La barbarie del nemico. Una critica filosofico-letteraria dell’ostilità politica

Abstract

In this article I analyse the figure of the barbarian through three authors. The first is Franz Kafka, the second Carl Schmitt, the third John Maxwell Coetzee. The thesis of the essay is that the political-theoretical framework formulated by Schmitt, who saw the friend-enemy pair as the criterion for the identification of the political, can be problematised through two texts: Kafka’s Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer and Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. In conclusion of the essay, I highlight some aspects that may be useful in understanding the hostilising dynamics of our time.