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“ ‘Barbarism’ is a word that keeps coming to my lips lately,” writes Damir Marusic in a brilliant new article this week. Barbarism seems to be the only real word that describes what comes after the liberal international order. But Damir isn’t pointing to the supposed barbarism of our enemies. His article points to the ways that we in the West — and in the United States — are becoming coarser and more egocentric. Like the poet said, barbarism begins at home.

Shadi Hamid interrogates Damir about his piece in Socratic fashion. Is Damir maybe making a moral equivalence between the Trumpist Right and the hapless Left? While it’s true that the Left isn’t very effective, it can hardly be said to be barbaric. In the course of his answer, Damir discusses Alligator Alcatraz as the symbol of new American barbarism: kind of silly, but also, openly cruel.

For Damir, barbarism isn’t just Nazism; it is the strong turn toward selfishness and narcissism that has taken place since the middle of the twentieth century. And he has a theory of why the turn took place: secularization and the death of God. On this point, Shadi agrees, but he still has questions. Is it political structures or innate nature that make us turn toward evil? If it is the former, how can politics help in this moment to keep us from becoming truly barbaric? It is a timely and intense conversation.

In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Damir and Shadi discuss why “war is a force that gives us meaning”; Shadi compares violence to orgasms; Damir’s Calvinist sympathies make an appearance; Damir opposes “vulgar Nietzscheanism” with a “moral law” forged out of our “broken humanity”; Shadi wonders if Damir has finally become a moralist; can morality survive Pax Americana?; Gaza and barbarism; Christopher Hitchens and faith; the origin of the phrase, “Beyond the pale”; and more!

Required Reading:

* Damir, “Back to Barbarism” (WoC).

* Thérèse Delpech, Savage Century: Back to Barbarism (Amazon).

* Curzio Malaparte, Kaputt (Amazon).

* Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Parable of the Madman” (Fordham University).

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