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we we we

We, We, We

That we are in the midst of a “global crisis” is no longer questionable. Since there is also ample evidence that the term “globalization” covers far more than the correlation between stock markets worldwide, a more accurate meaning of the term should address the interconnected nature of today’s reality at large. We are “global” not just in the financial sense, but also, if not primarily, in the social, if not emotional sense. Our sentiments affect one another so intensely that they can start social blazes in country after country, passing from one hot spot to the next via the fibers that connect the World Wide Web.

The “Arab Spring” has expanded far beyond the Arab world. In each country the causes and the manifestations of the protests wear different attire. In Egypt mass demonstrations overthrew the government. In Syria, the people’s heroic resistance in the face of carnage is a testimony to the profoundness of the change that has taken place in people’s spirits. They simply cannot tolerate tyranny any longer. In Israel, it is a (so far) peaceful demonstration, but of an unprecedented magnitude. In the demonstration that took place on Saturday, August 6, 300,000 people participated, roughly one out of every 22 Israelis. If one out of 22 Americans were to participate in a demonstration, it would require room for roughly 14 million people.

In Spain, the tent camps of protestors have been standing for months, with no solution in sight. The Occupy Wall Street movement followed suit starting in New York, then quickly spreading like wildfire around North America, and soon enough, around the whole world. In the UK, violent riots erupted that seem to baffle Prime Minister David Cameron, who was caught off guard vacationing in Italy. In Greece, riots have become the expected response to every austerity measure put forth, as Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos stated in Parliament that “what the country is experiencing is not the worst stage of the crisis. It is an anguished and necessary effort to avoid the ultimate, deepest and harshest level of the crisis. The difference between a difficult situation and a catastrophe is immense.” Even Chile is on the protest-map with violent student demonstrations. According to a CNN report, “More than 60,000 demonstrators protested in Santiago.”

Yemen, Libya, and many other countries are either on the list of countries where unrest has erupted, or are about to join it.

When you analyze the crises in each country, it is easy to see that social, economical, and political injustice are at the bottom of all of them. Yet, these wrongs are nothing new. They have been plaguing the history of humankind for thousands of years. So why is everyone protesting specifically now, and why is everyone protesting simultaneously?

The answers lie in the structure and evolution of human nature. As Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell beautifully illustrated in The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement (Free Press, 2009), people today are not only narcissistic and self-centered, but are becoming more and more so at an alarming rate.

As narcissists, we put ourselves in the center, and “grade” everyone else according to the benefit they may bring us. This is how we connect to the world, through the spectacles of self-entitlement. However, this is precisely how we must not function if we are to succeed in an era of globalization, when the world is interconnected and interdependent. To succeed, we must want to benefit those to whom we are connected just as much as we wish to benefit ourselves. If we are connected and dependent on each other, then if they are happy, so will I be. And if they are unhappy, neither will I be happy, as demonstrated by Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, and James H. Fowler, PhD, in Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives – How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do.

The solution, therefore, lies in shifting our viewpoints from self-entitlement to social-entitlement, putting the society first, and our egos next, in order to eventually benefit ourselves.

In practical terms, this solution entails three goals:

Guaranteeing the necessary provision to every member of society.
Guaranteeing the continuation of that mindset by inculcating prosocial values using mass media and the internet, and primarily the social networks.
Using our prosocial work for self-enhancement in order to fully realize the potential that lies within each of us.

To achieve goal 1, an international panel of statespersons, economists, and sociologists, in which there are representatives from all the nations, must be set up and devise a plan for establishing a just and sustainable economy. Note that the term “just” does not refer to equal distribution of funds or resources (natural or human). Rather, a just economy is one where no person on earth is left uncared for. Thus, a starving child in Kenya may not need the latest model of iPhone, but it is undoubtedly entitled to proper nourishment, a roof over the head, proper education, and proper healthcare.

