The past century has seen some of the worst events happen in human history. These events were made even more devastating with the advancement of technology and things like war have never been the same again.
The two world wars themselves caused so much more destruction together than all previous wars combined. And the atrocity of it all can be said to be barbaric. But the word "barbaric" wasn't associated with cruelty or brutality before. It only meant "the state of being primitive or unsophisticated".
But because the developments in technology intensified the power of our weapons of war, the word "barbaric" had to change following in their trail. Yet, not all kinds of barbarism are negative. Walter Benjamin, in his essay, attempts to introduce a new positive notion of barbarism. One that is connected with the poverty of experience.
The consequences of feigning or misappropriating experience are too clear in the mishmash of styles and ideologies created in the last century for us not to find it honorable to acknowledge our poverty. Let us admit it: our poverty of experience is not only an impoverishment of private experience but of human experience as a whole. It is, therefore, a new kind of barbarism.
Barbarism? Indeed. We say this in order to introduce a new, positive notion of barbarism. For where does poverty of experience lead the barbarian? It leads him to start again from the beginning, to start fresh, to make do with little, to rebuild with next to nothing and without looking left or right.
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