Empire's and Barbarian's Relationship to the Other
To me, the word empire indicates a
large number of people under a single type of political system who are
typically unified by common, language, script, customs, or ethnicity. Immediately, when I hear the word
empire, I think back hundreds of years to the Chinese Dynasties, Alexander the
Great, and Genghis Khan. Specifically, I think about how much land those
empires covered and how those empires forced their culture and values strongly
upon the people within their newly acquired lands. 
Also, when thinking about the word empire I find that to me the word holds a negative connotation. It holds a negative connotation to me because groups whom were labeled empires typically had large expanses of land and in order to acquire that land they had to take it from other people. Therefore, to me empire holds the connotation of selfishness and repression. Since, as stated above, empires were formed by taking land from individuals, a dichotomy was created between the culture of the empire and the culture of the individuals who were now forced to be apart of the empire. This action effectively create an ‘other’ within these empires.
When I think of the word barbarian
I typically think of a person who is less civilized than the average person.
However, my association with the word differs from its original meaning,
created by the Greeks, which indicated any individual who was not Greek. The
original function of the word was to define the Greek people by defining what
they were not.
My perception of these words was
established by hearing other individuals use them in one context or another.
However, my perception and interpretation was heavily altered once I began to
learn the historical context and origins of both words.
In most of the blog posts people have discussed the famed and fallen historical empires. In your definition of "empire" the amount of land conquered seems to be one of the main defining qualities. The second factor that you discussed in your post is the underlying motive of conquest within these empires. That desire to conquer has remained the motivation of rulers throughout history to dominate groups of people and subject them to their brand of leadership. The Greek definition of barbarian that you referenced is especially interesting when you interpret how that reflects the theme of self/other. If the Greek considered a barbarian to be any person OTHER than a Greek...that is a direct link to the definition of the self vs. other motif found in the literature we've read during this course.
ReplyDeleteAgreeing with Ophelia, with your definition of Barbarian, that is the correlation between self vs. other. If Barbarian use to mean anyone who is not Greek then that means that the Barbarians were outsiders - they were the "others." I also agree with your definition of empire because that is what I think of when I hear the word empire as well. Immediately when I hear the word empire I think of the Greeks and the Romans. It's interesting to think about how the world would be today had those empires not conquered neighboring lands and forced their culture on others.
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