manifestos show up here and there, seeming to hint at the greater whole.
[This was written and published Jul 2, 2025, but for some unknowable reason Google has had tremendous difficulty finding it… so it's being reposted now.]
Dear Mr. Rowe,
I have just listened to your episode on Seneca (recorded four or five years ago) for a second time, after hearing many of your episodes on Shakespeare, Kyd, Ben Jonson, etc., within the last twelve months.
Seneca was such an enormous influence on Shakespeare and his contemporaries that I think —now— you must look back on Seneca's tragedies with a somewhat different angle than you had at that time.
I recently "performed" Seneca's Agamemnon (in English) aloud —a very dramatic reading of a very dramatic text— while recovering from surgery and confined to bed rest. This was after I was released from the hospital, so I did not have an involuntary audience of other patients, but I joked that the neighbors would be complaining —as there is so much agony written into the text that must be performed "at the top of your voice" if it is going to be performed at all.
Seneca's tragedies are hard to read.
They're hard to perform.
They're hard to appreciate.
However, they have to be appreciated as a condemnation of the morality and superstition of the earlier Greek authors —including Homer— and can't merely be seen as a failure to reproduce the "refinement" of Euripides and Sophocles.
Clytemnestra demands to know why she should face the death penalty for sleeping with another man (during a ten year separation from her husband) while her husband has had several lovers, several utterly immoral affairs, and he is neither faulted nor punished for the same sin in any way.
The morality and magic of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are condemned: not satirized, but condemned.
This is a tradition already well attested in Plato: that some people (or at least some extant authors and philosophers) really did reject the morality that young people were being taught in memorizing and reciting Homer by the lyre.
For Seneca, the moral significance of Agamemnon engaging in human sacrifice is utterly different from what it was for Homer —or for anyone alive within several generations of Homer's authorship. Seneca does not believe in the moral system of supernatural contamination and purification that the original stories are written to convey.
For Seneca, when Ajax the Lesser defies the gods, he is right —he is heroic in shouting out, "you haven't killed me yet". For Homer, the whole fleet of boats is destroyed because Ajax the Lesser failed to ritually atone for violating a purely superstitious set of rules.
Seneca is condemning the cycles of revenge (Clytemnestra, Electra, etc.) in a way that the ancient Greeks do not: Seneca regards as a voluntary evil what the Greeks regarded as inexorable, necessary and even heroic (thus, tragic). And Seneca does make direct, bold statements that would have gotten you killed in Athens, saying to the audience that there are no gods in the sky, and there is no fate that will avenge these atrocities (such as a mother killing her own children).
He has a point. To whom is this shocking today? Only to the type of people who choose to learn Latin: Seneca has certainly aged better than Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, etc.
From a modern perspective, Seneca seems to be a nihilistic atheist, but it might be more true that he's merely condemning this particular form of religion while believing in another: Protestant condemnations of Catholicism may seem misleadingly atheistic, because (from a 21st century perspective) the critique of one religion applies so closely to the other. It is difficult to take a Protestant seriously who condemns the Pope as an Antichrist, but such people take themselves very seriously indeed —and Seneca, in his milieu, may fall into this camp.
At this moment, I cannot really say to what extent Seneca is endorsing atheism, or to what extent he's using atheist statements (in the mouths of his characters) to merely dramatize the moral point he's making.
I think your first podcast (on Seneca) was influenced by secondary sources that are shocked (and offended) by Seneca's tragedies because the (19th or 20th century) authors still want to believe that Seneca was "a Christian before Christ".
He wasn't. He was the man who stood on trial before the Senate for an illicit love affair with a woman 22 years younger than himself —and he received the death penalty for it, despite his own high level of rhetorical ability to plead his own case (not to mention his wealth, power, etc.). This death penalty was commuted to exile, but nevertheless: that one incident shows that "the real Seneca" was more aware of the destructive potential of human desire than the pious Latin scholars would like to admit to themselves.
These people who say that the plays couldn't possibly be intended for performance in front of a live audience: they're not people with experience in the theatre as actors, nor as directors, nor as impressarios, nor as anything else. They're "Golden Axe People", as I like to say: they're the type of people who end up with PhDs in classics.
And they're the same people who say that the author of the tragedies and the author of the philosophical letters cannot possibly be one and the same —simply because they're horrified by the tragedies, and they prefer the pious, ostentatiously humble, tone of the letters. Ovid, also, seems humble in his letters, but we probably get a better sense of the real man from his poetry.
These moderns, these Golden Axe People, are so horrified that they cannot even imagine that Seneca's tragedies are trying to make a moral point —with Nero himself being one of the people in the audience this point is driven home to.
