OPINION:
This past week, the following exchange took place between Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Mrs. Blackburn: “In United States vs. Virginia, the Supreme Court struck down the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admission policy. Writing for the majority, Justice Ginsburg stated, ‘Supposed inherent differences are no longer accepted as a ground for race or national origin classifications, physical differences between men and women, however, are enduring. The two sexes are not fungible. A community made up exclusively of one sex is different from a community composed of both.’ Do you agree with Justice Ginsberg that there are physical differences between men and women that are enduring?”
Judge Jackson: “Umm … Senator, respectfully, I am not familiar with that particular quote or case, so it’s hard for me to comment.”
Mrs. Blackburn: “Do you interpret Justice Ginsburg’s meaning of men and women as male and female?”
Judge Jackson: “Again, because I don’t know the case, I don’t know how I interpret it.”
Mrs. Blackburn: “OK, can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?”
Judge Jackson: “Can I provide a definition of the word ‘woman’? No. I can’t.”
Mrs. Blackburn: “You can’t?”
Judge Jackson: “Not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”
Mrs. Blackburn: “Is the meaning of the word ‘woman’ so unclear and controversial that you can’t give me a definition …? The fact that you can’t give me a straight answer about something as fundamental as what a woman is underscores the dangers of [your] kind of progressive [ideology]. … What kind of message do you think this sends …? I think it sends a message to our girls that their voices don’t matter, and they are second-class citizens.”
Welcome to a culture in chaos. Welcome to a land of total confusion; a nation where those who speak of justice can’t even define the word “just,” a country where those who deny biology do so while elevating biologists, a congress and a court where a judge, who knows she was nominated explicitly because she’s female, says she can’t “provide a definition of the word ‘woman.’” Welcome to Genesis 11. Welcome to the Tower of Babel.
In her book, “Awake, Not Woke,” Noelle Mering states, “A breakdown of our common understanding of words leads to a society in chaos and frustration, inevitably miscommunicating and plagued with distrust. [When words lose meaning], we become suspicious, not only of each other but also of ourselves and our ability to grasp reality. … We [become] a cacophony screaming across a chasm for recognition … each of us the ruler of [our] own constitutive reality — distrustful …, fragile …, hot-tempered.”
Ms. Mering goes on to cite Leon Kass and his book, “The Beginning of Wisdom,” where he writes of the breakdown of common language at the Tower of Babel: “Because language bespeaks the inner world of the speakers, sharing one language also means a common inner life, with simple words accurately conveying the selfsame imaginings, passions, and desires of every human being. To be of one language is to be of one mind and heart about the most fundamental things.”
Ms. Mering adds, “When our shared language becomes compromised, we lose not only the utility of it, which enables us to convey basic facts about the practical realities of daily life but also any common and universal meaning toward which our daily lives … might point. It does not take much convincing, to see our society, as it currently stands, is experiencing a crisis of meaning. … We cannot build any tower, even were it not a doomed hubristic enterprise, because we are arguing over the building blocks. Consider how drastically we have altered the meaning and usage of simple words like … man and woman. … But it is not just the building blocks that are corrupted; the purpose of the project is obscured entirely.”
The babbling incoherence of Judge Jackson, whereby she claims not to know something that any 5-year-old surely knows, shines a light on the sobering fact that we are about to have a Supreme Court justice who doesn’t believe in facts. We have apparently come to a point where someone pretending to be a feminist can’t define a female, and a judge who has pledged to administer justice “without respect to persons” apparently can’t tell us what a person actually is.
When words lose their meaning, the tower falls, the nation dies, and the people scatter into competing tribes. And what was once a grand civilization becomes its antithesis: a “cacophony screaming across a chasm” with a cabal of self-worshiping priests and priestesses telling us to ignore the rubble.
“And the Lord said … ‘Come, let us go down and confuse their language so that they don’t understand one another’s speech.’ So, the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore, their name was called Babel.” Genesis 11:7-9.
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery) and, most recently, “Grow Up: Life Isn’t Safe, But It’s Good.”
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