Bar-Bar-Bar-Bar Barbarians

The word empire has a very particular meaning for me, mainly because I’m a history nerd and understanding what defines an empire is essential to history. The classic example of an empire is the Roman Empire; they singlehandedly defined the term. The main idea is that not only do you conquer territory, but you exert you might upon your lands. This normally requires military troops stationed, but also an attempt to wipe out the previous culture and exert your own on your subjects. So in essence the United States is an empire, whether or not anyone wants to agree with that, it by definition is one.

Taken from zonu.com. Notice how all these Barbarians came from outside of Roman Empire, even though ethnically they are quite similar to many of the conquered peoples of Gaul (Modern Day France)

            Empire tends to carry a negative connotation, and I’m willing to bet that is George Lucas’s fault. In my mind it just means total domination and absolute power. Domination and power tend not to be thought of nicely, but to be able to create an Empire, you cannot be nice; it’s hard to conquer and assert yourself on someone and be nice. The ideas of “self” and “other” have an interesting relation to empire. An individual in an Empire is not important in the overarching scheme of an empire; an empire wants individuals to fit in their place as a cog to further the ideas and beliefs of the Empire. The “self” gets overshadowed and is smothered by the ideals of empire, while the “other” is seen as an enemy. The “other” is dangerous to empire, it is an outsider, and in terms of an empire, if you’re not a part then you are expendable. The “other” is the conquered, and in the roman sense, there are no “others” there are just romans and the conquered. 

            Barbarians tend to be thought of as illiterate, hairy, aggressive, and pillagers. In history these tend to be somewhat accurate, but they are reasonably unfair to barbarians. The term barbarian comes from Greek and literally “barbar” is meant to convey the sounds that the barbarians made when speaking. In other words, barbarian just means an outsider. Barbarians are the largest enemy to an empire because they do not fit into the scheme and machine that is makes an Empire work.

            I’m not a big fan of the term barbarian because it is always is labeled onto the outsiders, and is then unfairly attached to groups of people. The Huns are called barbarians because they came from outside the Roman Empire and razed hell, and their described savagery was just the norm in ancient warfare. The word has then come to carry the connotation as meaning savage, this is totally ridiculous because by its original definition the Romans were barbarians to the barbarians, it is just that the Romans wrote the history and therefor their beliefs and ideas are the ones that persevere. Empires and barbarians will always clash, a modern interpretation would be the Empire of the United States against the barbarian group Al-Qaeda, but just because one faction is poorer and smaller does not necessarily make it bad, even if it can be widely agreed upon that Al-Qaeda is up to no good.