Only the most unsophisticated reading of the text could suppose that this is something like a horror movie: that it is intended to entertain through sheer dint of violence and gore. Instead, Seneca's tragedies offer a kind of morality lecture for an audience that won't listen to morality lectures anymore: the adult Nero.
With thanks for your time and consideration,
Eisel Mazard
I do think, implicitly, this defense of the sari is posed in contrast to the veil (hijab, etc.). The idea that Hindu traditionalism is compatible with sexual liberation —although risible— seems to be taken seriously when juxtaposed to even more ridiculous claims made by defenders of Islam.
There is no unity in belief: there is unity in its opposite. We are divided by religion and united by nihilism. We are not united by the clothes we wear, but by the clothes we refuse to wear. We are not made one by symbols, nor by abstract (symbolic) reasoning, but by the breaking of symbols: mental nudity.
[A viewer writes in, responding to the short video above:]
It has actually been reported that the number is now closer to 6,000 [peaceful protestors killed in the streets]. My people have had enough. We cannot stop now. If we do, the revenge this regime will unleash would be far more devastating. What would be the point anyway? To stop only to die of starvation?
Iran will never be Syria. The majority of Iranians are done with Islam. They see anything associated with Islam as a symbol of their colonizers, which explains the mosque burnings. We also have a clear alternative: Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who over the past 45 years has consistently preached the same message through his advocacy, that power should come from the people. His actions have perfectly reflected the ideology he has promoted all these years. As he gained more popularity, he began taking more decisive actions. This has led to what we see today: people chanting his name, calling for his return, and now hearing him give direct guidance on reclaiming our beloved Iran.
I used to watch your content frequently a long time ago, and since I am somewhat familiar with your political views, I thought I would let you know about one of the most popular chants on the streets right now. It symbolizes that people have learned their lesson from everything that went wrong in 1979.
“Death to the three corrupt: the Mullah, the Leftist, and the Mojahed.”
These are the three forces that ruined Iran through the fusion of Islamism and Communism, the Red and Black alliance. It mirrors what is happening today in the West.
Lastly, I want to end with a story from the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, the greatest work of Persian literature ever written. Simorgh, also known as the Phoenix in Persian mythology, must die and turn into ashes so that she can rise again stronger than before. Sometimes, that is the only way.
For years, I heard many Iranians, myself included at times, criticize Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. We said he should have been a dictator, as people wrongly labeled him, and that instead of leaving the country and refusing to rule through fear or turn against his own people, he should have crushed the protests. But with everything that has unfolded, I cannot help but wonder if it was necessary to suffer for 47 years so that Iranians could finally move on from a religion that colonized them 1,400 years ago. It is a tragic idea to accept, but perhaps this was the Phoenix story of the Iranian people.
May you come and visit a free Iran sooner rather than later.
—Javid Shah
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Quote, "The majority of Iranians are done with Islam." You're telling me that more than 50% of the population of Iran is atheist (not Buddhist, presumably) and willing to fight a war against Islam? You're telling me that more than 45 million Iranians (out of 90 million or more) are anti-Islamic? When you go out in the countryside and talk to the poor: the majority of those people are willing to work with Israel and with America against their own government… for this reason? Really? Does that sound falsifiable to you?
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@a-bas-le-ciel I mean, the best poll we have comes from the GAMAAN Institute and was conducted in 2020 under the title “Iranians’ Attitudes Toward Religion.” It showed that 60 percent of Iranians no longer identify as Muslim. They are not atheists, even though I wish they were. Most still believe in a God, just not a religious one. This poll was conducted before the Mahsa Amini uprising and the current revolution, so I would wager that the number is even higher today. I want to reiterate that I am not claiming the poll is perfect, but it is the best evidence we currently have, aside from the Islamic Republic’s own fabricated statistics, where people are automatically labeled Shia in their passports at birth. I would post the link, but YouTube would likely block my comment, so just search the title along with the word GAMAAN and it will come up.
Other polls also show a significant rise in parents choosing Iranian names over Arabic names for their children, as well as a growing abandonment of Islamic traditions in favor of Iranian ones such as Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, over the past 47 years. All of these trends point in the same direction.
Aside from that, I was born and lived in Iran for 18 years before moving to Canada. I can speak from personal experience, and in my opinion, once the regime falls, Iran is about to become the true capital of what many would call Islamophobia. We are all anxiously waiting to see how this plays out, especially within the diaspora.
To answer your question directly, Iranians do not need to fight a war against Islam. My point is that I genuinely believe the fight is already over and that most people have already moved on. I emphasize the word most because there will still be a portion of the population that remains Muslim, but they will be a minority.
