The Tower of Babel.

unenlightened

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9 That is why it was called Babel — because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth. — Genesis 11

If you have ambitions to reach to the heavens, say the Moon or Mars, you are going to have to get together with many like-minded people and communicate together so as to coordinate and cooperate. this is true even if you are a very stable genius, and whether you are capitalist or a communist. Indeed even to be either requires communication resulting in a mutual agreement.

And this agreement must be realised in concerted action; if one communicates agreement but fails to act, one is 'confusing the language'. And when that happens, there can be no understanding, no cooperation, and people are scattered, each alone and fearful of others.

This Hobbesian condition of anarchy, "poor, nasty, brutish and short" results not from the absence of a king, as Hobbes suggested, but the absence of trust. When I do not trust you, your words have no meaning to me, and I am alone.

People who are alone and lack trust must resort to manipulation. Coercive control can produce the semblance of cooperation, but it is unstable because there is no trust or mutuality. But trust and mutuality are themselves vulnerable to coercive control unless people are 'held to account'.

As long as there is a common speech, and all are held to account by it, so long will a society survive; but even a mafia needs an agreement, and part of that agreement concerns when the time for talking is over, and something is to be done.

A leader is someone who saw what needed to be done early, and started doing it. therefore one can judge the quality of a leader by what would happen if the many did what s/he is doing — Kant's categorical imperative. The 'Lord' in this case was divisive and ruined the city and scattered the people. That might remind you of someone.

Here endeth the lesson.

Sir2u

Well at least he speaks the language, he can babel like no other. Poor sod.

Arcane Sandwich

Arcane Sandwich

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

9 That is why it was called Babel — Genesis 11

That's not the King James Version. Here is the KJV for comparison:

11 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. — Genesis 11 - King James Version

The Tower of Babel.

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