We are surrounded by more information and perhaps less wisdom than ever before. The short media cycles, extreme busyness of life, surge in (dis)information and urgency of our context quickly leads to overwhelm. So where can we look for wisdom that calms the nervous system and regenerates our energy? For me, I find myself turning time and time again back to ancient philosophy and religion. It isn’t that all historically tenacious ideas are necessarily worthy (to paraphrase Tim Minchin), rather zooming out of our current context can create space for contemplation and rich soil for new ways of thinking to emerge. One story I have been reflecting on recently has been the story of the Tower and the City. I’m not 100% sure of the historical accuracy, but as an origin myth and parable, there is much to learn from it.
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth, and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
— Genesis 11:1–9
This is of course the famous biblical story of the Tower of Babel. There are numerous interpretations of this story, the chief one being that the people of earth, in their hubris and arrogance, attempted to build a tower all the way to heaven, to challenge God’s reign over the world. Before they did this, they lived as one people, with one single language. God’s response was simple, and quite brilliant. If they can’t communicate, they can’t coordinate. In fact, the word Babel in Hebrew derives from the word Balal, which means ‘to confuse’.
Jonathan Haidt has used this story as a metaphor for the times we are in, where even those that speak the same language, don’t seem to be able to understand each other. We have a problem of communication when what one person means when they say something, is not what the other person understands when they hear the same words. This seems quite true today, particularly where trust is low, good intentions are ignored, words are weaponised and truth is subjective. It is leading us to polarisation, conflict and destruction.
We describe this dilemma of communication as a profound lack of collective sensemaking. The question we must wrestle with is whether we can agree on a shared sense or understanding of reality, of words, of truth. Maybe we can’t agree on whether nuclear power is the right solution for global warming. Can we go back a step and agree that global warming is really happening? If we cant agree on that, then how can we even start to collaborate to solve it? If we cannot agree that vaccines prevent disease, then how do we design programs for the effective reduction or eradication of so many illnesses (think of Polio or Small Pox or Measles). If we do not agree that all life is sacred, we will continue to bring pain and destruction upon our fellow humans, and on all sentient life on earth. If we don’t agree about these statements, can we find something we do agree on that we can build a base of trust and sensemaking? All sensemaking must start from a base of agreement, even if that agreement is simply that we agree to disagree without violence.
During Covid I had many conversations with people about vaccinations. I am a strong supporter of vaccinations generally, and especially during covid, where the risk benefit calculation seemed overwhelming to me. A number of my friends were not keen on Covid vaccinations, which created some tension between us. In the beginning, that divide separated us as we argued over risks, over harm, over personal agency and communal responsibility, over our government’s right to interfere in our lives and our bodies, etc. But when we stopped arguing and started listening to each other, we found we were deeply aligned on most issues, and parted ways only at the edges. It was a long beach walk with one particular friend that allowed us to find each other again.
The love between us had been built over many years, we trusted each other, we knew each other well and knew we were both smart, caring and discerning, and we approached the conversation with curiosity and empathy. As it turns out, our disagreement was not on the topics we thought they were. Instead, we found that we simply didn’t trust the same sources of information. It was a matter of trust. My friend had lost faith in most of our institutions (universities, government, big pharma). For me, notwithstanding that I also think many of our institutions are deeply flawed and broken, I had just enough trust in them, in the face of a global pandemic, to do the right thing and make good decisions.
What we thought were fundamental differences, were in fact a small divergence about how much we trusted or didn’t trust the sources of information and decision making related to the issue. There wasn’t a binary of 100% trust versus zero trust, but just degrees of trust, that manifested in a binary decision of whether to vaccinate or not. When we were able to make sense of each other’s arguments, and understand them in the context that each of us intended, we were able to see beyond our differences and focus on how to rebuild trust rather than argue over whether we should or shouldn’t vaccinate – which, by the way, we still don’t agree on.
What might the rules or guidelines of collective sensemaking be? What evidence would be enough for us to all agree? Where would that evidence have to come from? What about morality, can we agree on principles of morality? Can we agree that violence is not the best way to find consensus? Is debate and democracy the better way to come to a consensus on an issue? Our first step must be to find a shared understanding of sensemaking itself, ensuring that we are talking about the same thing, in the same language, with the same basic rules. Only then can we work on solving the problems before us.
The story of the Tower of Babel, as uncomfortable as it is, can be read as both an explanation of why we are where we are, and as a warning against our own ambition. God disperses us because we used our collective sensemaking, our collective wisdom, to separate ourselves from the world, from nature, from our own humanity. God knew that if we can understand each other and work together, “nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them”. But there is another way to read this story, and that is of hope.
Maybe God is not punishing us, but rather, through a tale of destruction and separation, showing us the way back to harmony. When the people all spoke the same language, they attempted to solve the one problem that was not theirs to solve, to become gods themselves. Is this analogous to our current obsession with artificial intelligence or genetic engineering, of playing god? Maybe, maybe not. But the warning and the hope are both there for us to heed, should we find a way to speak the same language again, our focus should not be on a tower to reach the heavens, but on a how to live in peace, love and harmony here on earth. If we can agree on that, nothing will be impossible for us.
