On Violence

Professor Arendt has again turned the commonplace on its head with her wit and piercing logic, and has used her unfiltered and unadulterated thinking to milk additional meanings and understandings from the accepted conventional wisdom. Her clean thinking and careful analysis has become a force to be reckoned with, and as a result, has acquired a life of its own. After reaching the end of this sharply focused essay, I discovered it is best read in reverse, beginning with section III and working backwards. It is a tutorial on the origins, use and misuse of violence, and its associated concepts of power, strength, authority, and terror, and to a much lesser extent also, influence, control, obedience, and command. It is section III that deals with the origins of violence in both human and animal. And as is true with the other sections, existing common sense and settled sociological theology are reopened and challenged. Both Konrad Lorentz and B.F. Skinner's theories, for instance are placed anew under the microscope, in light of human, rather than just anthropomorphized animal experience, with surprisingly new understandings emerging. Section II deals with the definitional slipperiness of these concepts as they have been used and misused -- again with surprisingly new interpretations. And again, the standard understandings are reopened for further analysis and the old authorities are challenged to redefine their often ossified and misleading meanings and interpretations. Section I begins with the existing experience at the time the book was first written (1957) and includes analyses of violence at both the international and the national level, but not at the interpersonal level. Although these examples are anything but fresh, this in no way affects the freshness of the analysis. I was especially impressed with the way the author ripped the so-called revolutionary movements of the 60s, including the black power movement and Third World revolutionary movements in general. As she puts it so trenchantly: "The Third World is not a reality but an ideology." The section on terror however, left me cold: in light of the likes of Osama bin Laden, the role and effects of terror, could certainly use some updating. My only other complaint is that the analysis is almost too abstract and almost too removed from the meat of contemporary experience, in the sense that the moral dimension is never brought directly into the picture. This omission makes the analyses seem almost synthetic, sterile and wholly academic, although I am sure with the author's background this could not have been her intent. Still, even if one has to imagine how to factor her analyses back into contemporary situations, the wisdom contained in this short volume and the intellectual skill with which it is done, are priceless. Five stars

The irony of viewing the natural need of men (and increasingly, women) to view power as dominance over rather than as a part of a coooperative spirit toward mutual goals is the foundation of this articulate and simple philosophy where violence becomes a part of the political and economic landscape. Arendt stopped short of asking to what extent men will sacrifice to acquire the power through violence that is supposedly the motive underlying the methods used. When males sacrifice both their honor and their natural masculinity for power, one wonders what limit, if any, is man willing to condone in himself to "win" the power or money he fervently and diligently pursues. Although supposedly, man comes equipped with the height of survival instinct, it is remarkable how willing he is to castrate himself in pursuit of essentially man made goals that symbolize success, often crippling many others in the process without hesitation, too often, in violation of the religious teachings of compassion and brotherhood. Given this rather historically well documented pattern of acceptance in mankind, it appears the decision to request increasingly more of man's sacrifice for that pursuit tilts the seesaw in the other direction. What man hath wrought, man will deliver in the finest mode of free market principles, leaving us to question whether indeed there are limits to what man ought to be asking other men to do, i.e., to what extent moral and logical principles are allowed to become the modifying influence that limits the scope of that pursuit and the credible measure by which such decisions are made.

The most simple questions are the hardest to answer so we leave them to people like Hannah Arendt. Here she writes about the difference between violence in the hands of the state versus violence in the hands of extremist groups or individuals. In other words, how is terrorism different from totalitarianism? Her theoretical conclusions on violence and power are interesting because she reasons that they are opposites: violence is the lack of access to power (and is power then the ability to use violence at any time? I didn't really grasp that). Something about that idea resonated with me the fist time I read this book, and it made me think about the violence in schools like Columbine, and even self-violence in young adults, but she doesn't go into those more psychological areas- only historically and politically on a larger scale-attacking state-sponsored violence. Through this short book she argues intelligently and factually and does not use sophistry or tug at our emotions with wishy-wash. You should also read her other books and I suggest the Hannah Arednt Reader to get started. The fact that the author was an exiled Jewess who lived during the Holocaust and spent her life as a political activist, and is still able to objectively examine the nature of of violence in the 20th century make her words speak even greater. For me, someone who can take something so evil and complex as this subject, crack it open, get to the heart of it and understand it, and then rearrange ideas about violence in a new, simpler form, may have more to say about stopping it than the spiritual/inspirational leaders who have preached nonviolence in our century like Mahatma Ghandi or the Dalai Lama.Everyone who is currently nauseated or confused at the state of our world affairs, every student of history should be forced to read this book. Its not morbid, just thoughtful. But- like George Orwell's 1984- pretty scary if you let it get to you.

There are few books from college that remain with me 15 years later. This is one of them. Arendt's writing transcends academia. Not only does her philosophy apply to politics but it can easily be applied to all relationships (worker/employer, parent/child, siblings, black/white, etc),as all relationships involve a power struggle. Her general thesis is that where there is lack of power or where power is slipping away, there is greater potential for violence. Lack of power begets violence. Apply that to the current world scene and you begin to wonder exactly how safe we are. In re-reading it recently, I couldn't help think that this book could just as easily be prescribed for management solutions...right alongside The Art of War.

Though this book does not have the same power over me as On Revolution had, On Violence is still a very well written, witty and insightful look at the power structures most prevalent in the early 1970's. Arendt makes the intelligent claim that those with power that are losing that power will hit a point where they only see violence as a means to maintain the current power distribution, but that violence will actually cause a loss of power. The book can be read in a day (and should), but this book needs to be read 3 or 4 times to catch all of the subtle points Arendt throws in unannounced. The main criticism I have of this book is its failure at points to demonstrate the relavence of her arguments, which I find she does incredibly well in her other books. Not a must buy, but if you have the option, take it.