ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians as a representation of modern individualized thinking on morality, during the darkest of times, complicating the notion of politics in the postcolony. Arendt’s ideas concerning ethical actions during totalitarianism bear important similarities to Coetzee’s representation of the magistrate in the novel, as this character struggles to live with his conscience in a totalitarian regime. In Arendt’s world, introspection is only needed when the world around us fails to guarantee moral laws, and even then, one should not focus on oneself only, but instead on the external world. Coetzee, however, shows, through the character of the magistrate, how this internal dialogue easily becomes torturous in its nature. If political action is the most important aspect of Arendt’s thinking, then Coetzee shows how modern, conscientious humans cannot just act politically; instead, their action is always marked by their personal weaknesses, including their feelings of inadequacy. To some extent complicating Chapter 1’s claims regarding Armah’s novel, this chapter focuses on Coetzee’s novel to show how the faculty of willing makes internal discussion and political action highly problematic in the contemporary world that is plagued by inequalities. Nevertheless, even if Arendt emphasizes political action more than Coetzee, who shows that such action is necessarily marked by individual doubt, self-questioning, and other personal inadequacies, the reliance on radical thinking, which is at odds with conformism, is a concern they share.
