Selection from "The Flame Alphabet"

This selection is taken from page 112 of "The Flame Alphabet" by Ben Marcus.

"The Babel document came up a few times in the news interviews, though no one, it seemed, had read it. LeBov had an obsession with this myth. More than that, a bone to pick. He felt that it was a misleading, dangerous myth. It had, he supposedly argued, been copied out incorrectly, transmitted from generation to generation with a serious degree of error. Now the myth as we knew it presented a terrible impediment. I saw where Murphy had gotten the idea."

This passage stuck out to me for its reference of Babel, which we had read earlier this semester. In the book, the toxicologist LeBov, who theorized about the speech sickness, thought that Babel was a harmful myth to be brought up in the particular state of society that existed in the book at the time. It is one thing to believe that a myth is untrue or irrelevant, but it is another to believe that talking about it is destructive to society. I think LeBov may have such a personal problem with Babel because it would imply that contemporary human society was somehow united before the speech sickness occurred, which is inherently false. For humans to believe that they had achieved great things and were ready to "converge upon the heavens" requires a dangerous amount of hubris, and possibly a sense of entitlement that could turn into violence as certain humans feel that children are obstructing their ascension into greatness. Certain people may believe that the only way to get back to the supposed unity and greatness of the past is to eradicate all harm-causing children from the Earth, which would be a devastating endeavor and a threat to the future existence of the human race. LeBov may fear the power of a unified group of impassioned people. I also think that LeBov's focus on the erroneous nature of the story's translations through time leads back to the idea that current groups would highlight the wrong portions of the writing to emphasize in their conquest of children. People can use archaic texts to rationalize and further their own actions, so I feel LeBov is warning humans not to look too far into the story of Babel, for it may end up hurting the future of the human race if they do.