They built the tower by hand and the fact that each worked in a different way only fed their communal fervour, for if one achieved more, it encouraged his neighbour to do likewise, and the discord which often threatens nations en masse was powerless to halt the realization of the communal work.
Thus it grew, the new Tower of Babel, and never had its summit reached so high as in our epoch. Never had nations had such ease of access to the spirits of their neighbours, never had their knowledge been so intimately linked, never had commercial relations been so close in forming a formidable network and never had Europeans loved both their homeland and the rest of the world. In this rapture of community, they could already almost touch the sky, for the poets of all languages began in the last few years to celebrate through hymns the beauty of being and creating; and they felt like the builders of that other tower and even like God because they were about to accomplish their work. The monument was growing, the whole of humanity counted on assembling there for the consecration and music resounded around the edifice like a gathering storm.
But God on high, who is immortal like humanity itself, saw with horror that the tower he had destroyed was rising once more, and furthermore he knew that in order to remain more powerful than this humanity he would have to sow discord anew and ensure that men ceased to understand each other. Once more he was cruel, causing confusion to break out amongst them; and so, after thousands of years, this horrific moment appears again in our lives. Overnight men ceased to understand each other, the very same who were peacefully creating together. Because they didn’t understand each other they became enraged with one another. Once again they threw down their tools only to use them as weapons instead; the scholars hoarded their own knowledge, the technicians their discoveries, the poets their words, the priests their faith; all that previously had enriched the communal work was transformed into mortal combat.
This is the monstrous moment we are living through today. The new Tower of Babel, the great monument to the spiritual unity of Europe, lies in decay, its workers have lost their way. Still its battlements stand, still its invisible blocks loom over a world in disarray, but without the communal effort to keep the work going it will be entirely forgotten, just like the other in the time of myths. Numberless are the people today who, indifferent to its collapse, believe that their contribution can be withdrawn from the magnificent construction, so that they will reach the sky and eternity through their individual national strength. But some exist who believe that never can a single people, a single nation achieve what a collective of European nations has not through centuries of heroic endeavour, men who ardently believe that this monument must be brought to completion in our Europe, here where it was started, and not in foreign continents like America or Asia. The hour of communal action is not yet upon us, the discord that God has sown amongst us is still too great and years may pass before the conception of a work destined for eternity can be born through peaceful rivalry. But we need to return to the construction site, each to the position he was in when the work was abandoned, when confusion struck. Perhaps we will never see it come to pass, or even hear of it spoken of amongst people; but if we place ourselves there now, each in his allotted spot, expressing the same ardour as in times past, the tower will surely rise again and ultimately all nations will find themselves upon its summit. For this call to work should not come from the pride of individual nations, ever more self-fulfilled in race and language, but rather from the old ancestor, our spirit, which remains the same in all forms, all legends, that nameless builder of Babel, the genius of mankind, whose meaning and salvation it is to strive against his Creator.
OUR VERY FIRST CONTACT with History dates from school. It is there children are taught for the first time that it is not with us that the world begins or began, but like all organic life it is in a state of constant transformation; the world existed before us and before that world there was still another. This then is how History leads us, by our inquisitive child’s hand, guiding us ever further back into the colourful gallery of times past. She teaches us that there was an epoch where humanity too was in its infancy, where our ancestors lived without fire, without light, in caves, like salamanders. But she also shows before our marvelling gaze how these scattered, brutal hordes at the beginning gradually gave birth to peoples, nations, how they crystallized into states, how from east to west, like a gathering flame, culture spread from one nation to another and illuminated the world—step by step, the long road of humanity began its ascent. Egyptians to Greeks, Greeks to Romans and from the Romans, across a thousand wars and reconciliations, we arrive at the threshold of our modern world. History accomplished her primary task, her eternal task, that which we all faced in our school years: to illustrate to the young person, the nascent adult, the origin and development of mankind and thereby link him into an immense line of ancestors whose work and achievement he must complete in a worthy manner.
As the great governess of world creation—that is how History was presented to us in our youth. But the educators and teachers always wore a severe countenance. For us History was a pitiless judge who, with impassive face, without hate and without love, without judgement and without prejudice, merely engraved with lead pencil, methodically, figures and words, so it seemed to us history was nothing more than an orderly treatment of vast chaos, and we cared little for it. First we had to—and I think this was the same for everyone—learn history by rote, as a duty, before we sought it out for ourselves and began to love it. Most of it was a real bore, very little of this world chronicle appealed, and even then, during our schooldays, our attitude was not altogether devoid of prejudgements and personal predilections. We should remind ourselves that we were not always reading the chronicle, the unfurling story, with the same love and the same interest as now. There were long passages and periods in these history books which we were obliged to learn by heart, without the slightest interest, without joy, without love, without passion, learn them as an obligation, a “school subject”, without the participation of our imagination. But then came other episodes which we adored, like so many adventures, chapters where we could not turn the pages fast enough, where our most inward being, our most secret energies were inflamed, where our own fantasy glided into those admired figures, and so we imagined ourselves Conradin, Alexander, Caesar or Alcibiades. I must point out that in this respect at least a communal experience exists, that for the young of every country there is a spontaneous choice of preferred period and figure, and that in every nation and all generations passion and enthusiasm tend to be directed to the same episodes and characters.
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