The Tower of Babel

Hello,

I've been mulling a few subjects over in my mind, so here they are. Hope you're ready?! For general "what's on" group email, pls see "I'm free!"

The more I learn spiritually, the more I find the bible as an interesting point of reference. Recently I've been thinking about the Tower of Babel, globalisation and multi-culturalism.

Malaysia is multi-cultural and it works quite well. I found it amsuing to sit in an Indian cafe and watch chinese people eating roti and curry whilst Muslims had fried rice. The menus in many places have changed to reflect the diversity of their guests. Whilst groups tended to stay with people from a similar culture, they would all still eat at the same restaurants and the atmosphere was jovial and friendly. This was particularly noticeable in Malaka.

People come together because they realise that there is no real difference between one human being and another. They also come together in the pursuit of money, capitalism, free trade and a common market.

Westerners clump Asians together as "asians" but that means about as much as Asians classifying westerners as "westerners". In truth, countries all around the world are becoming increasingly multi-cultural and having to deal with the problems and opportunties that this brings. It is not a phenomenon limited to the Western world, nor is it truly a greater issue in one country over another (as some countries seem to believe).

One of the spin-offs from this is the growing use of particularly languages. In time, I believe there will be 3 dominant languages – Chinese (one of them!), English and Spanish and most people will speak at least 2 of these. These will be the languages of trade.

The story of the Tower of Babel is that people came together to build a tower that was so high it could reach God. They had forsaken traditional values and were worshipping false idols. God looked down, was displeased, destroyed the tower and gave everyone a different language so they could no longer communicate. Hence they could no longer continue with their “evil” ways and had to find a way to start living all over again.

Right, so let’s look at this in a different way. People all round the world are coming together today in the pursuit of trade. Religion is faltering and more or more people are questioning why we are here and the purpose of life. They feel lost. Countries all round the world put up taller and taller buildings to mark their importance and to show their commitment to the future. The future of trade. This is possible because not only is trade a common language, but due to increased multi-culturalism.

History repeats itself. In fact, pretty much everything in life goes in a circle. What if the story of the Tower of Babel is the same story as is what is happening today? What if it was just described differently?

This story isn’t really going anywhere. I just find it interesting. I don’t believe for a second that God destroyed a tower and made everyone speak different languages. But the story must have happened in some way. What if “God” was actually terrorists who wanted to stop globalization?

There are different ways you could look at this. One way to look at time is that past, present, future all happen at the same time. Therefore the story of the Tower of Babel could be a warning as to what might happen to us. I love this idea of time, it really messes with the head!

Another way to look at, is that humans before us have done what we are doing now and have given us this chance to help us from not making the same mistakes. That the pursuit of trade above the true values of life will eventually disintegrate that what it helped to bring together.

For those of you who would argue that religion that is not deteriorating, I would compare the current world religion “fever” to be like that of a city undersiege. The inhabitants take refuge in what they know, determined to hold on to it at all costs – even those parts that perhaps they didn’t like before. A last stand. Refusing to accept that their world is crumbling around them and now they have to find a new way to go on.

Personally, I’m all for religion. I think it is an excellent way for people to find peace with themselves and their lives. But it is not a tool for controlling people, and should embrace all ways for people to find their own beliefs. Religion is not static nor should it be exactly the same for one person to the next. Religion is a personal discovery, not an “opium for the masses”.

For those of you who think I’m arguing against capitalism. Actually I’m not. This may come as a surprise. The last book I read was called “Investment Biker”. It was by a man who made millions on the stock market and retired by the age of 37. He then bought him + his girlfriend motorbikes and they drove around the whole world. When I say the whole world, I do mean just about everywhere. The journey is astounding and makes mine feel puny in comparision.

The writer believes completely in capitalism and writes about the countries he travels through as potential investment opportunies and why (for far too many of them), they’re in such a bad economical/political/social state.

