Weak Barbarism

Abstract: In order to redefine barbarism, a hermeneutical framework is needed. The contemporary socio-cultural context and the transformations occurred during the last decades represent the premises for a new barbarism. In redefining barbarism its relation with civilization and culture should be first considered. Cultural mutations together with the historical and political phenomena involved in contemporary civilizations reorganization as set forth in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Samuel P. Huntington) offered the theoretical background for the discourse wherein barbarism could revive and take another appearance than the common one. The necessity of reinterpreting barbarism is backed-up by other variables such as its structural inconsistency and weakness which most definitely diminish its impact on individuals. Following a 20^th century philosophical tendency harshly criticizing thinking, all these point out to a weak character of the current barbarism. Thus the so called “Weak Barbarism” is reinterpreted evolutionally for a better reception among the contemporary cultural philosophy, axiological and ethical studies.

Key concepts: cultural background, Weak Barbarism, axiological mutation, contemporary society

1.      Cultural frameworks for an accurate interpretation of barbarism

First of all, we should limit our field of discourse starting from a historic[1] error. Studies on the barbarian character of societies determined that it always evolved around a term used for the first time in Ancient Greece. Barbarism valences derive from the conflict between the two terms of the expression “we and others”. These terms generated successively barbarism aspects, superposed each other, switched roles and shifted places during the Ancient Times and the Middle Age, the Imperial Colonialism times and until today. It is worth mentioning that the parameters described by the terms of this expression[2] make a first major distinction regarding the perception of barbarism in its generality. Because „others” were always considered Barbarians being for this reason placed outside the civilization of the one responsible for the stigma of inferiority, the barbarism characterizing “others” as opposed to “us” was an exterior one. The error previously mentioned refers to the tendency of misinterpreting barbarism, generated by the expression “we and others” which excludes the Barbarian character from the civilized being’s structure (civilized meaning all but having a certain culture). Historical proofs[3] describe aspects which point to the existence of such character also within great civilizations. Jean-Francois Mattéi starts from Socrate’s principle: know yourself and amends this error, by theorizing Interior Barbarism[4] which finds a Barbarian in every individual’s self, under the civilization mask. We have therefore a first interpretation framework.

Considering the difference between “Exterior Barbarism” and “Interior Barbarism” a necessary one and the shift from the first to the second one as an eradication of the errors made in terms of barbarism conceptual history some interpretation parameters should be established. Emphasis should be put on the framework which allowed this shift, that is, the Imperial Colonialism context which lies at the bottom of the subsequent globalization structures and whose universal macro-mechanism revolved round the modern slave(-owning) system as a cultural domination of the world[5]. The end of this system due to human rights affirmation and the dissolution of the colonial empires into scores of young states drag us out from the late Modernism and lay the foundations of the contemporary cultural and civilization structures. The historic direction thus described indicates a diminution of the conflicts between the civilizations restricts the knowledge space and favors social-cultural dislocation. In this context barbarism seems to lose its forte character, passes into a shading cone having to undergo axiological mutations.

2.      Weak thinking theory

In a world in which the differences between civilizations in terms of superiority transform subject to other criteria, so that conflicts acquire other valences and the enemies of the relations between “us” and “others” mutually accept each other, the first forms of globalization[6], mark the gradual uniformization of the discrepancies which located barbarism and exiled the barbarian through obedience. However the dialectics of “Exterior Barbarism - Interior Barbarism” remains valid. War crimes, Holocaust and atomic bomb are only few illustrative examples indicating that the act of barbarism regardless of its form of manifestation is still part of man’s natural structure. Nevertheless after the two events which violently shook the last century history, barbarism is revealed in a total different manner today. It seems that such statements as: “the Barbarian is the uncivilized Germanic situated outside the Roman Empire limes’ or the “the civilized European countries civilized and christened the New World ” are no longer valid at the beginning of this new century. Interior Barbarism focuses on the uncivilized character of the human individuals, that is, on its aprioristic-intrinsic[7] aspect, thus shifting the meaning of barbarism towards a structural type of dissociation.