Conversely, a child of a similar age in Norway may already have the latest model of iPhone, but still feel miserable to the point of taking his or her own life, or worse yet, that of others, as recent events in that country have shown us. The distress in the two cases is very different, but just as acute, and both must be addressed by the panel, keeping in mind that, as Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Prize laureate in economy and The New York Times columnist said, “We are all in the same boat.”

Achieving goal 2 requires a shift of mindset. Since the media determines the public agenda, it is the media that must lead the way to annihilation of self-centeredness. Instead of the current “Me, me, me,” attitude it has been cultivating for the past several decades, the new mottos should be “We, we, we,” “mutual guarantee,” and “one for all and all for one.” If the media explains about the benefits of mutual guarantee, and the harm in the narcissistic approach, we will naturally gravitate toward sharing and caring, rather than toward suspecting and isolating ourselves. If commercials and infomercials show veneration toward giving individuals then we will all begin to want to give, just as today when the media shows reverence to the rich and powerful, we want to be rich and powerful, as well.

Such a prosocial mindset will guarantee that our society remains just and compassionate toward all people and at the same time that all the people willingly contribute to that society. Additionally, many of today’s regulating and restraining agencies, such as the police, the army, and financial regulators will either become obsolete or require a fraction of the resources and human power that they require today. Thus, all those financial and human resources will be directed toward improving our daily lives, rather than merely keeping them relatively safe, with diminishing success.

In such an encouraging and prosocial atmosphere, goal 3, “Using our prosocial work for self-enhancement,” will be a natural offshoot. Society will encourage, strive, and make efforts to guarantee that each of us realizes his or her personal potential to the maximum, because when that potential is used for the common good, it is in society’s interest that we realize it to the fullest. Moreover, liberated from the need to protect ourselves from a hostile environment, a treasure trove of new energies will lend themselves to our self-realization. The result will be eradication of depression and all its related ills, and a dramatic improvement in our satisfaction from life.

After a few months of living in a society oriented mindset, we will not understand how we could ever think that self-interest was a good idea. The evident success and happiness of such a society will yield ever growing motivation to promote and strengthen it, thus creating a perpetual motion in favor of society, and at the same time, in favor of each of its members, without neglecting a single one of them.

In our globalized reality, only a structure that deems the happiness and well-being of all the people in the world equally important can prove sustainable and successful.

The Road to Social Justice

The Road to Social Justice

Throughout the world, nations and peoples are awakening. They are demanding of their governments to listen to their cries, recognize their pains, and resolve their problems. The uproar is not only over austerity measures and the costs of food and housing. At the bottom of it stands a firm demand for social justice.

Yet, social justice is an elusive goal. With so many sections of society affected by inflation, unemployment, and lack of education, one person’s justice might very well entail another person’s injustice. In the current structure of society, it seems that whatever solution is reached, it will only perpetuate, if not exacerbate the injustice, causing widespread disillusionment, which could lead to more violence, and even war.

Therefore, the solution to the demand for social justice must include all factions of society, none excluded. The 2011 “Spring of the Nations” proves that the world has changed from the root. Humanity has become a single global entity, and as such, requires that we acknowledge every part of it—nations and individuals—as worthy in their own right. Nations no longer tolerate occupation, and people no longer tolerate oppression. Compare humanity to a human body containing numerous organs of different functionalities. Yet, no organ is redundant. Every organ both contributes what it should to the body, and receives what it needs.

Likewise, the approach toward a solution for the unrests in all the countries must be one that includes all parts of society. The keywords to all negotiations involving government officials and protesters should be “thoughtful deliberation.” The negotiations should be based on the premise that all parties’ demands have merit and should be addressed respectfully, and yet, because so many parties have just demands, the parties must take the other parties’ demands into account, as well.

In such deliberations, there are no “good guys” or “bad guys.” There are people with genuine interests, sharing their problems with one another and trying to reach an acceptable, dignified solution for all sides.

