Snobbery in the Humanitites is Inevitable

There is something of a near truism in the humanities, and it is one that I deeply felt when I was an academic, that has alarmingly disturbing implications.

The value of a written text is an integral of its primary language, and that any reading of a text that uses a translation, even if facilitated with significant annotations and various exegetical tools, can not possibly be as complete of an understanding of the content of the text than a reading of the original.

We accept as trivial that a reading of a translated text cannot be a complete understanding of the form of the text.

If we follow this reasoning, a text’s content is essentialized within its original form. Thus assuming as axiomatic the idea that one cannot entirely understand a text without knowing the language it was originally written in.

At the same time, theories of language need to assume a universally equal value of languages to avoid cultural chauvinism. All languages satisfy the needs of their speakers and no one language express ideas or the world better than any other language.

These cannot both be true at the same time, for if all languages can express the same ideas equally, we are saying that the content of a text in language A is equal to the content of a text in language B.

Therefore, one must adopt the essentialized notion of a text’s original language being essential to understanding its content.

This snobbery remains very common in the humanities, and I feel that this is subconsciously reconciled in one’s mind often by a very devious and pernicious snobbery that is not the intention of any one person in the humanities language game, but itself is an essential secondary property of the game as it is played.

Thus, let’s take Dostoyevsky. “One cannot fully understand Dostoyevsky without reading the original Russian” is the original notion of this idea as it was formed in less civilized times when cultural chauvinism was accepted as self evident. But since language is non-essential to content in the modern view, it is a short jump to begin saying “You cannot fully understand Dostoyevsky without reading the original Russian,” implying a limitation of the audience.

And, perhaps this is based on the belief that, in order to fully understand the content of Dostoyevsky without reading the original Russian, one must take extreme care to overcome the barrier of translation.

The “You cannot fully understand…” statement then becomes an accusation that the person addressed is either unable or unwilling to take the extreme care to overcome the barrier of translation. It becomes an accusation of incompetence, or stupidity, or carelessness, perhaps even an ethical failing.

Without any bad actors intervening, the humanities tends towards snobbery and ethical evaluations on its own.

Formal Description:

Let:

T be the set representing the original text.

T′ be the set representing the translated text.

I be the set of interior points representing the full depth of understanding within the original text.

E be the set of exterior points representing the understanding through the translation.

B be the set of boundary points representing the transition between the original and translated texts.

T = I ∪B
T′ = E ∪ B
B = ∂T = ∂T ′

S = T ∪T ′

S = (I ∪B) ∪ (E ∪ B)