Where do we learn racism — Part V
Lessons from the Tower of Babel
How to build a society that works
Building a nation on the backs of people. Violating them. Disenfranchising them from full participation…you have to admit, it’s not the greatest strategy.
It worked beautifully. For a time. Depending on which side of the line you found yourself, it worked. Not so much on the other side.
Oligarchs are increasing their power and wealth. They’ve stolen the world’s economies and before the fall, they want to make sure they have…enough.
Productively spinning whirlygigs that we are, we’re held tightly in their grasp.
We can’t revolt.
War with the rich is a losing fight. They’ve got more money and more guns. We can’t play on their battleground. We can’t buy our way out. The rich control…all.
Right now, we furiously pretend governments are in charge.
A hard look reveals they’re not. Whichever brand is currently elected is irrelevant. Our choices are a swift societal free fall with conservatives, or a swift free fall meted out in a velvet glove with liberals.
Either way, society falls.
Life’s gonna be wrenching. We’re going to stumble and grope. It doesn’t matter how we wring our hands. We’ve got to get our minds around “this is happening.”
Humans have been through changes before and survived. Rebuilt. Tried out new world views and systems. We’ve always had the opportunity to come back from our mistakes.
Climate change may destroy that opportunity.
The rich and their political enablers have known for almost fifty years, that spewing shit into the world was going to come back to devour us all. They did it anyway.
But, if we get another chance, I hope we do it better.
The Tower of Babel — Biblical
Rumour had it, the city’s rulers wanted to mingle with God.
They built a tower to reach heaven. Rising from the centre of the bustling metropolis the tower dwarfed the city around it. Clouds drifted across the upper reaches. Yet, the tower rose beyond even those.
As the story goes, one day God looked from his throne and seeing the tower strikes it down. To ensure humans could never commit such folly again he confounded our language.
Mother couldn’t understand child, nor husband, wife. The inhabitants scattered.
It’s not a strong story. To me, if you’re god and want to force people to speak multiple languages, make it happen. No excuse needed.
Destroying a modern technological wonder seems rather petulant. Over the top.
I’m hearing a powerful, petty god angry with those beneath them. They negligently use their power to destroy a modern marvel because they feel…challenged.
God comes off a bit whiny and hard-hearted, to be honest.
What if the story is a cover-up?
The city’s rich wanted to show off their wealth. Believing they’re as important as the god they worship, they command a tower to be built high.
Let it touch the clouds they bellow.
Engineers bring models and plans. “Ahhh magnificent golden ones with more gold than the gods, I can build your tower.”
“Really?” said the men who weren’t gods at all. Simply wannabe rulers who wanted to be loved, but had a hole inside each of them too deep to ever be satisfied with love. “Forsooth the last engineer wanted to build the base with Egyptian granite. Outrageous and too expensive.”
Another pale and flaccid ruler chimed. “We have perfectly good Babylonian bricks right here.”
A tall reedy lower ruler stood. “Yes. It will be cost-effective to use our bricks. They can be made onsite. It provides work for…the people.”
The engineer shifts his scrolls. He slips the granite model into his satchel, pulls out the — Schedule C, not a good idea-‘built with bricks scroll’. “My lords. Lo, I can build your tower however you want. But let it be known that the bricks — ”
“Shhh!” It’s the flaccid god. “If you’re about to say, it’s better to build with Egyptian granite, no.”
“Do it our way, or, we’ll find another engineer,” Reedy interjects.
The engineer smiles. “Of course, my lords. I am here to craft your masterpiece as you wish.”
Later that morning, having been awarded the contract. The engineer notifies his household to prepare for a move. Whenever the tower fell, his family would be safe in their new home, the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
A few years later, the tower stretched high through the clouds. The engineer, away visiting the family in Sodom hears buzzing chatter. “The Babylonian tower crumbled. Countless numbers are buried. The city below is devastated.”
Fast on the heels of the biggest story of the day, the fall of the tower of Babylon, the rumours percolate.
“It was God. I hear they were close to heaven. They God’s hand. It reached through the clouds and struck down the tower. He didn’t want them to reach Him. I hear the people suddenly started speaking in different tongues.”
Rolling his eyes, the engineer glanced at the sky. “Hmmm, what an odd coloured sand storm.”
Nestling back into his cushions, he claps, summoning his slave to fetch water.
He smiles at the cleverness of the spin.
Building a tower with cheap burnt brinks — folly. Letting God take the blame — reputation management.
Tower of Babel — invert the frustum
The Tower teaches us how to build a strong society.
Building the base with the poor, weak bricks invites collapse. Filling the upper two layers with the middle class and the idle rich at the top is too great a weight for the poor to bear.
The tower collapses.
Better the top of the pyramid is cut and the structure inverted. Let the rich hold up the middle class, with the poor at the top.
The strong granite of the rich is meant to be at the bottom.
If we survive climate change and if we get the opportunity to build back, I hope we do it better this time.
Let the rich bear the weight.
Third interpretation
Imagine the poor and middle class build the tower together. The wealthy seeing the speed and the robustness of the marvel set themselves to fretting.
The people working together frightens them. The rich devise a plan to bring the tower down and separate the people.
The tower falls and the city below is rubble. Talk of rebuilding is buried in favour of separate rulers taking their groups to find new lands.
From that day forward, the people never again worked together.
