Rebuilding the Tower of Babel, one website at a time...

Over the weekend, we had an event here at work, highlighting the old ways of growing/preparing/storing food.  (At least that's how I saw it)  We had people up here making Apple Butter, Peanut Butter, (regular) Butter, Sorghum, and smoking meat in an old fashioned (two month old) smokehouse.  The event was a success and I believe most everyone there had a blast.  It brought to mind something from my past which I hadn't thought of in a long time.  Once, when I was in Elementary (or Middle) School, we had a "Pioneer Days" event at Southside High.  I remember there was a log with one of those really big two man crosscut saws started into it to illustrate how hard it was to cut a tree that way.  There was also a butter churn, mule pulled plow, etc.  A typical collection of old Pioneer history.

I also remember, quite vividly, that my Grandma Wood was there.  She was there because of the things she knew how to knit.  She was a keeper of many secrets of crocheting.  Not that she kept them to herself on purpose, but just that it became at some point it became much easier to go to the store and buy a quilt/potholder/coaster/tablecloth, etc. etc. than to make your own.  She brought a number of her quilts and other creations for people to look at.  I specifically remember that she was sitting in a rocking chair, demonstrating a form of crochet called "tatting", of which she was one of only a few in Van Buren Co. that could still knit.  I remember asking Mom and Dad about it and being told that people were afraid that "the old ways" would soon be forgotten.

What the organizers of the "Pioneer Days" event of my youth were afraid of was not exactly the loss of "the old ways" as much as it was the loss of information.  Without documentation of history, whether it be stories, skills, or merely information about where something once stood, it can be as though it never was.  The specific method of crochet that my parents and others feared lost, was found (by me) on my second Google search. 

I know I'm opening a potentially huge can of worms with this, but so be it.  I believe the Bible.  I believe it says what it says for a reason.  I'm not sure the exact timeline (for it is not mine to study such things) but at some point in history, Man decided to ignore God's command "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it" and replace it with “Come, let us build for ourselves a tower. . .”. “Lest we be scattered over the face of the earth”.  The people were afraid that their civilization, their knowledge...their information would be lost.  The tower was (at that time) the ultimate symbol of human arrogance.  Man telling God that we will build a tower as a symbol of our glory, not His Glory.

I hope I'm not putting forth the illusion that I believe to understand all the implications of the Internet as the new Tower of Babel, but in my mind there are some similarities.  In ancient times, without the help of cranes, bulldozers, etc, some of the most remarkable structures were made.  To this day we aren't sure exactly how they were errected.  The only thing that seems certain is that with subsequent generations the knowledge was lost.  With the Internet, and other information sharing technology related to worldwide communications services, it appears that will not happen again.  The world is effectively one big city again, with our communications network as it's tower.