Babel-vision

“Our society finds truth too strong a medicine to digest undiluted. In its purest form, truth is not a polite tap on the shoulder. It is a howling reproach.

“In place of truth, we have discovered facts. For moral aboslutes, we have substituted moral ambiguity.

“We now communicate with everyone and say absolutely nothing. We have reconstructed the Tower of Babel and it is a television antenna.”

- Ted Koppel, commencement address, Catholic University, Washington DC


I’ve always heard it second- or third-hand that Koppel is an ultra bleeding-heart liberal. But by reading through his commencement speech, I don’t think one can become more centered in traditional, conservative, orthodox thought and morality. There are a couple versions of the speech out there given at a couple of different universities over the years; you can google them (include a visit to snopes to be convinced of their veracity). But they all say the same thing, and it’s a thing that resonates well within my own thinking.