Be Kind to Our Language
Reflections on Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” Lesson 9
Ponder for a moment, the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).
On the surface, it looks like God punished the people for cooperating with one another. It seems like God was worried that if humanity worked together, they would find they no longer needed God, so God confused their language.
This makes sense if we were handed an authoritarian view of God, but maybe that’s not what the story is about.
Be kind to our language.
A common language is what holds empires together. Maybe the people building the tower weren’t all cooperating. Maybe the powerful got together and decided to build a tower to make a name for themselves on the backs of forced labor.
Maybe it's not a myth to explain where languages come from, but an ancient lesson in non-conformity as an expression of power. Maybe it affirms that democracy holds power in check.
Maybe it’s a story, right at the beginning of the Torah, that says: “the path to freedom begins by developing languages that the oppressors do not understand, so that only those with ears can hear.”
And then, they told the story of a man named Abram, and his son Isaac, and his son Jacob, and his twelve sons who ended up in Egypt, from which Moses had to rescue them…
Be kind to our language. Stories offer us language that give us ears to hear.
Reading books helps us discover and remember who we are.
Read books to expand your vocabulary and increase your understanding of the world.
Read autobiographies. Choose someone with whom you disagree and read their autobiography to grow in empathy.
Read crime thrillers to remember justice and develop problem solving skills; science fiction or fantasy to open your imagination; and romance to build emotional intelligence.
Read non-fiction to stay grounded in a fact-based reality.
Do not let them redefine who you are. Do not let them reduce your vocabulary. Do not start sounding like them.
Find and maintain your own voice. Avoid meme culture and don’t reduce your thoughts to 280 characters.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)
Be kind to our language. Renew your mind.
You might notice that I sometimes disappear for a few weeks, even in the middle of what’s supposed to be a weekly series. I find it really hard to stay grounded these days, there is so much noise and misinformation, sometimes I have to take time to just read. I also listen to long form podcasts on a variety of topics.
I often feel like I’ve squandered those days away because I wasn’t productive, but these are the things we have to do to remember that the world is not made up of “us” and “them.”
It doesn’t always feel productive, but when the light pierces the darkness, the spectrum of color is exposed, and the towers collapse.
A few weeks ago, I shared an image of a Christmas Eve candlelight service and the authoritarian walking down the aisle to extinguish people’s lights. Reading books is one of the ways that we hold on to our lights.
When you feel like the darkness is closing in, read a book.
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