After Babel
Pieter Brüegel the Elder. The (Great) Tower of Babel. c.1563
In an article in the May 2022 issue of The Atlantic, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, writes about the prospects for politics and democracy in the world “after Babel.” His article is long and well-researched; in it he uses the analogy of the people who planned to build the Tower of Babel and suffered God’s judgment, choosing this metaphor to describe the effect that social media has had on our future. Just as the people who attempted to build the tower suffered loss of communication and fragmentation of their culture and society, Haidt warns that we are already facing similar losses, and he states that “there is little evidence” that the U.S. will return to “normalcy and stability” within the next 10 years, if then.
According to Haidt, when Facebook was first launched in 2003, it was “easy to connect with friends and strangers to talk about common interests for free” and at an unimaginable scale. Since then, Facebook has grown to roughly 3 billion users. In February 2012, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to investors saying that Facebook hoped to “‘rewire the way people spread and consume information’ and that would help ‘once again transform many of our core institutions and industries.’” Haidt also cites in this article and others that social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, have extremely negative effects on children and teens.
The effect that social media has had on children, “the members of Gen Z - those born in or after 1997,” is hilling according to Haidt. “A surge in rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm” began in the early 2010s in teens from the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain, “just as the large majority” became daily users of the major social media platforms. Rates of teen depression and anxiety have continued to increase. Because many children and teens spend most of their free time online, they have “less opportunity for free unstructured play; less unsupervised time outside,” which means less time to learn how to play in mixed groups without adult supervision.
Jonathan Haidt
Since 2003, both Facebook and Twitter have algorithms and tools designed to generate content that generate the most “likes” or “shares.” Haidt quotes research that has shown that the posts that trigger emotions, especially anger, are the most likely to be shared. He also shows that social media encourages mob dynamics, dishonesty, impassioned emotions, irrationality, factionalism, the erosion of trust in institutions, the substitution of opinion rather than truth or facts, and the vulnerability to foreign interference.
Haidt continues with more examples of the way social media is destroying trust in our rules, norms, institutions, health authorities, elected leaders, the courts, police, universities, elected officials, and elections themselves. This is not unique to the U.S., but also to Spain and the United Kingdom. Additional studies identify social media with the spread of misinformation. Though Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms may not have wished for these results, they moved forward “with no concern for external costs imposed on society.”
He also documents how Russia and China are using social media to polarize the American public and spread distrust. Through the growing use of AI, it will become easier and easier to flood social media with fake articles that have no way of being traced. We can already see the evidence of the anger, fear, and mistrust among our country’s different groups - political, racial, educational, income, and generational, to name just a few.
What does Church of the Lamb and our planned abbey have to do with this state of affairs? Alarming as the current state of the world may be for those of us who put our faith in Christ the King, consider how hopeless the world looks for a person who does not know Christ. We can show our neighbors that a community of people with differing political beliefs can be united in love through common beliefs. We can also be examples of norms of behavior that are rarely practiced these days.
Within our church body are people who have come from different Christian backgrounds, other religions, or no faith; political conservatives and progressives; men and women who work a variety of occupations, singles, small families, large families, and people of all ages. Yet, as we have come together and as we plan the Abbey, we take encouragement from Christ, who stands firmly, unalterably, and eternally against this chaos and evil of the world. We can draw comfort and strength as we gather with other believers. We can discuss issues that concern us, drawing on our fellow believers’ insights and wisdom. No one of us has all the solutions for dealing with the future of our country, but as we follow the Lord together, we draw on a deep well of peace, calm, strength, and wisdom.
Our children or grandchildren can enjoy and also benefit from Lamb’s community, learning life skills through interacting and playing with adults and children of varying ages, talents, and backgrounds, but all sharing fealty to Lord Jesus and His Truth.
Being so incredibly blessed as we are at Lamb, we need to remember daily that our blessings are given to us by the Lord to use in service to him and to the world - our neighbors - who do not know him. We need to be aware and prepared for the forces that have been loosed in our world, but we also need to remember that Jesus promised, I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16: 33)
