On Violence - Hannah Arendt Flashcards
The technical development of the implements of violence…
What does Arednt’s argument centre around?
What does she mean by ultima ratio?
The text centres on the tools of violence - ‘violence…always needs implements’.
‘The technical development of the implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict.’
Ultima ratio is the continuation of politics through violence.
What is Arendt’s disagreement with hypothesis in the realm of war?
She thinks that thinking of ‘war’ scientifically and basing action on calculation is wrong because these hypotheses very shortly become considered fact, which further calculations are then based upon. It is not a science but a pseudo-science. This kind of strategic theory can lead to a false belief or conviction that these people have an understanding of events and control over their flow which they do not.
She says there is danger in thinking certain theories are plausible because just because they take evidence and events from present trends, as this can ‘put to sleep our common sense’ through their inner consistency.
What does Arendt write about peace, power and violence in terms of human relations?
Violence has always played an enourmous role in human affairs.
‘Instead of war being ‘an extension of diplomacy’, peace is the continuation of war by other means.’
There is now a complete reversal in ‘the relationship btw power and violence’ because there are now a few weapons that could ‘wipe out all other sources of national power in a few moments’ other things etc. And so there will likely be another reversal in the future relations btw small and great powers.
The amount of violence at the disposal of a particular country wont always be a reliable indication of their strength, or guarantee against destruction by a smaller or weaker power.
The Report on Violence in America, 1969 writes that ‘force and violence are likely to be successful techniques of social control and persuasion when they have wide popular support.”
What does Arendt write about violence in the political realm?
There is a consensus that violence ‘is nothing more than the most flagrant manifeestation of power’. Some have written that war is an activity of states which pertains to their essence, so would the end of warfare mean the end of states? The answer depends on our understanding of power, which Arendt says is an instrument of rule while rule relies on ‘the instict of domination’.
Bertrand de Jouvenel in Power - And ‘to command and to be obeyed: without that, there is no Power - with it no other attribute is needed for it to be…The thing without which it cannot be: that essence is command’.
If power lies in command then there is no greater power than that which grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Bureaucracy is rule by nobody, and Arednt thinks the role it plays in power and violence is that ‘nobody is clearly the most tyrannical of all’.
‘The instinct of submission…is at least as prominent in human psychology as the will to power, and, politically, perhaps more relevant.’
‘All political institutions are manifestations and materialisations of power.’
What are Arendt’s distinctions between ‘power’, ‘strength’, ‘force’, ‘authority’, and ‘violence’?
Power - the human ability to act and act in concert, not the property of an individual but belongs to a group and ‘remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together’.
Strength - an individual entity and belongs to a person or object’s character, but the ‘strength of even the strongest individual can always be overpowered by the many’. ‘It is in the nature of a group and its power to turn against independence, the property of individual strength.’
Force - should be reserved as terminological language eg of nature, of circumstance to indicate energy released by physical or social movements.
Authority - can be vested in persons eg personal authority (parent/child) or in offices eg a senate. Hallmark is unquestioning recognition by those who are asked to obey and coercion/persuasion aren’t needed. Greatest enemy of authority is contempt.
Violence - defined by its instrumental charachter and is close to strength as its tools are designed to multiply natural strength until they can eventually be a substitute for it.
What does Arendt write about violence and power?
Nothin is more common than the combination of violence and power, so authority, power and violence are not all the same.
While violence may seem like ‘the prerequisite of power and power nothing but a face’, Arendt thinks this is implausible and gives the example in revolutions when the tools of violence such as the police and the army begin to disobey commands and defect to the rebels then the situation changes abruptly.
‘Where commands are no longer obeyed, the means of violence are of no use; and the question of this obedience is not decided by the command-obedience relation but by the number of those who share it. Everything depends on the power behind the violence.’
Power is the essence…
Power needs no justification but…
To substitute violence for power…
Power and violence are opposites…
Power is the essence of all govt but violence is not, it is instrumental and ‘always stands in need of guidance and justification through the end it pursues.
‘Power needs no justification’ but it does need legitimacy, two words which are gain misleadingly considered synonyms. ‘Violence can be justifiable, but it never will be legitimate.’
‘To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high’ as the victor pays for it with their own power.
‘Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power’s disappearance.’
Violence is rational…
Every decrease in power…
Violence is rational to the extent that it is effective in reaching the end that must justify it, it can only remain rational if it pursues short term goals because the eventual consequences can’t be certainly predicted.
‘Every decrease in power is an open invitation to violence—if only because those who hold power and feel it slipping from their hands…have always found it difficult to resist the temptation to substitute violence for it.