Interior Barbarism, both the one Mattéi deals with under the subtitle „An Essay on the Modern Vile” and the one that has to do more with the anthropological-psychoanalytical side of the human behavior compared to the exterior barbarism, describes a phenomenological nature of barbarism[8]. Its structural nature reveals elements connected to the cultural, political, economical, educational, scientific and technological evolutions of the contemporary society compared to the past epochs and centuries. This interpretation - which takes the barbarism out of the sphere of cultural-historical events and places it in a framework dominated by technical-scientific progress, evolution of anthropic and global environments of all things – moves the accent from the barbarism phenomenon (the manifestation of which has to do with behavioural issues) on its structure (on what substitutes the matrix of the phenomenon’s occurrence). The differences between structure and phenomenon are differences in the level which generate a new dialectic in the barbarism interpretation. As far as the acknowledgement of barbarism is concerned, the present conditions stress upon more on the distinction between “Weak Barbarism” and “Strong Barbarism”.

Therefore, the concept of “Weak Barbarism” is not born out of something; it appears in a philosophical background that was very common in the last century, beginning with the works of   Martin Heidegger and H. G. Gadamer, whose radical hermeneutics[9] on the main works of G. W. F. Hegel and Friederech Nietzsche lead to the critique of modern thinking. Gianni Vattimo is maybe the most fervent promoter of “weak thinking”[10], as mentioned by John D. Caputo in an exchange of ideas[11] with G. Vattimo. The weak thinking refers to the fact that the methods of modern philosophy find no more their representation in the contemporary world which was why its limits needed a new sense and interpretation. Thus, a new series of hermeneutics have born and gradually tend to substitute the old philosophies. The American Pragmatism of Charles S. Pierce, the Existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre, the French Deconstructivism or contemporary postmodernism are the most radical critiques of a thinking we call „strong”. The weak meaning of thinking, the ones representing a connoisseur approach[12], represents the alternative of a modern philosophy which, unlike the present ones, could generate unitary and universal thinking systems. Based on the Occidental parameters of thinking, the philosophic works of Aristotle, Descartes or Kant can be deemed as generally valid for the time they appeared in. Contemporary pluralism and transdisciplinarity of sciences, correlated with multiplication theories and mass access to higher education which determined a very harsh critique of Michel Henry on the French university system and others[13], have lead to the phenomenon of the philosophy field specialization.  For example, if Immanuel Kant, although scarcely had he been far from the surroundings of  Königsberg City, succeeded to gather knowledge in almost every fields existing during the period of German Age of Enlightenment in the XVIII^th century, nowadays, an educated man can not cover any more such a variety of information. The end of the age of Great Geographical Discoveries and the acceptance of a global world, the strong industrialization of the Occident and the acceleration of the Technological development, all these determined a diversification of knowledge. Although he was not the first to try it (even Voltaire had done it, sometime before him, in a great encyclopedia), Wilhelm Dilthey had to restructure the fields of knowledge. Thus, Dilthey dissociates the natural sciences and the ones of the spirit[14], stressing upon the fact that the sciences of the spirit are harder to dissociate. His efforts remain a point of reference in the history of thinking. Thus, returning to the weak thinking, Gianni Vattimo is forced to accept the fact that the current way of thinking, the one which has to do more, for the above stated reasons, with the differentiation difficulties and dissolution tendencies[15], is of weak nature. But this should not discourage the philosophical efforts since the weak character of thinking has nothing to do with the idea of a philosophy with no strength or consistency of ideas. The weak attribute of thinking represents, de facto, not a weakness, but, in the sense invoked by Gianni Vattimo, a transfiguration, a derivation.

Mediating a vivid dialogue between Gianni Vattimo and René Girard, Pierpaolo Antonello provokes the latter, stating that secularization and laicism are wrongly interpreted in conflict with Christianity, from both historical and philosophical point of view. René Girard, considering Christianity as a religion of victims and sacrifices, based on its origin  cantered on the crucifixion and death of the Son of God himself, convinces Pierpaolo Antonello to admit, using just Vattimo’s terms, that the God who comes and becomes is a weak God (René Girard, Gianni Vattimo, Verità o fede debole?: dialogo su cristianesimo e relativismo). Following the same idea, John D. Caputo notices that God as a „weak force”, as His being is perceived in radical hermeneutics by a postmodern theology, is, in his opinion, a disturbing presence[16]. Moreover, Gianni Vattimo talks about two senses of the value of weak God of Christianity: the first one refers to a weakening of the Being in itself by a metaphysical structure into an interpreted one, which indicates the Dasein’s direction of alterity from its pure structure, while the second one refers to the weakening of God in the world, being paradigmatically represented by the act of the incarnation, birth and death of Jesus Christ[17]. Based on all these ideas which cover the idea of a religion as a ground in its own weak character, the Christianity seems to be the space which allowed, evolutionarily, the appearance of weak thinking in its comprehensive space.

