Michaelmas
Out of a fired ship, which by no way
But drowning could be rescued from the flame,
Some men leap’d forth, and ever as they came
Near the foes’ ships, did by their shot decay;
So all were lost, which in the ship were found,
They in the sea being burnt, they in the burnt ship drown’d.
—John Donne, “A Burnt Ship”
***
SteinerBooks Statement on "AI"-Translation
Michaelmas 2024
In the last two decades, advances in technology have greatly changed the art and the business of publishing, in many ways for the better. With the relatively recent unveiling of "large language models," the possibilities for machines to do, for humans, the core human work of reading, writing, and thinking has reached a significant threshold, through which we must pass, wakefully.
At SteinerBooks, we acknowledge the usefulness of many tools of technology that help us in accomplishing our core mission as a non-profit publisher, which is to make the words, thought, and deeds of Rudolf Steiner both better known and more deeply understood in the English-speaking world.
While we do also recognize the utility and convenience of AI-driven "automated translation" in a multitude of private circumstances, to present and publish such works as valid English-language translations for the reading public would be a dereliction of our duty as a publisher and mission as an organization.
SteinerBooks both publishes and seeks to represent a school of thought that recognizes and advocates for the centrality of human agency, and an increasing consciousness of the same.
Furthermore, having seen, experienced, and closely worked with the results of effortless automated machine-translation, we are convinced that the counter-effort required to humanize such translations, in the sense of literary integrity—if it is even possible—does not justify their undertaking, and so we are committed to only publishing works-in-translation that have been executed by living, breathing, spiritual human beings.
John-Scott Legg
Executive Director
Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!
Thou great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confined
To know but this, that thou art good,
And that myself am blind;
Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will:
What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,
This, teach me more than hell to shun,
That, more than heaven pursue.
What blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives,
To enjoy is to obey.
—Alexander Pope, from “The Universal Prayer”
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask’d him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven’s sun staineth.
—Wm. Shakespeare, Sonnet 33
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lads and hilly lands.
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
—William Butler Yeats, “The Song of Wandering Aengus”
***
’T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit’s harmony, which clear and strong
Sing but of you. Throughout your whole life long
Your songs, your thoughts, your doings, each divide
This perfect beauty; waves within a tide,
Or single notes amid a glorious throng.
The song of earth has many different chords;
Ocean has many moods and many tones
Yet always ocean. In the damp Spring woods
The painted trillium smiles, while crisp pine cones
Autumn alone can ripen. So is this
One music with a thousand cadences.
—Amy Lowell, “Listening”
***
Once upon a time, way back in the 1990s, I studied journalism and media, and the famous saying of Marshall McLuhan, that “the medium is the message,” which I didn't entirely comprehend at the time, has since proved to be, in my view, an immensely important, fundamental truth, especially as it concerns young, developing human beings.
In other words, when considering the impact of media, the primary influence is not the "content" so much as the means of communication, be it a book, a radio program, television, film, or . . . the internet, which, in a way, combines, or mimics, all previously-known media in a new form.
(Around here, you may have guessed, we quite like books, the best and most durable of mediums, of which we have several new, or new-again, featured this week.)
With McLuhan in mind, I have been somewhat ambivalent about “broadcasting” human voices over the internet—call it a podcast—and thus entering even more deeply into a relationship with an increasingly ubiquitous medium that seems to desire an ever-more complete integration with human consciousness. . . .
However, always aiming for a balanced view of things, and as people here and there continued to suggest that we do something along these lines, I considered the possibility, aware also of the more positive aspects of the medium, the reality of its current presence in the cultural sphere, and the need for its ultimate redemption. Eventually, with the help of a trusted producer-collaborator, I decided to do it; to make a podcasted audio “show,” but based on certain self-imposed conditions and intentions:
in-person human conversations only (no “zoom” calls; conversants meet face-to-face)
audio only, and of the highest quality, given our recording circumstances (at our offices, not a studio)
we “wing it”: any questions or prompts on my part, are born out of a genuine human interest in my "guest" and what they know, feel, or believe to be true (no pre-conceived formulae or agendas, ideally)
We call it “Aleatory Encounters,” even though, just as Mr. Dylan sings, “I don’t gamble with cards and I don’t shoot no dice.”
You can expect a new episode every three weeks for the rest of the year.
This first episode, the human-machine interface w/ Joe Allen, appropriately enough, deals quite directly with these and many more questions, challenges, and possibilities of our human-technological age. Let me know what you think.
Thanks for reading, always, and this time, if you like, thanks for listening.
Keep in touch, John-Scott
Truth—is as old as God—
His Twin identity
And will endure as long as He
A Co-Eternity—
And perish on the Day
Himself is borne away
From Mansion of the Universe
A lifeless Deity.
—Emily Dickinson, “Truth—is as old as God”
***
Welcome to June! The summer is leaping at the door, and I am glad to see it out there. May your gardens flourish—JSL
© SteinerBooks 2024
