According to that story, early humans developed the conceit that, by using their language to work together, they could build a tower that would take them all the way to heaven.

The failure occurred due to faulty repair of the bulkhead, when a double row of rivets was replaced by a much weaker single row.

I remember feeling claustrophobic as I walked down its narrow halls and into classrooms turned into crude cellblocks.

So perhaps the existential fear of some Western intellectuals is easier to explain than their remarkable, sometimes fawning trust in the US government to save the world by force.