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thevenerableread's review against another edition
2.0
Misled by the title, I came to the Fear of Barbarians with the expectation of a geneology of the categories of "civilization" and "barbarian" and an explication of why our society and societies of the past have found it necessary to create an Other with the characteristics of the "barbarian." In fact, Todorov's book redefines (though actually just borrows by his own admission from Levi-Strauss) the concepts of "civilization" and "barbarian" to work as metrics by which actions and customs can be evaluated cross-culturally. To be civilized means to recognize the humanity in others from different backgrounds, to be barbarian is to deny that humanity. Todorov then proceeds to use these moral categories to discuss the barbarism of the Bush administration's response to 9/11, certain episodes of cultural conflict between European communities and Muslim immigrants, and to characterize what it means to be European. Todorov concludes that "Europe" draws its unity from its long-standing recognition of pluralism. Ultimately, I can see the book's aims, but I neither found them particularly profound (didn't we all learn the Golden Rule in the 4th grade?) nor did I think its strengths did much to overcome its weaknesses, which I will list in no particular order:
-Todorov, despite his pretensions to universalism, is still rooted within a very specific vein of Western thought that valorizes the virtues of liberal democracies as the ultimate good without making any effort to recognize that even those assumptions are evidence of a sort of chauvinism.
-Why does Todorov extol the Enlightenment for its "invention" of pluralism, when that same period developed imperial systems that have been perhaps the most barbaric in history? Not to mention that Enlightenment pluralism was subsumed within racial and cultural hierarchies.
-In his section about European identity, Todorov praises the many "advantages" that Europe's embrace of plurality brought, including the capability to enact Native American genocide. An advantage?? This really just does not compute.
-His discussions of xenophobia in contemporary Europe does nothing to address the issue of racism, i.e. that Muslim immigrants are for the most part also POCs and that the discrimination they encounter in Europe cannot be separated from the issue of race. Moreover, it does not talk about the systemic violence that immigrant communities are subjected to in Europe, painting the picture as one of two equal cultures that cannot get along. This ignores the substantial power imbalances in the social sphere which necessarily have to inform a treatment of xenophobia and cross-cultural encounter.
-In general, Todorov falls into a trap of imagining an equality of blame in the struggle between "us" and "them," the "West" and "Islam." He writes that the "countries of fear" and the "countries of resentment" need to forgive each other and move forward. As if the grievances were in the past and over with! And as if outrage at the horrors of colonialism that continues to this day can be reduced to petty resentment! This isn't a case of "both sides are wrong." The hatred of European xenophobes pervades their countries and persists with strong popular appeal (we need only look at the rise of Marie le Pen, Geert Wilders, and the AfD for proof), while extreme Islamism has a much narrower range of support. The onus falls much more heavily then on European shoulders to atone for their past and present crimes and to make their "free" societies places where cultural pluralism can exist in practice, not just in rhetoric.
-Todorov, despite his pretensions to universalism, is still rooted within a very specific vein of Western thought that valorizes the virtues of liberal democracies as the ultimate good without making any effort to recognize that even those assumptions are evidence of a sort of chauvinism.
-Why does Todorov extol the Enlightenment for its "invention" of pluralism, when that same period developed imperial systems that have been perhaps the most barbaric in history? Not to mention that Enlightenment pluralism was subsumed within racial and cultural hierarchies.
-In his section about European identity, Todorov praises the many "advantages" that Europe's embrace of plurality brought, including the capability to enact Native American genocide. An advantage?? This really just does not compute.
-His discussions of xenophobia in contemporary Europe does nothing to address the issue of racism, i.e. that Muslim immigrants are for the most part also POCs and that the discrimination they encounter in Europe cannot be separated from the issue of race. Moreover, it does not talk about the systemic violence that immigrant communities are subjected to in Europe, painting the picture as one of two equal cultures that cannot get along. This ignores the substantial power imbalances in the social sphere which necessarily have to inform a treatment of xenophobia and cross-cultural encounter.
-In general, Todorov falls into a trap of imagining an equality of blame in the struggle between "us" and "them," the "West" and "Islam." He writes that the "countries of fear" and the "countries of resentment" need to forgive each other and move forward. As if the grievances were in the past and over with! And as if outrage at the horrors of colonialism that continues to this day can be reduced to petty resentment! This isn't a case of "both sides are wrong." The hatred of European xenophobes pervades their countries and persists with strong popular appeal (we need only look at the rise of Marie le Pen, Geert Wilders, and the AfD for proof), while extreme Islamism has a much narrower range of support. The onus falls much more heavily then on European shoulders to atone for their past and present crimes and to make their "free" societies places where cultural pluralism can exist in practice, not just in rhetoric.
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