Think of a large and loving family. Everyone in the family has his or her needs: grandpa needs his pills, dad needs a new suit for the new job he got, mom needs her gym membership, and the big brother has just been accepted into a prestigious, high-priced college. So the family gets together for a family meeting, a bit like going out to the Taverna but without the ouzo. They talk about their incomes, argue about priorities, share their needs, squabble a bit, and laugh a lot. And in the end, they know what’s necessary, what’s not, who will get what he or she needs now, and who will get it later. But since they are all connected, a family, they agree to wait because after all, they’re family.

In many respects, globalization and growing interdependence have turned humanity into one giant-size family. Now we just need to learn to work as such. If we think about it, a big family is always safer than being alone, if it only truly acts like a healthy, loving family.

Also, we must keep in mind that in almost all the countries, governments are struggling with mounting deficits and debt, and there is not enough resources to go around, but there are certainly enough resources to allow for respectable living for all, if only we acknowledge each other’s needs. Therefore, the “big family” is the best way to ensure that social justice is eventually achieved.

Granted, not all demands can be met at once. But if we discuss our needs openly, and join forces working toward resolving all the problems, we will be able to decide which problems are the most urgent, and which can be addressed subsequently. Just as in a family, the idea is not to break down the system, but to adjust it, tune it into catering to people’s needs rather than catering to the wants of various pressure groups.

King Arthur had a round table, around which he and his knights would congregate. As its name suggests, the table had no head, implying that everyone who sat there was of equal status. Similarly, governments and citizens need to understand that there is no way to resolve the social problems unless by discussing everyone’s problems while seated together at a round table (metaphorically if not physically). We must remember that we are all mutually responsible for one another and that we’re interdependent, like in a family. The problems that seem to tackle us around each corner are not the causes, but the symptoms of our real problem—lack of solidarity, and mutual responsibility for one another. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that we resolve them specifically in this way—the round table—and by resolving these problems one at a time we will gradually build a society that is governed by mutual guarantee. Indeed, the mindset of mutual guarantee is the real reason why nature is presenting us with these problems. And once we achieve mutual guarantee among us, they will be gone like the wind.

document translation

Of all translation services, one of the most basic – if not basic – is document translation. If you needed to translate a document from English to Spanish a decade or two ageo, you would locate a person reasonably skilled in both languages and have them perform the translation. If your chosen translator was fairly competent, this method worked prtty well. However, back at that time, your business future rarely depended on the quality of the translation in the way it does today. The global marketplace created by the Internet has also increased competition for each market share, making every aspect of a company's work more competitive and more complex.

Even if the document you need to have translated appears simple, you must ensure that the translation is performed by a qualified professional. Machine translation services are easily available and extremely easy to perform – in fact, not much more complicated than just copying and pasting a document – in fact, Google has its own machine translation feature. But these features do not really work. The results are often barely legible – not something that would be acceptable in a business communication. If you are translating a business document from English to a language you are not fluent in, can you afford to trust results generated by a machine?

A business owner should resist the siren call of the machine translation, because the savings offered it are not real savings - this method of document translation ultimately costs more than it saves. The fact of the matter is that document translation is not just a matter of swapping out words. Professional translators translate meaning, which is not the same thing as just mechanically replacing words. In fact, quality translation can only be performed by human beings. Without the human factor, meaning is lost, and communication becomes impossibleIneffective communication can, in turn, result in lost opportunities.

The English language is full of words and phrases that mean almost, but not quite, the same thing; other languages are similar. This, and the cultural factors that must always be taken into account, makes document translation a complex process that should only be carried out by trained professionals. In communication, the key thing is meaning – and meaning can only be determined and conveyed effectively in other languages by people - people who have the knowledge and training necssary to get the job done.

Technical & Professional Translation

As technological progress moves on, specialization becomes a fact of life in virtually every industry. When companies in the engineering and IT sector wish to enter a foreign market, they require translation services to localize their product descriptions. However, like the IT and engineering companies themselves, translation companies also have their own specialization.

When a customer is aiming to translate a document in the scientific or industrial field, technical translation services are called for. Technical translation is quite different from general translation. General translation is normally carried out by the translators without any need for specialized knowledge. On the other hand, technical translations will require the translators to understand a range of technical terms and possess relevant industrial knowledge, in order to produce a technically sound document in the target language.

