Part II — Conan the Barbarian: The Honest Id
from the series: Barbarian Realism and the Embodied Psyche
Civilization has always needed its barbarians.
It needs them as foils, as shadows, as mirrors.
It needs them as the embodiment of everything it claims to have transcended.
It needs them as the raw material for its own self‑flattering myths.
But every once in a while, a fictional barbarian appears who does not fit the script — a figure who refuses to play the role civilization assigns him.
Conan is that figure.
Robert E. Howard’s Conan is not a brute, not a savage, not a mindless destroyer. He is something far more unsettling:
Conan is the Id without shame.
The embodied human animal.
The instinctual self unmasked.
And that is why he feels truer than the “civilized” men around him.
Conan is not the barbarian civilization fears.
He is the barbarian civilization is — beneath the civil mask.
1. Conan as the Embodied Human Animal
Conan is not disembodied.
He is not abstract.
He is not ideological.
He is:
- muscle
- appetite
- instinct
- loyalty
- rage
- tenderness
- cunning
- desire
- grief
- joy
He is the whole animal, not the sanitized version civilization prefers.
Freud would say:
Conan is the Id in its natural state — unashamed, unbroken, unmasked.
He does not repress instinct.
He does not moralize instinct.
He does not apologize for instinct.
He simply is.
And that is why he feels honest.
2. Civilization as the Lie Conan Refuses to Tell
Conan philosophers online often say:
“Civilization is a lie.”
They don’t mean civilization is fake.
They mean civilization is denial.
Civilization denies:
- the body
- the instinct
- the animal
- the rage
- the grief
- the desire
- the vulnerability
It replaces them with:
- etiquette
- bureaucracy
- moralism
- ideology
- abstraction
- disembodiment
Conan refuses this exchange.
He will not trade instinct for ideology.
He will not trade embodiment for abstraction.
He will not trade the animal for the civil mask.
This is why he is dangerous — not because he is violent, but because he is honest.
3. Conan vs. the Fascist Barbarian
It is important to draw a line here.
Conan is not a fascist fantasy.
He is the opposite.
Fascism is:
- mass psychology
- rigid hierarchy
- ecstatic submission
- moralized violence
- disembodied ideology
- the Id fused with the Superego
Conan is:
- individual
- embodied
- instinctual
- anti‑bureaucratic
- anti‑ideological
- incapable of moralized cruelty
Fascism is the disembodied Id — the Id wearing the civil mask.
Conan is the embodied Id — the Id without disguise.
This distinction matters.
Because the danger is not the man who knows he is an animal.
The danger is the man who denies he is an animal and then acts on instinct anyway.
4. The Camel: The Moment the Mask Cracks
There is a scene in Conan the Barbarian where Arnold Schwarzenegger punches a camel.
It is played for humor — a barbarian’s indifference to the suffering of beasts.
But in real life, camels weep.
They cry when they are beaten, frightened, or grieving.
Their tears are not symbolic.
They are embodied emotional responses.
And here is the truth:
The moment you see an animal weep, the myth of the unfeeling barbarian collapses.
Because the Id recognizes suffering.
The Id recognizes vulnerability.
The Id recognizes the embodied truth of pain.
If Conan had seen a camel cry, he would not have punched it.
He would have understood it.
Because Conan is not unfeeling.
He is unmasked.
5. Conan and Calvin: Strange Bedfellows
It may seem strange to place Conan next to John Calvin, but the connection is real.
Calvin’s doctrine of Total Depravity is a theological recognition of the Id:
- human nature is instinctual
- desire is dangerous
- aggression is real
- the heart is conflicted
- the animal is always present
Calvin saw the Id clearly.
But he interpreted it as depravity rather than psychic reality.
Conan sees the same thing Calvin saw — the instinctual human animal —
but he does not moralize it.
He accepts it.
This is why Conan feels psychologically modern while Calvin feels psychologically anxious.
Conan integrates the Id.
Calvin fears it.
6. The Puritan Civil Mask
The Puritans inherited Calvin’s anthropology but not his clarity.
They:
- saw the Id
- feared the Id
- denied the Id
- moralized the Id
- punished the Id
- projected the Id
This produced:
- witch hunts
- moral panics
- rigid hierarchies
- punitive violence
- disembodied cruelty
The Puritans are the perfect example of:
The disembodied Id → cruelty.
Conan is the perfect example of:
The embodied Id → honesty.
This is the core contrast.
7. Why Conan Matters in a Modern World
Conan is not just a pulp hero.
He is a psychological archetype.
He reveals:
- what civilization represses
- what the body remembers
- what the Id contains
- what the civil mask hides
- what disembodiment distorts
He is the reminder that:
The barbarian is not the one who feels too much.
The barbarian is the one who denies what he feels.
Conan is not the threat.
The civil mask is.
The civilian who denies what he feels becomes the barbarian. The one who integrates what he feels becomes civilized.
8. The Clean Synthesis
Conan teaches us:
- The Id is not evil.
- The Id is embodied truth.
- Civilization is the denial of that truth.
- Disembodiment produces cruelty.
- Embodiment produces honesty.
- The barbarian is not outside the gates.
- The barbarian is the part of ourselves we refuse to acknowledge.
Conan is the honest barbarian —
the one who refuses to lie about what he is.
And that is why he belongs at the center of this series.
Robert E. Howard. The Complete Chronicles of Conan.
John Calvin. Caleb Sinclair. Total Depravity: The Complete Moral Corruption of Human Nature.