Back to barbarism, this weak sense, originating, as we could see, from the tendencies of the last century hermeneutics, represents what we will call: current axiological mutation of barbarism. “Weak Barbarism and Strong Barbarism” is another dialectic dimension in understanding this concept. Our digression on Weak Barbarism is not random. Thinking, defined otherwise compared to the terms of general psychology, is an activity specific to the cultural structure, therefore, it belongs to what we called cultural background of the human being. Thereof we conclude that Weak Barbarism borrows the same characteristics of contemporary thinking. But, in order not to be blinded by the passion of interpretation barbarism, according to which the interpreter is animated by the passion of destruction for the sake of destroying, desacralizing the senses based on which we used to understand the barbarism in itself, becoming ourselves true barbarians of our days, we should stop here the connections which lead our way on the path of a Weak Barbarism[18], and care more about what is new about the Strong Barbarism. 

3.      Forms of the Weak Barbarism

In order to suggest the way barbarism should be understood today, Jean-Pierre Le Goff enriches the term „weakness” by enlarging its meaning with gentleness[19]. Weak Barbarism becomes for Jean-Pierre Le Goff Gentle Barbarism. Given the French tradition to which Le Goff belongs, one can easily notice that the use of term “Gentle” has to do with the relation between barbarism and civilization. The gentle sense of barbarism is given by his idea of “broken mirrors”, which shows us that the society and the individuals appear as fragments of a chaotic wall, or fragments that are, in their turn, fragmented[20]. Le Goff argues that the “gentleness” of barbarism stems from our society’s tendency to decay – barbarism decays the same way as civilization does. This time, barbarism decays from its strong sense, and this phenomenon is related to all changes or mutations from the contemporary societies, which appear in an alert succession rather as parts of a deconstruction process. This process is described in numerous aspects that illustrate a symptomatic dehumanization of the society[21]; culture seems to melt in pluralism: arts multiply, literature becomes consumerist, the masses are mesmerized by entertainment televisions, the church undergoes modernization, laws proliferate etc. All of these highlight the softening phenomenon of the society; where the kindness of some phenomena weakens the traditional sense of their understanding, we are dealing with a uniformity that does not elude barbarism. This mutation is excellently captured by John Pettegrew in the expression: brutes in suits[22], which describes in a minimalist manner the transition from barbarism’s strong sense to the weak one (gentler). Also, even though not in the same words, Alessandro Baricco in Barbarians tells approximately the same thing: the barbarian, an animal with gills, tries to conquer the civilized world by adapting, putting on human clothes.

If, by at least two centuries ago, in the West and in the areas dominated by it, barbarism was always in opposition with everything which meant humanity, and the border between them was very little permissive, such as crossing from one caste to another in the Indian society, today, the limits between barbarism and civilization are so transparent and permeable, that, not only their character weakens, but also what relates to them directly. Thus we talk about a new barbarism. As Mattéi did but rather in the sense that humanity’s and barbarism’s double polarity may coexist in the same individual, Nelli Motroshilova distinguishes in a study about the perception of the present barbarism two levels of barbarism: a primary and a secondary barbarism[23]. In terms of a natural arithmetic, in which number “2” seconds number “1”, we may consider that secondary barbarism would follow the primary one. The senses Motroshilova bears in mind come from K. S. Rehberg’s terminology who delimits intra-civilization barbarism from that one located outside it[24]. Although resembling a great deal with the distinction between “Interior Barbarism” and “Exterior Barbarism”, the senses herein are not diachronic, but they also capture a transfiguration of the meanings of barbarism. The fact that the barbarian is no longer outside civilization, but he seems to be seen everywhere inside civilization, thus closer and closer to the one considered civilized, makes it even harder to define barbarism and civilization. Secondary barbarism, which apparently, is an evolutionary change once outside civilization, appears today, in a brief definition, as: disavowal[25] of all ... values. This is the reason for which we have talked about an axiological mutation of barbarism.

The mutations that occur at a historical level are perceived alike at all levels of the society. The values that elites base upon today for the social-cultural reconstruction create completely new regulatory systems. All interpretative directions lead today to a reconsideration of the values, a re-evaluation of the masses, a restructuring of the fields of knowledge, re-adaptation to the new technologies and thus to a conversion of the society, which means that somewhere, a rupture which changed everything existed. This rupture is hard to spot. Last century, rightly called the century of speed due to the acceleration of the technical-scientific development, especially in its second part, is so condensed with events that could explain up to a certain point that rupture, so that it might be spotted in any human activity. It is certain that after such a rupture, a rethinking of all things was necessary. In such a rupture, the cultural and civilization values gain new meanings, and because of this axiological revival, which requires time to be implemented, barbarism can only actively participate to hinder this process.

