Power and Violence

On Power and Violence In this passage from “On Violence”, Hannah Arendt attempts to make a clear distinction between the concepts of power and violence. In her analysis, Violence is an instrumental character (Arendt, 46). It stands in need of justification for some future purpose and of implements to carry its resolution. Power, she distinguishes, is characterized by legitimacy (52). It stands in need of numbers and mass support. Even though power and violence can be found in conjunction with one another, she argues that violence is incapable of creating power. Instead, violence appears where power is in jeopardy. Arendt explores these two concepts by using a means-end relationship where violence is used a means to attain the end of power. In doing so, she shows that violence is only effective for short-term goals and cannot create power. In this paper I will explicate Arendt’s argument, by expounding the distinction and relationship between power and violence. I will then use Martin Luther King’s concept of nonviolent direct action as a means to negotiate and Malcolm X’s concept of voting as a means to achieve justice to evaluate Arendt’s argument. “Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it” (56). In this statement, Arendt distinguishes violence from power. Violence can never create power because power is distinguished by an initial situation of “getting together”. As an instrumental character, violence is the means used to achieve an end. Arendt reiterates that, “It always stands in need of guidance and justification through the end it pursues” (51). Some of the intended ends may include the creation of power, security, liberty or self-defense. Arendt goes on to say that violence has become an irrational logic used to create obedience and coercion, not legitimacy and power: “Out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What can never grow out of it is power” (53).