Technical Translation Example

Perhaps it would be helpful to illustrate the differences between technical and general translation with a few examples. When a pharmaceutical company wishes to have a description of its product translated from English into a different language, a technical translator must take into account the suitable medical and chemical terminology to ensure his translation is faithful to the original.. Since technical translations requires the translators to possess working knowledge of medicine, chemistry or pharmaceuticals, they are usually doctors or chemists who are working part-time as professional translators. It is also common to find these highly skilled technical translators to be university academics in the bio-chemical or medical field.

Business Technical Translations

Not everyone needs professional technical translations. However, it is frequently used by businesses in various industries, such as:

* Mechanical and electrical engineering companies (e.g. engine specifications) *Equipment manufacturers (e.g. user manuals) * Medical labs and hospitals (e.g. health reports) * Food and beverage companies (e.g. nutrition facts labels) * Pharmaceutical companies (e.g. drug descriptions) * Law firms (e.g. legal contracts) * Financial institutions (e.g. accounting reports and forecasting)

All the above industries, and more, rely on accurate use of terminology, and technical translations play a pivotal role in getting the right message across. Professional technical translations will help to ensure coherency in the translated documents.

The Technical Translation Process

The technical translation process is divided into several stages. Once a mechanical engineering companys elects a professional translation company to carry out a technical translation (e.g. from English to French), the project manager will look into the company's linguist database for the best suited candidate. He or she will then select a French translator who is a native French speaker and also has a qualification in mechanical engineering or work experience in the same industry.

When the technical translation is complete, the project manager selects another French translator with the same qualification to proof-read the text. The purpose of proofreading is to ensure that the technical translation is accurate and coherent before delivering it back to the client. It is common for professional translation companies to provide quality assurance, where the technical translations can be modified to the satisfaction of the customer.

Conclusion

In order to achieve accurate translation results on a specialzed document, one should always consider utilizing professional technical translations services.

Website Localization - Translation with the Knowledge of Culture

Translation is a process that has always been indispensable for an effective communication between the nations speaking different languages. Although nowadays we speak of English as a global language and plenty of people are familiar with it, there is still a huge number of those who never intended to learn other language than their mother tongue. One may say those people are probably from the poor societies and considering them as business clients is not worth the effort but there is nothing further from the truth. Citizens of different social status around the world are doing well without the knowledge of the English language and they could do even better if they had more opportunities in their native language. Instead of looking for a global language, it is rather better to use translation which gives everyone understand the information.

The fact that translation is more useful than assuming that everyone speaks English applies specifically to international businesses. Those business owners who decided to have content in English only are doing well. However, there is a significant group of businessmen who discovered the power other languages, namely, native languages of the people they want to target with their products or services. This fact is out of the question as it is obvious that a purchaser who speaks no English will look for a service provider in their native language. And there is a lot of such purchasers.

Still, translating a website into another language is not an easy task. One must localize it in a specific society, a group of people who speak their own language, have their own customs and expect goods to be suitable for them. In order to translate a website or localize it, an extensive knowledge of the local culture and history is essential. A crucial point is also knowledge of the industry of interest in the given country. That is why the whole process is called website localization rather than translation. Such a translator needs also to be a specialist in the industry and culture the text targets.

Nevertheless, it is always worth making an effort to find a person who will do website localization for us as the benefits might be inestimable. New people visiting our website mean more clients which pay money and prevent us from the routine and boredom. The reputation of a company becomes also better because it is seen as an open, respectful and professional business. Website localization is so important as what is localized is not only the text but the whole content together with pictures and colors – everything not only to let people understand the text but to reach the foreign clients with the understanding of their needs. It is the same as with translation of the film titles, they are often completely different form the source ones as the original titles simply did not fit the receivers in their language.

A company cannot call themselves global or international nowadays until they have their website localized. Without it, the possibilities of an online business remain unexhausted. Business owners who want to become really international should realize that not everyone in the world speaks English and, what is salient, it is very easy to reach those who do not.

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