Bar bar bar bar

On which side of the gates?

No9th

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

Barbarians are at the gates.  Build the wall!!! 

Actually, they are already comfortably inside and that is the real story.  It is probably folklore, but I remember reading that some ancient civilization, probably the Greeks as they get praised or blamed for most of “ancient” history, failed to understand the language of a people from a faraway land.  It all sounded to them like “Bar bar bar bar.”  Hence Barbarians. 

And in a war-like age (aren’t they all?) they were feared as “barbarians,” the pillaging type. 

Admittedly it is not too hard to see the Spanish conquistadors as barbarians as they laid waste to typically “advanced” indigenous civilizations in the (to them) “new” world.   They used germ warfare, i.e. diseases that they carried and for which they had partially immunity, and conquered. 

In fact, this may be a good analogy.   The conquerors generally have a high opinion of themselves.  They are the self-announced sophisticates with religious scruples and bigger bullets.  They are encased in large houses and narrow opinions. 

They are inside the gates. 

And they pillage.  It is called economics, or the application of a particular structure of advantage through government laws. 

You can tell who they are when they attempt to justify their wealth or explain why they deserve your votes.   Listen:  “Bar bar bar bar.”