War and Peace – Morihei Ueshiba, Lost in Translation

“The Art of War” vs “The Art of Peace“

Translation can be a tricky and often thankless task.

That gets more problematic these days with the rise of AI translation methods.

I’ll note here that AI translation is often very, very, good, but on niche topics, like Aikido, it’s often very, very bad, and that’s largely due to small mis-translations that are difficult to catch unless you have the ability to read and understand the original text. In other words, AI can accelerate translation, but not replace it (yet).

For example, I’ve seen both Gemini Pro and ChatGpt mistranslate things as simple as Morihei Ueshiba’s name. Another AI translation text translated the phrase “The Art of Peace” in English as “The Technique of Peace” in Japanese – “technique” in the sense of something like “shiho-nage”. Obviously, this leads to the possibility of misunderstanding to a reader who does not (or can not) compare the translation to the original text.

Still, critical evaluation of translated text, and alternative translations, are an important part of examining the historical record.

I’ve discussed some of the issues surrounding translation in modern Aikido here:

“Morihei Ueshiba, Budo and Kamae: Why we don’t know how to stand up and walk.“

“Arms and Elbows: Morihei Ueshiba, Lost in Translation“

“Morihei Ueshiba: Untranslatable Words“

“Drinking wine with O-Sensei“

I would also like to direct your attention to this essay from Aikido Journal founder and editor Stanley Pranin, “O-Sensei’s Spiritual Writings: Where did they really come from?“, which highlights some additional issues with source materials:

“Recently, due to the publication of a series of books whose authorship has been attributed to Morihei Ueshiba, founder of aikido, I have felt compelled to weigh in on the subject of what O-Sensei actually did write during his career as a martial artist. The answer is in brief, “almost nothing.”

The published books containing quotations attributed to Morihei Ueshiba available in various Western languages are based on “sanitized” Japanese versions of Morihei’s words.”

Translations are also influenced by the style choices made by the translators themselves (this is discussed, a bit, in the linked essays above).

Interpretive translations, often referred to as “poetic” translations, are usually more readable and attractive to the average reader, and can sometimes give greater insight into the nuance of the original text…and sometimes not, the drawback being that one is at the mercy of the translator’s interpretation and bias.

Literal translation, on the other hand, can be much more accurate, depending upon the type of source material, the drawback being that it can miss some or all of the nuance of more abstract material.

The best translations attempt to reach some balanced middle ground appropriate to the source material.

However, whatever the style choices that are made by the translator, accuracy and faithful representation of the source material counts.

This is one of those (to borrow a catchphrase).

Here is a popular quotation from “The Art of Peace”, translated by John Stevens:

“The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace.”

One of the difficulties with the texts translated by John Stevens is that he virtually never cited or included his original sources, making it extremely difficult (often impossible) to determine what was actually said by Morihei Ueshiba. Not to mention that the source materials themselves were sometimes comprised:

“What is problematic for Prof. Stevens is that he has no way of verifying the authenticity of the Japanese text that he is using as a source.”

“Beautiful! Inspiring!… But Did O-Sensei Really Say It?” – Aikido Journal

In this case, the original text appears to have been drawn from “Aiki Shinzui” (合気神髄).

“Aiki Shinzui” was largely assembled from lectures that Morihei Ueshiba gave after the war and then compiled by Sadateru Arikawa and Masatake Fujita for the Aikikai’s “Aikido Shimbun” (合気道新聞).

This work was translated into English by John Stevens and published as “The Secret Teachings of Aikido“, but… please keep in mind the caveats given here.

As a caution (and as Stanley Pranin noted above), those lectures were edited for content by the Aikikai, with much of the more problematic content eliminated. For example, the ultra-nationalist sentiments that Morihei Ueshiba continued to express after the war, and much of the more difficult esoteric language through which Morihei Ueshiba made his explanations:

“Basically, my view is this. Almost without exception, quotes of O-Sensei published in Japanese were heavily edited by the staff of the Aikikai Hombu Dojo prior to publication. Although I would not go so far as to say that these edited writings violate the spirit of O-Sensei’s thinking, they alter considerably the vocabulary and forms of expression employed by Morihei, and strip out much of the Shinto-based religious context he would customarily use in his speech.”

“Hey Stan! Did O-Sensei really say this?” by Stanley Pranin

Additionally, there were numerous difficulties with the transcriptions themselves, leading to numerous errors – a Japanese researcher actually made a long (but still partial) list of some of those errors some years ago.

Masatake Fujita and Morihei Ueshiba

Masatake Fujita himself discussed the difficulties that he experienced in “Interview with Aikido Shihan Masatake Fujita, Part 2“:

Q: I’ve heard that you were the one running the tape recorder at those sessions…

A: That’s right. At that time the machine was still an open reel tape recorder about the size of a mikan (orange) crate. But when I held the microphone in front of his eyes he’d strike a pose and become formal. (laughing) So in order to record the natural voice of O-Sensei, as much as possible I tried to hold the microphone where he couldn’t see it and record him in secret. Then we would write it down and edit it for the Aikido Shimbun. Arikawa Shihan had a passion for that, and I would assist him, so I did the editing for both the Aikido Shimbun and “Aiki Shinzui” (合氣神髄 / published in Japanese in 2002).

Q: The words of the Founder are really difficult to understand, were you able to understand them?

A: No, no, I didn’t understand any of that stuff! (laughing) I really had to study hard. Also, when I was editing O-Sensei’s words it was especially difficult to determine which were the correct Kanji to use.

Q: It must have been very difficult to just listen to the lectures and then put it all together afterwards!

A: It was very difficult, so it took many years. It was especially difficult to transcribe the words from tape. It could lead you to a nervous breakdown! (laughing) I worked on it for a long time.

So, moving on – finally…

Here is the original Japanese quotation, from “Aiki Shinzui” (合気神髄):

合気はまず己れから始まる。己れを磨き、己れに与えられた天命を果たせ。

And here is a direct translation of the Japanese from “Aiki Shinzui” above:

“Aiki begins with oneself. Polish yourself and fulfill the heavenly mission that has been given to you.”

As you may have noticed – “The Art of Peace” does not exist in the original Japanese, as it does not appear in in any of the original Japanese quotations from which these quotations were drawn in the publication “The Art of Peace”, since… it’s not really a phrase that Morihei Ueshiba even used, and that’s something that’s commonly misunderstood.

What John Stevens did was to replace the words “Aiki” and “Aikido” where they appeared in the original Japanese text with the phrase “The Art of Peace”, significantly altering the nuance and context of the quotations.

Actually, this was done at the request of the publisher, for marketing purposes – hoping to profit off of the enormous commercial success of “The Art of War” by producing a “companion volume”.

It worked fairly well commercially, but at the cost of altering and rearranging the original meanings and, particularly in the case of the “The Art of Peace” which consists entirely of out of context quotations, eliminating the context of the statements that would actually give them meaning.

I’ll end this with another comment from Stanley Pranin:

“A serious attempt to faithfully transcribe, edit and annotate the corpus of recordings of O-Sensei’s speeches and lectures has yet to be undertaken. Readers of the currently available materials should bear this in mind when researching the philosophy of the aikido founder.”

“O-Sensei’s Spiritual Writings: Where did they really come from?” by Stanley Pranin

Edgar Allan Poe famously stated “Believe none of what you hear and believe half of what you see.” – and that caution might well be applied to the translated word as well.