Babble

With the recent increase in reports of construction-related accidents and fatalities, the Tower of Babel has been on my mind. If you're rusty on your biblical allegories, this is what wikipedia has to say about the story:

According to the biblical account, Babel (Babylon meaning "gate of god") was a city that united humanity, all speaking a single language...The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have "its top in the heavens." (וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם). However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was dedicated to the glory of man, with a motive of making a 'name' for the builders: "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'" (Genesis 11:4).

So the story ends that God gets pissed and makes it so that no one can understand eachother - hence the modern word "babble" which basically means speaking nonsense. The building fails and the great society scatters into factions all over the earth. Digging a little further, it turns out that just about every culture has some form of this story, all with the advisory that when we work or strive to achieve for the purpose of satisfying our ego, we cannot sustain connection or communicate with eachother and society fails.

Hmmm...Babylon. Affluence. Ego. Economic crisis. Disparate aims. Breakdowns in communication. Factionalism. Talking about nonsense, things that don't really matter.

Gives pause to think, doesn't it, or am I babbling?