In Defense of Babel

Our situation is becoming dire. The Deconstructionists have pulled the rug from beneath the canon, and our tower is wrenching its underdeveloped torso toward heaven even as it fragments beneath the roar of a dreadful clamor. We hoped to make a name for ourselves by building this tower. We hoped to reach to heaven. We hoped that these turrets would at long last arrive at TRUTH, and our identities would be secured on the face of the earth.

Instead, we have reaped chaos and estrangement. But can we be blamed? We used the latest technology available, far superior to the ambiguous drawings sketched on ancient caves! Is it our fault that the words that we stacked upon each other were inadequate, despite our careful craftsmanship? We did what we could with what we had. It was a glorious effort.

Of course we know that words are mere symbols, pointing to their subjects in the tradition of cave drawings, incapable of conveying the essence of things, prey to the associations and perspectives of their handlers. One needs only consider the act of storytelling to prove this. Ask five eyewitnesses to describe one event, and see what a variety of soups emerge as the storytellers season the water of the event with their own contextual piquancy. Yet--what a feat!--out of these nuanced, imprecise stories we fashioned the stories of our tower. What else could we use? What other medium could bridge that terrible void?

No wonder our quest for heaven and a name is foundering. Bereft of a cornerstone, fashioned in ignorance and out of a desperate bravado, it was only a matter of time before this tower began to falter. I suppose we've felt premonitions of our demise for centuries. But isn't it marvelous, how far we got? This vast, aspiring, flawed monolith: what a tribute to the human spirit!

(We won't voice our terror. We won't express our suspicion that heaven and a name is more than a handful of atmospheric layers beyond our grasp. Too late now, as the tower crumbles, to wonder if some other way exists to bridge the terrible gap between earth and heaven, chaos and order, the name of a thing and its essence. We have come so far: we won't desert.)