The meanings of Weak Barbarism, its gentleness and its second position, cannot contribute decisively and only by themselves to the deconstruction of the cultural background. They are permanently accompanied by ongoing strong resources remaining in the structure of Weak Barbarism a priori. The evolutionary nature of the “Weak Barbarism – Strong Barbarism” dialectics has not lost its essence of negativity, even though the structures of the two are different. Strong Barbarism was always in conflict with terms in positions of superiority. Its barbarian, although situated outside civilization, has to fight the civilized world on two fronts. On the one side there was a fight for survival, to maintain previous order, at least when the civilized society was expanding, and on the other side there was a struggle for the supremacy of influence in a certain territory. In both cases, excellently portrayed in the wars between the Roman Empire and the Germanic people, barbarism brimmed over with energy and used force. We know too well that after war one counts the dead, the injured, the victories, the losses and the spoils of war, and from this perspective, that is based on violence, crime, dehumanization, vandalism etc., nobody assigns war or armed conflict a positive character. Still, after any war, whether related by the winners or the losers, societies reorganized, established borders, strengthened their fortresses, built roads and aqueducts, fortified their cities, built cities and walls, developed their defensive and offensive systems, invented weapons and fighting devices, shortly: even though there are losers and winners, after conflicts societies developed and progressed. Strong Barbarism, whose sense lies in the term “potent”[26], although it shocks through cruelty, toughness and aggressiveness, is a creative one. The destruction of the Roman Empire by the barbarian people north of limes, would later lead, using the Roman law and Latin transfiguring into Romance languages, to the formation of the European nations; the aggressiveness used by Rome to treat Christianity lead to the strengthening of the monotheistic religions; the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans and the Muslim threat from the gates of Europe fortified the West; the conquest of the New World by the Europeans lead to the industrial development and growth of political and economic power of the European nations; slave trade practiced by the colonial powers enriched the West and laid the basis of the first global economy; in the last century, the two World Wars lead to the political reorganization of the world. After every great outpouring of Strong Barbarism, further social, cultural and political progress could be observed.

In antithesis with Strong Barbarism, Weak Barbarism, or as we are particularly concerned about it today, new barbarism[27], seems to have not a creative force, but rather a destructive one. Nothing can be seen after it. The intensity of force this barbarism brings along does not have great impact on the social and cultural aspects. Its forms of manifestation are not contrary to the principles of humanity so violently as to leave traumatic scars in the cultural background of societies, but, using interpretations of the law or bad interpretations of the law, it makes room and it acts as much as the normative inadequacies of societies allow. Human Rights resolved most of the problems connected to military invasions, major armed conflicts, genocide and extermination or slavery, but even in the foundation of this universal, global document one may find most of the sources of Weak Barbarism. For example, the right to life, one of the fundamental laws of contemporary society, argues that all individuals have equal rights to life. Hence, international charity bodies care for people that live in inhumane living conditions, especially in the very poor African states, where people often starve to death. This concern for the poor people in the world, sometimes excessive, new medical discoveries, as well as technical progress in the field of medical devices, among which venereal diseases and deadly viruses have been (partly) isolated, in time led to a substantial demographic growth of the global population[28], especially in poor countries or developing countries. The demographic growth in countries from Islamic Asia and Mediterranean Africa has become, Samuel P. Huntington says, a threat to the Western area[29].

The normative system of contemporary societies may include just as many flaws as forms of Weak Barbarism that there may be. The barbarian finds a place of manifestation wherever he encounters a poor interpretation of legislation, and, therefore, weak cruelty tends to represent that category of people who do not observe the law. The barbarian is identified in any criminal, outlaw, unconventional, irresponsible, socially unadapted, immoral, illiterate, unlettered, uneducated man. All these forms that show some human individuals’ poor adaptation to civilization, crate the basis for a second category of Weak Barbarism. There is only one step from the first level to the second one. At this second level, we may run into severe forms of contemporary barbarism, the majority of which being related to pathology, generally symptoms generated by neuroses, which occur in crowded cities, by sexual obsessions or by neuronal disequilibrium and psycho-social schizophrenias. This category may include the following barbarians: the serial killer, the war killer, the suicidal man, the anarchist and the terrorist. Certainly, these lists may continue, but, these are broadly the most relevant examples. The two levels follow a chained sequence from legislative lapses. 

