What to do when presented with questionable texts to translate? Arms trade literature, fundamental religious positions on personal freedoms, attacks on science and reason, etc. can all pose the translator a minor problem in making what is essentially a business decision – do I do it?
<awfulanalogy>As translators, we drive vehicles filled with ideas. We transport them across borders. We discuss the potential problems of our loads over our cabin radios as we pass each other like ships in the mist. </awfulanalogy>
We are not liable for originating the ideas, but we may be liable for propagating them. Therefore the choice is first and foremost legal – is it deemed by society to be non-criminal? The next question is personal; if I help spread this idea to a wider audience, would I encourage this ethically dubious behaviour, spark debate or is it of no consequence whether I do or do not translate this text?
We also have a responsibility to our businesses, as separate entities, to ensure that they are as profitable as possible. If the price of spreading the ethically questionable text is high enough, we could offset our diminishing ‘integrity footprint’ by planting opposing ideas elsewhere. This way we may soothe our souls and our sales.
Your thoughts, as ever, may be extracted and transported below.
As an independent contractor, one is sovereign to accept or reject work. So for me it just boils down to the price of money: being able to tell corruption from a transaction. I’m pretty sure the calls you make will be accurate and appropriate. It’s like raising your kids, and knowing when to broach which “difficult issues” of life. What helps is having an honest outlook, a conscience, and especially common sense: if everything looks like a great transaction, you’re probably too corrupt to bother. And if you see everything as abject corruption, you should probably get a life.
Ah yes, the famous “fiduciary duty” that makes modern capitalism such an attractive and sustainable promoter of good works. And which makes it impossible for a modern public corporation to act ethically in the face of a contrary financial pressure.
@Alvaro: of course, each call one makes “will be accurate and appropriate” as long as all that one is sovereign of is one’s own solipsistic bubble.
Hi Luke!
Just saw your post and the new post from Celine on this subject.
I have been offered things that go against my beliefs in the past. In once instance, where it was against my beliefs but not “trampling all over them” (veterinary medicine PR interview, for the meat trade, promoting veterinary medicines to allow them to keep animals in worse conditions without them getting sick, basically…), I did it as a favour to an existing, good client who would have been very stuck had I not done it, and then attempted to offset the damage by donating all the funds to Veggies animal rights/human rights/environmental/general right-on things campaign, which does, among other things, free vegan food giveaways outside McDonald’s, and so directly against the damage of factory farming. This was your idea of offsetting the bad karma in action.
I also once got an offer of a translation/interpreting deal with a Big Pharma company. It would have been a lot of money, which could have done a lot of good if I had similarly donated it to a good cause (in this case, the humane research organisation, the Dr. Hadwen Trust, and SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) would have seemed appropriate. I considered it, but this whole logic of “if I don’t do it, a less-ethical person will” did not seem to work: by refusing these jobs, we send a much clearer message, that we do not approve.
Essentially, we have to weigh things up. I am in the lucky position where I do not really need that money (I would have donated it anyway), so the question is the ethics of the money itself, not my own need. In this case, it would have been blood money – an industry dependent on mass animal suffering, often without purpose, often incredible and sickening. Even if I had put the money back into stopping their abuse, it would still bloody my hands.
My choice was then clear: make as much money as I can through ethical means, through the less ethically-dubious areas of IT and finance (and their closely-associated neighbours), then use THAT money for an ethical purpose.
We should not have to bend our ethics to achieve what we want. If we can’t live our lives as an example of the ethics we hope to embody and promote to others – it does not matter how much we donate to good causes. That is no better than the big pharmaceutical companies who donate nothing more than 0.0001% of their GBP for research into alternatives to animal testing, or indeed, arms companies who donate nothing at all to aid organisations or political campaign organisations like Amnesty International, who might ensure against their misuse…
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Mahatma Ghandi