Undoubtedly, you have heard it said that “facts are facts” as if to insinuate that facts are somehow self-assessing, and thereby self-explaining – so that the meaning of them should be taken as self-evident. This is the self-serving illusion of objectivity created by modernity – believing that causality in a materialist universe only requires the unearthing of more facts . . . invariably giving rise to the unimpeachable truths uttered by those in the expert class. But it didn’t take long before the subjectivity of the expert class began to leak through every proclamation they made – invariably giving rise to the post-modern notion that truth, itself was subjective . . . so now, everyone can have their own truth.
Inescapably the meaning of facts are a matter of interpretation – so within the post-modern paradigm, not only, are we our own arbiters of meaning, but we also create our own criterion for what facts we find germane to our own understanding of that meaning. This is not merely a matter of confirmation bias but rather is a wholesale self-identifying narrative, complete with its very own nomenclature . . . a language created out of whole cloth. So not only do new words enter into the cultural lexicon, but existing words get redefined – all in service of the mercurial predisposition of post-modern groupthink.
This is why the common in “common sense” has all but disappeared from any cultural expectation. There is no longer a common baseline understanding of what constitutes reality – so invariably the language we use to describe our understanding of the reality we imagine each of us lives in begins to lose all transactional definition. It’s not just that it creates an untenable ambiguity – it creates real division . . . as all of us silo off into our own self-referencing world, of which we find ourselves at the center. But this shouldn’t surprise us, because when you begin to worship at the altar of your own “authentic self” – invariably, you have to coerce the rest of us to join you in your self-worship . . . and that never ends well.
The story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 1-9) is a curious tale, a sort of pivot point before the biblical narrative narrows into the long Abrahamic saga. It’s about a people who all speak the same language, allowing them to unify around a common goal. But we find out that their common goal is “to reach into heaven” and “make a name for themselves” (verse 4) – it becomes clear that they had imagined themselves to be at the center of existence. So mercifully, God preemptively confuses their language – before they could create the nightmare they were arrogantly dreaming up . . . a world made in their own image.
The problem wasn’t that they could all speak a common language – but rather, that it had become a language intent on speaking its own truth, a language that deputized its own experts, to build the future by seizing the throne of heaven . . . a heaven that has no need of God. And this is precisely how we are revisiting Babel – but this time God doesn’t have to confuse our language, we have voluntarily sabotaged our own language with the nonsense gibberish of our own self-delusion . . . believing that we can somehow self-exist. And until we remember to speak again the language of creation, the native tongue of heaven, and once again remember who we are and why we exist – then you might want to buckle up, because our exile in Babylon will likely be a very bumpy ride.
. . . and I can hear thunder in the distance.
