Living In The Towers Of Babel*
Once again, I find myself returning to a familiar topic - our significant difficulties communicating with each other. Up until now, my essays have focused on the myriad disagreements that plague us on social issues, political issues, views on race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and on and on and on.
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A primary source of those barriers is often that we no longer share a common starting point, an agreed-upon set of values. While this has always been true to some extent, the divisiveness that has been exploding over the past several years has enveloped all but the tiniest of agreements. We probably all agree that today (6/18/24) is Tuesday.
Rather than rehash older offerings of mine, I want to focus on “another brick in the wall.” While my assumed subject is the USA, it could possibly be true of all countries and all languages. I am suggesting that a problem exists that goes beyond the superficial definition of ‘English,’ or whatever language. Furthermore, it includes all its speakers, except those who have completely rejected the constructs of industrial civilization, which include whatever ‘universal agreements’ we ever held.
Much of this thesis reflects my understanding of two thinkers, Daniel Quinn and Jean Liedloff, especially the latter. Briefly stated, Liedloff proposed, in her book ‘The Continuum Concept,’ that we knew all we needed in order to be a successful species long before the ‘dawn of civilization,’
In fact, she very convincingly argues that since that fateful dawn, we have been busily and unknowingly, dismantling all of our successful evolutionary strategies, beginning at the moment of birth, when our babies are snatched out of the mother’s presence to be ‘cleaned up,’ weighed, etc.
This serious mistake is followed by an endless list of ‘insults’ to our evolved selves, heaping deprivation on deprivation, until we manage to create out of ‘perfection’ a totally lost, frustrated, alienated individual who will spend the rest of its life trying to recapture at least some sense of what is ‘right.’
I must pause for a minute and ask you, Dear Reader, to slow down, to collect your thoughts because I know some (many? most? all?) of you can’t believe the nonsense you’ve just read, which means that I have just demonstrated my initial proposition.
In order for any of what I am writing to make sense, you must temporarily suspend your acceptance of our culture’s definitions, especially those that relate to our personal ‘issues’ - emotions, judgements, biases; social concepts that civilization created - accomplishment, success, progress, …. - and their opposites. Stripped of all of our society’s assumptions, we are left with ‘just another animal;’ one with a few seemingly ‘unique’ characteristics or abilities, but basically a more ‘advanced’ chimpanzee.
The barricade that this completely different ‘vision’ of ourselves has erected makes meaningful connections between the two ‘sides’ all but impossible. One side, the folks who have accepted society’s constructs, cannot understand how those on the other side, who have consciously rejected those constructs, at least in relation to discussion about our species’ future, can be so ‘callous,’ ‘mean-spirited’ ‘unaccepting,’ and ‘inhumane.’
As one of those people so accused, I have three options. The first two: I can shut up, or I can ‘qualify’ everything I say in a probably fruitless effort to not offend. Either way, something I and the rest of the ‘offenders’ care about, suggesting to folks that their acceptance of society’s constructs is a grave mistake, that our species needs an entirely ‘different vision’ is no longer even presented.
Happily, a third option suggested itself as I was typing/reading/editing. I will endeavor to write essays without entering the perilous waters of topics like ‘identity politics’ and their myriad manifestations.
If any of our species is to survive the coming collapse of industrial civilization, those with the best prospects of doing so will have dismantled the aforementioned barricade, in favor of the side that understands all of our social constructs (at least their translation into thought and action) are destructive to our evolutionary success. Perhaps, in a final irony, our survivors will be those who never entered the draconian world of ‘modern civilization’ in the first place.
Finally, the belief that living in the towers of Babel is a bad, dangerous, even suicidal idea means believing that it is desirable for our species to survive. For many, if survival means living in ways that don’t rely on industrial civilization, the question becomes, is it worth doing? Among those, how many will say, “Hell, no!”? Peace.
*[I just did a brief search about the story behind the Tower of Babel, and it could lead to at least a couple of other essays related to my intended one; maybe later.]
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