But these are not the only social-political-cultural imperfections that may lead to the proliferation of new barbarians, but also the lapses of contemporary technical-scientific and industrial developments. We are placed on two analysis levels this time as well. On the one hand, we are dealing with the technological progress, and, on the other hand, our attention is focused on the intensification of the industrialization process. In the first case, regarding the development of virtual media generating technologies, of entertainment televisions and mobile communications, one may easily experience the addiction to the internet and online games, free access to press and digital pornography, and visual aggression inappropriate to certain social categories; in the case of industrial expansion, although it reaches growingly vast media to the detriment of the natural environment necessary to human survival, it is overwhelmingly construed as an alternate and long-term source for the same human cause. This paradox, which is made of two antithetic terms, whose finality is one and the same, leads to another type of barbarian. At this level, the barbarian is a consequence of the global policy for the insurance of the necessary living conditions. The paradoxical barbarian is, at the same time, both the inveterate consumer and the most aggressive pest of the environment, registered in documents as an eager supporter of ecologist tendencies, but, in fact, one of the biggest pollutants of the planet, so deeply involved in fighting terrorism, that contraceptive and interceptive measures seem to become organized actions of terrorism themselves, as concerned to slow down the demographic increase rhythm as radical in the measures thus applied; briefly, the paradoxical barbarian is a civilized-uncivilized being, if such terms may be used, whose actions, although lacking any negative intentions, indulges himself in international political-economic systems, which allow him an aggressive or violent reaction.

The forms of Weak Barbarism seem to belong to a sphere of uncertainty, of interpretive duality; thus, we must reflect with greater attention upon any situation that we may categorize as belonging to barbarism, before being absolutely convinced by the validity of the act itself. Also, invoking the same huge problem of the contemporary demographic, given that the world population will reach a sensitive threshold of seven billion people[30], the proliferation of the acts of barbarism is constantly growing; nevertheless, in the same time direction suggested earlier, together with the multiplying of the acts of barbarism, we would suggest that Weak Barbarism could be understood as a diluted one, hence its diffuse nature, instable and uncertain in its phenomenology. Because the barbarian can be found anywhere today, everywhere, here and there, on one continent or another, in various urban areas at the same time etc, the acts of barbarism cannot be captured in their entirety at the same time. The synchrony of the barbarism acts induces a diffuse character, the valences of incoherence and instability.

All of these outline the structure of the contemporary barbarism, whose comprehensive fundament is situated in totally different parameters. The “Strong Barbarism – Weak Barbarism” dialectics places the interpretation of the concept in the present times. Without this dissociation, barbarism would have remained in a general understanding that describes an uncivilized and illiterate individual. In the political and historical conditions in which transformations in all fields of knowledge have an impact impossible to overlook, barbarism is urged to keep up with such transformations and to redefine them. The terrorist tends to replace the guerilla of the barbarian peoples, the aggressive postmodern seems to replace the colonist bearing a cross in his hand, the internet user obsessed with online games successfully replaces the one who had a thing for trading slaves, the hackers in the era of technology remind us of the pirates of the seas from the Age of Great Geographical Discoveries, and the contemporary mafia reminds us of the power of the medieval inquisition etc. In an alert world where nothing is lost but everything is transformed, Weak Barbarism substitutes Strong Barbarism prolonging the latter’s manifestation principles; nevertheless, the character of Weak Barbarism is diluted due to the multiplicity, the proliferation, the instability and inconsistencies of the present social and cultural environment.

  

BIBLIOGRAFY

1.   Caputo, John D., Gianni Vatiimo, After the Death of God, Columbia University Press, New York, 2007.

2.   Dilthey, Wilhelm, Introduction to the Human Sciences, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1988.

3.   Droit, Roger-Pol, Généalogie des barbares, Odile Jacob, Paris, 2007.

4.   Huntington, Samuel P., The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 1997.

5.   Kegley, Charles W. Jr., World Politics: Trend and Transformation, Cengage Learning, Belmont, 2009.

6.   Miller, G. Tyler, Scott Spoolman, Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions, Cengage Learning, Belmont, 2008.

7.   O`Sullivan, Michael, Michel Henry – Incarnation, Barbarism and Belief, Peter Lang AG, International Acdemic Publishers, Bern, 2006.

