Education for Human and Societal Progress and Peace

Abstract

People working as a team would have to be able to communicate with the same language and concepts. The event related in the Bible is the Tower of Babel. God created men but men were trying to build the Tower of Babel to reach heaven. They spoke the same language and hence could get organized to achieve a common goal, to challenge God. God then scattered them around and made them speak different languages resulting in the inability to communicate with ease. They could not have what is known as connectivity. To have connectivity denotes the capacity to communicate to have common understanding in order to pursue common goals. Connectivity connotes speaking the same language and having common understanding on concrete matters such as a house, a building, a car, a cat, a dog, etc. More important, there must be a common understanding on abstract matters such as concepts about equality, fairness, justice, democracy, good, bad, right, wrong, etc. The abstract part or the concepts usually are the sources of conflict and hence destroy positive connectivity. Conflicts in concepts can take place even among people speak the same language. In the case of the Tower of Babel, the people afterwards could not communicate but soon through interactions they were able to communicate again because they learned each other's language. Today, English is a common language where people can use of medium of communication and yet conflicts still arise as a common phenomenon due to the different interpretation of the abstract part of the language or the concepts which are devoid of common understanding and agreement upon the terms.