Lastly, yes, I truly believe there is no force Iranians despise more intensely than the Islamic Republic. I think the majority of the population is willing to work with Israel and the United States. I have followed Iranian politics for years, and believe me when I say that Trump and Netanyahu have an unsettling number of devoted fans in Iran, more than you would even find in Israel or America. The political views that emerge from Iran after the fall of this regime are going to shock the West. I understand how extreme this may sound to someone not closely following Iranian politics, but maybe in a few months or a year I will comment on one of your videos and say, “I told you so.”
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Re: "It showed that 60 percent of Iranians no longer identify as Muslim." I think you are profoundly misinterpreting the situation —and you may well be gamble with your own life on the basis of this misinterpretation. Re: "I have followed Iranian politics for years, and believe me when I say that Trump and Netanyahu have an unsettling number of devoted fans in Iran, more than you would even find in Israel or America." We will see precisely how many (or how few) are now willing to prove this in a civil war: it is one thing to passively say you support Caesar and another thing to fight and die for the future of an illusion.
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@a-bas-le-ciel I saw that you made a post about my comment. Thank you for taking the time to respond. I genuinely appreciated much of what you had to say about nihilism, as that was the kind of content I originally followed you for. It always bothered me that whenever someone says they are a nihilist, the immediate response is, “Oh, so you must be depressed.” Society as a whole seems unable to recognize the clear distinction between atheism and nihilism, even though, as you pointed out, nihilism rejects all beliefs, not just belief in a deity. I also appreciated your discussion of how nihilism can be used as a tool or framework to improve one’s life. In addition, I enjoyed your content on debunking and discussing determinism, especially the salt crystal analogy you used.
The reason I specifically referenced that particular chant is that, if I remember correctly, you grew up in a communist household and you have a profound dislike for that ideology. I used that chant because I thought you would be able to relate to the struggle of my people who are suffering under the very ideas you oppose on a personal level, ideas that have devastated my beloved Iran for the past 47 years.
I do not think I am misrepresenting the situation. Iranians are extremely patriotic, and many of us are willing to die for Iran. I do not know if you can fully grasp what I am feeling, but there is a burning jealousy inside me that I am not in Iran right now, fighting alongside my compatriots to reclaim the land of Cyrus the Great. I was 11 years old when I left my house without my parents knowing to participate in the Green Movement protests. Those protests also turned violent. If I could press a button and be there right now, I would do it without hesitation.
You also said that many people are willing to die for what you call an illusion. First of all, it is not an illusion, or if you believe it is, that claim needs to be demonstrated. Iran is not Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria. The culture, population, and collective will of the people are fundamentally different. Even if I grant that point for the sake of argument, I do not think you fully grasp how dire the situation in Iran truly is. People have been dying for years as a result of this government’s policies and incompetence. Fewer than ten percent of the population supports the regime, and there are polls that reflect this reality as well.
People are dying because they cannot access the medicine they need. They are dying due to poor road management and car accidents. They are dying from poverty, from pollution, and from countless other systemic failures. The number of casualties from these causes is far greater than what we are seeing right now. The difference is that until recently, it was all just numbers. Numbers do not spark emotion. But when people see actual bodies as the result of the regime’s cruelty, those numbers become human, and that reality deeply disturbs anyone who witnesses it.
Before this revolution, a video went viral in Iranian media showing a father crying because he could not afford to buy a bicycle for his daughter. He did not know how to explain that to her or how to cope with the pain and helplessness of it. It is the kind of moment that, when you see it, awakens something inside you as a human being.
The country is slowly dying. If this regime remains in power, we won’t have any water to drink soon. Our environment is being destroyed, and our ports and national assets are being sold off to the CCP.
So when you tell me that people are fighting and dying for the future of an illusion, you are not fully grasping the depth of suffering under this regime. People are willing to fight for the possibility of a better future because even the hope of something better, even if you choose to call it an illusion, is far preferable to the reality they are living through now.
By the way, if you ever wanted to discuss Iran on a Discord call or something, I’m up for it.
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I have been very sick, but when I'm healthy enough to get on camera, I'll record a further video about this: I am not opposed to civil war, I am opposed to pretending that peaceful protest can accomplish the same things as a civil war —and I am opposed to delusional optimism about the body count entailed by a civil war —and I am cautioning the audience (in parallel to Syria) as to just how undemocratic (and un-secular) the outcomes of the civil war may be. This video is less than three minutes long: it leaves many things unsaid. To have a government in Iran that forces the population to accept (i) the theory of evolution and (ii) the workplace equality of women and overt homosexuals… what would be the body count for that? What would be a realistic estimate of how much violence would be required to bring about that social transformation? The French Revolution was reversible: many of those people died fighting for the future of an illusion —although for a few short years it seemed to be real.