8.   Petegrew, John, Brutes in Sutes, Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2007.

9.   Vattimo, Gianni, Pier Aldo Rovatti, Il Pensiero debole, Feltrinelli, Milano 1990.

Articles:

1.   Al-Aymeh, Aziz, Civilization, Culture and the New Barbarians, în International Sociology, nr. 1, vol. 16, London, 2001.

2.   Le Goff, Jean-Pierre, Modernization and Gentle Barbarim, în Diogenes, nr. 195, vol. 49, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford,  2002.

3.   Motroshilova, Nelli, Barbarity as the Reverse Side of Civilization, în Diogenes, nr. 2-3, vol. 56, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford,  2009.

Dictionaries:

1.   Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studis, Routledge, London, 1998.

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[1] It is not necessary to minutely relate this particular attribute of history for we should undertake a specific study.

[2] Mutant in itself with terms becoming mutant in their turn, “others” become “us” or “others more than us” and “us” may be taken for “others” it is defined or self assessed from the perspective of these “others”.

[3] Such as: the barbarian attribute given by the Greeks to the Persian Empire organized in an empire at least as civilized as the Greek society, the Christian persecution and oppression by the civilized Romans, the barbarism gestures of the Western crusaders against the Moslems, colonial imperialism slavery.

[4] Roger-Pol Droit, Généalogie des barbares, Odile Jacob, Paris, 2007, p. 275.

[5] Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studis, Routledge, London, 1998, p. 126.

[6] From the second half of the 19^th century; Ibidem, p. 112.

[7] At this point we make a dissociation from the meaning given by Jean Francois Mattei and we admit that Barbarism interior attribute it has not got to do with placing it in the middle of a civilization or culture, but, psychoanalytically speaking, at the level of human collective unconsciousness where by repression it is expresses itself outside it, understood as the individual’s exterior, as a society or life background.

[8] Under these terms, barbarism is closely related of the alterity phenomenon; similarly, in a study on a general-particular track, if alterity represents, in the most vast interpretation, the phenomenon by which an aspect or a human being decays (a Heideggerian word expressing the Dasein’s being-thrown-into-the-world) from an initial state, then barbarism, in a particular way, would be the phenomenon by which culture and civilization justify their decay or regression.

[9] John D. Caputo, Gianni Vatiimo, After the Death of God, Columbia University Press, New York, 2007, p. 83.

[10] „Which is above all weak and mainly due to its ontological contents,  to its way of understanding the being and the truth [...] which, therefore, has no reasons more reasons to claim its sovereignty which metaphysical thinking used to claim in relation with the practice” in Gianni Vattimo, Pier Aldo Rovatti, Il Pensiero debole, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1990, pp. 26-27.

[11] John D. Caputo, Gianni Vatiimo, op. cit., p. 83.

[12] Gianni Vattimo, Pier Aldo Rovatti, op. cit., p. 42.

[13] Michael O`Sullivan, Michel Henry – Incarnation, Barbarism and Belief, Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern, 2006, pp. 142-143., p. 149.

[14] Wilhelm Dilthey, Introduction to the Human Sciences, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1988, pp. 33-35.

[15] Gianni Vattimo, Pier Aldo Rovatti, op. cit., p. 20.

[16] John D. Caputo, Gianni Vatiimo, op.cit., p. 62.

[17] Ibidem, p. 74.

[18] Paraphrasing the famous work of Martin Heidegger, Path of thinking.

[19] Jean-Pierre Le Goff, Modernization and Gentle Barbarim, in Diogenes, nr. 195, vol. 49, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2002, p. 41.

[20] Ibidem, p. 44.

[21] Idem.

[22] In an evolutionary sense; John Petegrew, Brutes in Suits, Male Sensibility in America, 1890-1920, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2007.

[23] Nelli Motroshilova, Barbarity as the Reverse Side of Civilization, in Diogenes, nr. 2-3, vol. 56, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford,  2009, p. 74.

[24] Idem.

[25] Blame, condemnation, dissociation, disapproval, obloquy, non-approval, reprobation, rejection, stigmatization.

[26] Gianni Vattimo, Pier Aldo Rovatti, op. cit., pp. 12.

[27] Aziz Al-Aymeh, Civilization, Culture and the New Barbarians, in International Sociology, nr. 1, vol. 16, London, 2001, p. 87.

[28] Charles W. Kegley Jr., World Politics: Trend and Transformation, Cengage Learning, Belmont, 2009, p. 306.

[29] Samuel P. Huntington, The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 1997, p. 103.

[30] G. Tyler Miller, Scott Spoolman, Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections, and Solutions, Cengage Learning, Belmont, 2008, p. 123.