For the first time, I think I really understand how the free trade market is supposed to work. And actually, if it’s done properly, if governments don’t change the rules to suit themselves, capitalism is an excellent mechanism. Yes, I’ve done a complete u-turn. It reminds me of PADI (the dive organization). A lot of people slag it off and don’t think it works very well. I used to agree.

The reason why I decided to become a PADI instructor was because it’s the largest employer. It was only when I did my instructor course that I discovered the way PADI was intended to work. And I thought it was brilliant. Unfortunately too many people try to cut corners. Like any other system, it can only work as well as the people who are in it.

The “investment biker” has finally shown me that capitialism is a good idea, but it needs to be done properly! We agreed on so many areas, I was totally gobsmacked. Most of the problems with capitialism come from government intervention.

A classic example. The tube in London is expensive, over-crowded and not very good. It is suffering from lack of investment because Govt would not put the price up (complaints) and revenue could not cover the costs. If the tube had been privitised years ago, the prices would have gone up and proper investment made so the tube would run efficiently 24 hours a day. But monopoly – not fair to consumer etc. However, if they had put the prices up too much, entrepreuneurs would have looked at the market and thought 2 things:-

1) There is money to be made in helping to transport people around London
2) The tube is too expensive, there must be another, better, Cheaper way.
3) Then they would have gone and built a tram or sky train or whatever.

Then when the competition came, the tube would be forced to find a way to keep their prices down whilst maintaining standards.

The result, an excellent transport system in London. Also, proper competition (especially at night) would mean that taxis weren’t so ridiculously expensive.

Now, I’m not saying that capitialism is perfect, but I appreciate it a lot more now. I’d like to see the “real” costs included in the cost of a product (such as environmental – if the fact that a water bottle takes 150 years to degrade was factored in, no-one would make non-degradeable plastic bottles anymore cause they’d just be too expensive!).

I’ve not been convinced on the value of foreign-aid for a while now, although it’s hard to stand by and watch people suffer. There don’t appear to be good examples of a country who has pulled themselves back on their feet by using foreign aid. In the end, we might just be prolonging their misery rather than forcing their government to do something to help their people – probably trade related : )

The other area I’d like to see some positive changes is Teaching and Medical profession. Now this is a tough one. I believe everyone should have access to good education and good doctors (so private answer doesn’t work). However, there aren’t enough teachers or doctors. Far too many doctors come through with good intentions and end up doing plastic surgery or private work because they want some income after their years of hard work/study and no money. Fair enough! I can hardly blame them.

The only way to entice more people into these areas and into the “public” arena is by paying them a decent wage – ie. A private wage. In the long term, if wages are really good, more people will decide to become teachers/doctors increasing supply so that the wage rates will come down again or at least become realistically aligned with other careers. You just need to look at IT jobs to understand that one!

People argue that they shouldn’t have to pay taxes for schooling as they don’t have children. Now, withstanding the fact that they actually went to school which was paid by somebody elses tax. Do they really think there is no benefit in paying for the people of the country in which they live to be educated?

Who will be running the country when they retire? Who will be their doctors? Bankers? Soliciters? In charge of the supermarket? Making the cars? Who will be doing all the jobs once “your” generation is taking it easy? Well, the next-generation of course. Wouldn’t it be better if they knew what they were doing?

People used to have big families because the children would take care of the adults in their old age. Now, we have small families because we rely on other peoples children to take care of us. So, is paying some tax for education still a “rip-off” or actually a good idea?

I think arguments are similar to health. Everyone benefits if the people of their country are balanced, intelligent, educated, caring and healthy and that takes investment – or tax.

I could go on and on, but I shall stop now. In fact, I think I will put this whole part in a separate email as I’ve gone on and on rather longer than I thought!!

One last thing – looks like the tobacco companies are in for some trouble. About bl00dy time. People of today know that smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it and I’m not denying self-responsibility, but these companies are definitely still accountable from the time when they told you “smoking is good for you” and for deliberately making smoking more addictive. I hope they all go bankrupt : )