Breaking Free of the Tower of Babel: the humanizing effect of decentralization
If you want to start an argument on social media, suggest the idea that concentrated civilization is a dehumanizing force. Argue that it separates us from the natural world, that it convinces us we are little gods who have mastered all matter, that we believe we can do the one thing we are really powerless to do: organize human existence into its most efficient forms, and you will be shouted down and mocked as a moron, ridiculed until you recant or depart.
Truth is a bitter pill to swallow.
Since the Enlightenment, the city-state, and its geopolitical extension, the nation-state, has been framed as the logical culmination of human ingenuity and progress. The benefits that emerge from the the great collaboration of human beings produces advances unimaginable in simpler forms of association. We are more creative, more productive, more efficient.
In his book, The Technological Bluff, philosopher Jacques Ellul exposes the lie and a theological truth: centralization is destructive. He makes the case that as societies seek efficiency required by organization, they actually create such layers of complexity, that people are radically separated from the natural world and each other. The drive towards organization and efficiency impose upon us rule after rule after rule. He called it technique and assured us it would draw us away from God.
Consider the transition from the horse to the car, which took 20 -30 years to complete. Transportation was a simple matter. Buy a horse, feed it, keep it warm, and you could travel from place to place. Certainly, a carriage was more efficient. It could carry several people. It could keep you dry and warm in inclement weather. It was faster than walking. The carriage, though, was still a relatively simple machine, directly dependent on nature for its operation.
With the advent of the automobile, a complex web of resources, supply lines, manufacturing abilities, and oh, yes, layers and layers of rules and regulations became part of our lives, as well as other impacts like traffic accidents, which kill more than 30,000 people each year in the US alone. Are things more efficient now because of this transition? It is hard to tell. But it is certainly more complex. That is the bluff. This is not an argument for a luddite approach to the world, as Ellul was accused of suggesting, but it is clear that organization and efficiency do not actually create utopia. When we make this our goal, we set ourselves up for failure or worse.
The proof is in the pudding, they say, and I would suggest the pudding of history is the story of empires. Select an empire from any time, anywhere in the world, and generally at the heart of it is the cantillonic enterprise of resourcing a central point for the benefit of a few.
Consider the adage: all roads lead to Rome. The roads converged originally not because Rome was such an important center of commerce, but in order to allow the grain to flow into the capital. As the city of Rome grew after the transition from the Republican to Imperial era, the general practice of awarding loyal soldiers with land had run its course. Free land unavailable, the people began demanding grain. Unable to support these demands from the Italian countryside, the Roman leaders extended their conquests, drawing grain in from Egypt and other resources to the capital from other regions of the ever expanding empire. The Roman emperors had no choice but to pursue an ongoing policy of expansion and theft. The people who could and would kill them had to be placated. Whatever the time or place, once a city-state began its expansion and appropriation of those resources, the principles of hubris, entropy and technique started their work, and in every case the people suffered.
The problem of centralization is an original theme of the Bible. Abraham and Lot, dealing with the growth of their herds and clan decide to separate. Abraham lets Lot decide where he wants to go, and Lot immediately selects the fertile valley with the cities in it. Abraham selects the high ground, rougher, but closer to God. He viewed the cities as troubled places and stayed away. But why did he have this perspective?
I believe it went back to the Tower of Babel incident, documented in a short narrative in Genesis 11, one chapter before Abraham was introduced to the story.
The story of the Tower of Babel in an interesting one. Set in region of modern day Iraq and Iran where the construction of ziggurats would become a popular practice, we get a brief cautionary tale of what comes of the centralizing impulse.
In the previous few chapters, Genesis tells us the world had become a dark and evil place. Mankind is ignoring a central truth: that they are created in the image of God and are therefore bound by certain expectations of obedience. Instead we get account of the daughters of men and angels mixing, murder and theft, and continual evil of all kinds — the travesties of men coming in contact with one another. Then the flood. It was the first great reset, but humans being humans, they get right back to it during the post-flood era.
