Before the advent of a world economic system in the last few centuries, agriculture-based civilizations like the Greek, Roman or Chinese empires often faced attacks from confederations of warrior tribes, like the Mongols, the Huns, Vikings etc. These “barbarians,” who turned from hunter-gatherer or herder ways of life to plundering each other or neighboring agrarian societies, sometimes were integrated into existing agrarian empires or alternatively broke up or destroyed larger civilizations via successive attacks over periods of decades or centuries. The award-winning 1990 book and subsequent movie “Barbarians at the Gate” re-popularized the term, in this case as a description for ruthless, ego-driven corporate take-over specialists in the 1980’s.
While there are still plenty of figurative “barbarians” on Wall Street, barbarian also applies as term to the behavior and goals of the current Republican leadership in Congress and in allied “Tea Party” organizations. The Republicans have laid siege to government over the last 30 years, developing a culture of “barbarian” disregard for the usefulness of government. Republicans have created a culture in which plundering government for their own sakes and that of their patrons is “OK”, “natural” and normal-seeming. They have shown little regard for the activities that maintain the wealth of a society as a whole, including paying taxes to pay for public amenities that benefit the entire society. While some Republicans are rude in their behavior as one would expect of the barbarians of ancient history, not many act in an overtly loutish manner; there is a shrewd strategic element to the chaos that these political barbarians have been creating which should not be underestimated.
President Obama has through the first two years of his Presidency appeared as though he doesn’t realize that he is dealing with people who are operating by a different set of rules, who represent interests that have ruthless disregard for others. He has acted as though he is not even in a fight with them, that their cooperation is assumed. Meanwhile his opponents have treated him both openly and also covertly as an enemy to be defeated. This has given them an advantage because almost all means of combat are open to them, while he has restricted himself and thereby the leadership of the Democratic Party, to the politest and even quite deferential approaches to them. In terms of game theory, he has shown them that he will never “defect”, while they can choose to cooperate or defect as they would like. The Republicans’ approach has increased their power rather than diminished it. He has conceded the high ground to people who, in terms of governing our current society, have little sense for how not to “grind the face of the poor into the dust” and dismember valuable social institutions for the gain of a few economic warlords.
Today, it has been uncovered that right-wing Christian fundamentalist “therapist” Marcus Bachmann, the husband of Republican Presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann, has called gay people “barbarians” that need to be educated and “cured” of their gay impulses. While I find this use of the term laughable and inaccurate, I believe my use of the term here actually explains something about our political system and how people think about economic and political spoils. While I am aware of and am comfortable with its pejorative connotations in my application of the word, I cannot control its misapplication by others.
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