The Necessity of the Barbarians
The Necessity of the Barbarians

Summary/Abstract: This essay examines the mechanisms of the construction of the “barbarians” in their relation to the identity of the Empire. It will concentrate on the specific imperial epistemology, as presented both in the characters of Colonel Joll and the Magistrate, and show how the categories of the inner and the outer, the phenomenal and the noumenal, form the central pair in its logic. The Magistrate will be understood as a representative of pedagogic, and Colonel Joll as a representative of performative side in the process of construction of the collective identity. Special attention will be given to the relation of the Magistrate and the “barbarian” girl, where moral ambiguities of the imperial discourse are most complex. It will then move on to the question of the production of the “enemy” out of the “barbarian”, as a necessity of the imperial self. Finally it will present the structures of war as the foundations of biopower of the Empire, and relate them to its epistemology.

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