Whether you view the Genesis accounts as historical reality or cautionary tales, it is easy to recognize our behavior in these narratives. What often starts out as a small colony established for mutual protection, grows through culminating successes, and becomes the source of pride, a place to hide the tarnishes of the soul and to pursue our worst impulses without accountability.
In Babel, the people are ambitious. They have gathered from the regions, created a thriving city, and want to build an edifice to commemorate their success. They want significance. They want to be known. They want to construct their own entrance into heaven. And importantly, the construction of the tower is actually resistance to decentralization. They are desperate to cluster and to be their own gods.
The hubris and desperation are two sides of the same coin. They want to storm God’s abode but at the same time, they are afraid of being alone.
Critical theorists make the argument that this version of the Hebrew God is jealous and capricious. He doesn’t want to see the people succeed independent of his random decree. He wants blind obedience and spitefully destroys those who think for themselves. The lesson from history is different, though. Any time human beings gather in high enough numbers, oppression and calamity follows.
Genesis 11 describes God coming down from heaven to take a look at the great tower the people have constructed. He acknowledges it is impressive and will cause them to believe they will be able to accomplish anything on their own. It is a rehash of the Garden narrative in which the snake convinces Eve that she will be better off if she eats the forbidden fruit. That is the lie she and the people of Babel embrace. As finite creatures, they cannot be gods. They cannot rise up into the heavens and storm God’s gates. They best they can do is create an illusion that will eventually result in their downfall and the destruction of many lives around them. In a protective response, God confuses their language and scatters them to the wind. This action is a healing balm of sorts. In smaller, decentralized groups, each individual has a role to play. The individual is responsible. The individual is essential. The individual trumps process.
This story repeats itself over and over throughout history. People gather together in empire. Those who create the empire grow rich and lazy. They build systems that strip away the people’s humanity. They lose touch with essential aspects of the human existence. They become rent seekers, engaged in activities that create no real value. Those not in the center may also benefit for a time, but usually, they are bled dry by the center, and then things begin to break.
We are seeing it right now. The United States is the center. It has achieved great things, and sometimes at terrible cost. It controls the money supply. It expands and contracts it to its own benefit. A small group of elite benefit most. While the American public feels richer, it is deeply in debt even while it has all the nicest things. Those close to the center, live moderately comfortable lives, but they know how tenuous it is. Those further out have no hope. All the best things have been drawn to the center for the benefit of the US population. This cannot last.
The representation or vehicle for all of this movement of value to the center is the US dollar. It is artificial, exploitable, and designed to serve best those who create it. It is easy to think with access to the dollar and the easy credit it offers to Americans that we are somehow special, that we are a cut above. But it is not true. It’s simply hubris. We are all created in the image of God and are the same. The USD is a Tower of Babel. It is a testimony to how much we can control, how big an edifice we have built, how much we have accomplished when we came together and decided to do something important. But like the Tower of Babel, it will be felled. We will return to our intended state: decentralized and force to rely most on the people around us.
The dollar will be demolished by greed and money printing. It is already happening. It will be replaced by a new currency and a sea change in the way society is organized. We will be scattered back to our local units eventually. How prepared for this reset we are is up to us.
As a rule, I seek out things that can decentralize my life. I am a Christian, but I am not interested in big centralized denominations. I want a worship experience that is honest, connected to scripture and full of reverence.
Likewise, I want a money experience that offers similar features. I want it to be honest. I don’t want it to counterfeited. I want to know that I can take it with me easily and that I can verify that it is real. That is why I think bitcoin is important. It allows me to be independent of a centralized authority. It compels me to find best uses for my stored time and value. It drives me to save instead of spending it on things I don’t need. It is reliable and secure, which removes the worry that it won’t be there in the future. I love that people are beginning to recognize its value because it will pave the way to break down the centralizing trends of history and return us to a time where we can take the high harder ground and still expect to prosper.
