About Modern Babel

Modern Babel is an indictment.

It is also an acknowledgement.

Our society has progressed rapidly in every form of communication, yet profoundly lacks understanding. Thoughts lack form. Words lack value. An entire generation of people, drowning in knowledge, seems incapable of processing even basic principles.

Communication changes. Truth abides.

We have become extraordinarily good at speaking quickly—and demanding answers just as quickly.

The result is information that is constantly in motion. A half-baked thought from the other side of the world can become a viral trend in less than a day. An eight-second reel becomes the in-depth exposé on the political currents pushing the economy. We are told what happened, what it means, and how we ought to feel before we have had enough time to realize the question itself may have been poorly framed.

Justice has always been blind. Now it is also confused.

The confusion is inevitable when judgment never has time to catch up. Misunderstanding is abundant where contemplation is lacking. Thoughtfulness does not guarantee truth, but it gives clarity the opportunity to present itself.

And there lies the acknowledgement.

I have not escaped Babel.

This is an attempt to remain corrigible while living inside it.

Modern Babel, then, is a place to preserve thoughts longer than some pithy bird chirp. A place where a question may survive long enough to become better than the answer that first provoked it. An argument may be challenged without being discarded. It will be a record of what is worth thinking about, and perhaps, what is pleasurable to ponder.

It is not a record of always being right.

It is a record of trying to be made right.

The machinery is modern. The confusion is ancient.

Truth does not become truer because we reach it quickly or communicate it loudly.

Our books are filled with the words of men who spent years thinking over the things they believed mattered. We might do well to take a page from their book—to think over the things that are written, the things that are said, and the things we allow to form our understanding of the world we now inhabit.

Some thoughts deserve a form.

And sometimes they deserve enough time to find it.