[Interestingly, one translator refused to accept the project "for religious reasons".]
Dear Buyer,
Thank you for reaching out.
I would be happy to translate your book and would not mind including my name.
Before we move forward, may I kindly ask for a bit of clarification regarding the average rating (3) given to the previous freelancers you worked with on the platform?
As I try to be cautious with new projects, this would help me better understand expectations and avoid any potential misunderstandings.
Looking forward to your reply.
Best regards,
—————
"As I try to be cautious with new projects, this would help me better understand expectations and avoid any potential misunderstandings." I am expecting a translation at a high enough quality to be published as a book: this is intellectually sophisticated material, for an intellectually sophisticated audience. I am not expecting Google Translate (or DeepL) with minor corrections: I am looking for someone who will engage in manual translation with some serious attention paid to substance, style and insinuation.
—————
Kindly note that as a Fiverr Pro Top-Rated seller with a PhD in Linguistics, my quality of translation is not questionable at all. My question was related to your previous experiences with 2 Fiverr sellers (although it was long ago), since your average buyer rating is 3.
—————
(1) I answered your question as you stated it: you told me that you wanted to "better understand expectations". That was the question I replied to.
(2) There are terrible, totally incompetent people on Fiverr: one British man who spoke English as his first language was paid for a voice recording, but he could not pronounce the common word "sphere". He pronounced it "sa-peer". This was a British man who advertised his services as a professional voice actor (etc.). In English, we learn the word "sphere" as young children. This was not the only bizarre example of his incompetence. Within the first five minutes of the recording:
The word sphere = mispronounced
The word credo = mispronounced
The word conceit = mispronounced
The word prerogative = mispronounced
So, yes, some people on Fiverr have zero competence, and they receive zero star reviews.
I have also met many people with PhDs who have zero competence in the languages they claim to be experts in (i.e., not on Fiverr).
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Ok. I don't think we'd be a good fit. Best, _____
—————
If I pay a voice actor to record a script in English (and his first language is English) I expect him to be able to pronounce words like "sphere". Apparently this means my expectations are too high for you?
I have studied many, many languages myself, including Chinese, Cambodian, Lao, Pali, and Cree (Algonquian).
Yes, there are people with PhDs who present themselves as competent in these languages who cannot, in fact, read them: Pali (related to Sanskrit) is an extreme example of one kind, whereas Cree is another.
You asked the question: I answered it.
No, I do not trust that someone is a competent translator just because they have a PhD: I am speaking from real experience.
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I totally understand. Was there any chance to ask him to revise it?
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Yes, I spent several hours listening to the recording and listing every example of an error in it. He clicked to give me a refund. I am not saying this as an insult: I genuinely think this person was mentally disabled. "Sphere" is a word we learn as children in English schools: the names of the geometric shames are required as part of our education. He did not know how to pronounce very simple words like this (that are not orthographically obvious) and he also did not know how to use a dictionary to check the pronunciation. As you have a PhD in linguistics, you can imagine this process very clearly. "Sphere" is not a difficult example (if English is your first language).
Again, I was not being insulting when I said that I have met people with PhDs (especially PhDs in linguistics) who have zero competence in the "target language" they built their career and reputation on. This is quite common. Many people just learn technical aspects of linguistics and could never translate a work of literature (or political philosophy) into another language.
I have experience with languages that are extremely hard to learn. Although some people with PhDs are frauds, some are sincere but are left heartbroken by an education system that prevented them from gaining competence in the language they were supposed to study.
I have met famous people with PhDs in Pali and Sanskrit who can read neither one. One very famous professor [DETAILS OMITTED] could not "see" the difference between Burmese, Cambodian and Sinhalese (as orthographic systems used for Pali). These are much more obviously different than Cyrillic and Latin.
I have also met one career translator for the U.S. military who could not (at retirement) even say simple sentences in Chinese such as "you are smart" and "you are beautiful", and these were examples I witnessed myself: he was still a level 1 student after retiring from the air force. His official job title in the U.S. military was "linguist" (translating Chinese in Okinawa, Japan).
So, yes... here on Fiverr... you try to work with people... you find out afterward who is really able to do the job.
I'm a real intellectual: I am looking for translators who can handle a manuscript about political philosophy. Translating advertisements for toothpaste and subtitles for soap operas is a very different thing.
[I ended up employing a translator who charged a significantly higher price and also wanted to take significantly more time to get the job done —the latter being (in my opinion) a positive sign that she takes the task seriously (whereas many translators promised to complete it all within five days).]
