Barbarities

Ulysses and the cyclop Polyphemus

For the ancients, the barbarian was someone who had a speech defect. Barbaros, said the Greeks, was someone who sounded like gibberish. Blabla, bar bar.

A speech defect, therefore a thinking or cognitive defect. A cognitive defect, therefore a substantial or being defect. The barbarians were the utterly different, the utt…