When I think of the word "empire" I think of a society with a hierarchy. This certain society is always well structured and has a strong military, also, I when I think of an empire I think of a place that is powerful and has connections with other empires. Within an empire there is a king or someone of extreme power who have people working for them, kind of like a hierarchy within a hierarchy. I connect the word "empire" to countries like Greece, Egypt, and Rome due to what I learned in high school about these empires. Also, when I think of an empire I think of a place that eventually falls into ruins. An empire directly relates to the idea of the "self" and the "other" in two different ways. The first is within an empire there is always a king of higher power, who is essentially the "self" and the rest of the empire can be considered as the "other" (or the other way around, the king being the "other" to the rest of the empire). The second way is that the entire empire is the "self" and other empires and countries are the "other".

For me "barbarians" are the "others" of a modern society, they are people who are ignorant of the modern society and are considered to be "dirty" and uncivilized to outside societies. I think that my ideas of these words came from what I have learned in school about modernity and what I see in the media.