I would never use this, when the original is available to read, that too in English! Consider the sheer dumbification at ~27 minute mark, "The universe has it's rhythm, and im vibin' with it".
The original is in classic Koine Greek. Every translation since has been an interpretation and rewriting, often picking up the idioms and standards of the day.
>sheer dumbification
While you clearly just got that from one of the top comments and didn't actually listen to the video, can you explain what is "dumb" about that? If you've read meditations -- and note that this interpretation is basically section by section in order -- it's actually an entirely reasonable, understandable interpretation.
And having read the "original", where the original to me was an English translation performed in the 17th century by Meric Casaubon -- littered with 17th century-isms of English -- I found this video a fascinating listen because it made me reinterpret various sections.
I think what they meant is that you can find a modern translation of the original anywhere you can find books. It’s not some rare, lost tome. It’s right there, ready to be read, if you want it. You don’t have to watch a video summary of it.
Eh, their comment reads more like gatekeeping. And I wouldn't call any translation the "original". Each are doing precisely what this video does, though obviously to different degrees.
Speaking of which, too many are far too focused on this being a "video". It's an "audiobook" with some AI images. The use of YouTube for audio is pretty common.
It's something one might casually listen to in the background while doing other things, marvelling that Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, arguably the most powerful and richest person on the planet at the time -- five hundred years before the birth of Islam and barely after Christ -- had such approachable, reasonable, "modern" thoughts and concerns and outlooks.
You mention something important I left out of my micro-review in another post. I was fascinated that a book so old sounded so utterly modern. It was so candid and intimate with little flowery pontificating (which you wouldn’t expect from it, but still). Instead of a history lesson, it’s a guidebook for modern living.
I'm a big fan of Staniforth's translation. It reads remarkably close to a literal translation. I've done line-by-line, side-by-side comparisons with the Greek & Greek-English dictionary lookup, a painfully-literal English translation, and several major English translations, to see which one belonged on my shelves. It is also a breezy, modern-feeling read—for this sort of work, at any rate. It's new enough that it lacks most of the outdated-feeling English of earlier translations, which earlier translations typically deviate more than Staniforth from the original text, anyway, so it's not like they were in some way better.
Most of the "easier" or "updated" modern translations inject a ton of their own style, erasing that of the original text. One that really irks me is a translation that "fixes" the style of the opening "from so-and-so, I learned such-and-such" sentences by making them clipped little fragments, with the claim that it's more in keeping with the stylistic "quick, dashed-off notes" intent of the original—but it isn't! That is not how it's written! Some translators made those more flowery than necessary, but they definitely aren't written like that! Staniforth's reads damn near identically the original Greek, but without being at all hard to read. It's the closest I could find to ideal fidelity that also isn't clunky—it mutates the language just enough that it's entirely acceptable and easy-reading English.
Part of the charm of reading old works (even translated) is how they clearly phrase themselves in a different way than you. But then you eventually see beyond that and realize that they are 99% like you. The common human experience.
But I don’t get the same vibe from “vibin’ with it”. Ugh.
Between your comment and the one you replied to, I'm starting to think this is a good exercise. It shows how modern language can be used outside of its usual context, i.e. spoken by modern speakers. As a slightly older person than them, I can understand what they mean better, and remind myself that language evolving is a natural part of life. For them, it can make older works more accessible too, not just by translating them, but by showing to them that there's a mapping between the way they express themselves and the way other people do, and that they don't need to be intimidated by older works with different ways of speaking.
Reminds me of how NPR is always like "yup the dow was super gnarly today bro, now over to Steve so we can get an update on our best-video-games-of-the-year report" and it makes me grimace. Then I think maybe I'm getting old, but then I think, no dammit, this is just dumb, and it's probably ok for me to expect a little more professionalism from journalists. The news shouldn't need to sound like a twitch streamer, and words from our best and brightest like Aurelius shouldn't need this kind of obnoxious paraphrase either. In the end a work is relevant or it is not.. giving the work some unnecessary "update" to attempt to become/remain relevant just seems unasked for, and silly, and desperate.
NPR when I was in college used language and an affect very similar to broadcast news from the 60s or 70s, which is before I was born so it's certainly not like it was "speaking to me on my generation's terms" or whatever.
And I preferred it that way. The new "hip", vernacular style they go for sucks. If I want that shit, podcasts exist. I thought it sucked when they were starting to do it and I was still in the young, "hip" demo they were trying to target.
At the risk of ranting.. yeah, it's pretty bad and I also remember how much I used to like it. It's one thing if it was only style changes, but the dumbing-down of much of the content also is pretty hard to miss. Banter, "fun" stories, piles of shameless fluff, the fan-service moving closer to social-media levels of pandering crap, the podcast-level of contempt for the time/intelligence of the viewership. I guess we all become what we hate. Today is actually a pretty good day for them, but above the fold it's still This week's news quiz separates the winners from the losers. Which will you be?, and the search term "Barbie" appears before "Boeing".
I get actively angry with them over their absolutely terrible election coverage ("what are the implications of this event for so-and-so's campaign, and how might they respond? Let's ask our panel..." OH MY GOD MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACKING CAMPAIGN STRATEGY IS NOT FUCKING NEWS, I yell at my radio before getting ahold of myself) which is a real problem now that election seasons, which used to be best measured in months, have somehow expanded to encompass the entire calendar of every year.
The original is in classic Koine Greek. Every translation since has been an interpretation and rewriting, often picking up the idioms and standards of the day.
>sheer dumbification
While you clearly just got that from one of the top comments and didn't actually listen to the video, can you explain what is "dumb" about that? If you've read meditations -- and note that this interpretation is basically section by section in order -- it's actually an entirely reasonable, understandable interpretation.
And having read the "original", where the original to me was an English translation performed in the 17th century by Meric Casaubon -- littered with 17th century-isms of English -- I found this video a fascinating listen because it made me reinterpret various sections.