"Barbarism" was actually a category provided by Veblen , when he said we where falling back into it during the last Gilded Age. He had another category to describe our war-like (barbarians at the gates) mentality. The Mountain People, who were forced to move for a dam is a very good analogy, the civility eroded overnight. See any signs of that in our current political climate, I can see Rep. Green taking a dump on the doorstep of her many rivals as the Ik did to their neighbors.