On Violence (Harvest Book)

She is quite prophetic in this text! Our current issues she say and understood all those decades ago!This text is worth your time reading.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)was one of those rare people whose clear thinking could penetrate the vague nonsense and "academic bafflegap" that political liars and media gurus pass as "news." Arendt could assess a situation or trend and carefully diagnose the flaws in "establishment" discourse.Arendt demolished the idiodic nonsense of using atomic and nuclear weapons. She was clear that the use of such super weapons would ruin both "winners" and "losers." Diplomacy and war are weaspons used to gain some ecnonomic and political advantage. The rhetorical question that Arendt raised is what would the "winners" gain except a destroyed civilization. She could have treated the effects of atomic and nuclear radiation illness which would make those who died instantly the "lucky ones." In other words, the destruction caused by atomic and nuclear weapons would negate ANY economic or political advantage. The fact is that there would be nothing left worth debate or dispute. The issue may be to limit war given the economic problems with reduced military budgets.Pundits raised the question about policy makers think about the "unthinkable" re mass destruction. Arendt's answer was that policy makers do not think at all. They create models and adhere to them with the stupid mentality of "what could possibly go wrong." Arendt's answer was that the policy makers make a claim for a randomm chance or "glitch." As Arendt noted, the random events and "glitches" ARE the norm. Bureaucrats can hide behind the fact that when tragic blunders do occur, Mr. or Mrs. Nobody is responsible. Scapegoats are in good supply and make easy fodder for political leaders and media gurus who refuse to actually know anything and, again, refuse to think. Slogans and ad hominem responses are substituted for knowledge and clear thinking. In spite if smugness and arrogance, policy makers and ultimately citizens realize too late that there are limits to power, and power can lead to weakness and decay.Arendt also had interesting commentary re the student protests of the 19060s and 1970s. Some of these protesters had good reason to complain. However, those who preached violence and Marxist-Lenist nonsensee and violence lived in a dream world. Those who preached such violence had a romantic, naive notion that a Third World (whatever that means) violent revolution would be a Second Coming. These naive fools thought there was some unity between Mao, Che, & co. when no such unity ever existed. The original Leninist, Marxist leaders such as Lenin and Stalin would NEVER HAVE tolerated student dissent and protest. They would have employed the phrase of "The Stalinist Method of Management." This is what happens when men and women refuse to study history and fall prey to ideological nonsense.Another concept that Arendt dealt with was that of violence. Arendt made a good case that violence is not the same thing as power or strength. Power and strength are often based on popular agreement, good organization, and acceptence of the status quo. One the other hand, violence is used when those in power are desparate and see their power successfully challenged. Those who invoke violence do not understnad that violence can beget violence. Another side of this issue is that men and women will not rebel when their are in bad conditions. Men and women rebel when they THINK their conditions are bad even though others have worse situtaions. Rebellions and revolutions do not occur when the tyranny is real, but they occur when tyranny and tyrants appear to be weak. The French and Revolutions are good exmaples of such conditions. Often calls for violence come from those who are stupid and cannot react to reason and knowledge except to make violent threats thus exposing weakness and desparation.Hannah Arendt's books and essays include such works such as THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM, EICHMANN IN JERUSALSM, CRISES OF THE REPUBLIC, etc. Those books and the one that is reviewed show the difference between what is reality and what is false.James E. EgolfJune 25, 2013

This was a really great work of political theory by Arendt. It explores violence, mostly through the lens of the 1960s when she was writing this book. It looks at the student rebellions across the world, in both democracies and communist countries. The coincidence of the uprisings is interesting, and she posits that they are both protesting for the same reason, albeit in different manifestations. Students around the world were looking for freedom. The students in communist countries were looking for freedom to express themselves through both speech and action and thereby have an effect on the processes and progress of their respective countries. The students in the Western democracies were protesting their lack of freedom in action. They protested the lack of agency they felt. Both sets of students felt impotent and unimportant, as if they entirely didn't count, and decided to protest against it.Some of the most impacting quotes for me:"Rage is by no means an automatic reaction to misery and suffering as such; no one reacts with rage to an incurable disease or to an earthquake or, for that matter, to social conditions that seem to be unchangeable. Only where there is reason to suspect that conditions could be changed and are not does rage arise. Only when our sense of justice is offended do we react with rage, and this reaction by no means necessarily reflects personal injury, as is demonstrated by the whole history of injury, as is demonstrated by the whole history of revolution, where invariably members of the upper classes touched off and then led the rebellions of the oppressed and downtrodden.""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 can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it.""Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime is the best excuse for doing nothing.""Racism, white or black, is fraught with violence by definition because it objects to natural organic facts - a white or black skin - which no persuasion or power could change; all one can do, when the chips are down, is to exterminate their bearers. Racism, as distinguished from race, is not a fact of life, but an ideology, and the deeds it leads to are not reflex actions, but deliberate acts based on pseudo-scientific theories. Violence in interracial struggle is always murderous, but it is not "irrational"; it is the logical and rational consequence of racism, by which I do not mean some rather vague prejudices on either side, but an explicit ideological system.""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."

Like Thorstein Veblen, Hannah Arendt is a rare breed of philosopher; not hobbled by any national, tribal or cultural prejudices, and able to communicate her ideas with stunning clarity.

Hannah Arendt is n American philosopher whose most famous work is probably "Eichman in Jeruselem". This book discusses the difference between Violence and Power, where Violence has the ability to make other obey you. Violence is further distinguished from Power by the requirement that it include an implement in which to carry out the violence, as in the form of a gun or a knife or a bomb.THis is short work, really just an essay but it is both simplistic and powerful in its' discussion of Violence and its role in mans affairs. Highly recommended.

Book in very good condition. Great read as well.

All Arendt's papers and books are very interesting for students, teachers and professors. That book can be an addition to "totalitarianism". Many managers and leaders could read this book in order to manage without inducing pathogenic constrainsts on working people, whether employees or workmen or managers.

〇著者の問題意識は、「政治学において権力powerは重要なテーマだが、暴力violenceは独立したテーマとして議論されてこなかった。しかし、総力戦として戦われる戦争、核兵器、大学で吹き荒れる学生運動など、暴力そのものが重要性を増している。したがって、それについての理解を深める必要がある」というものである。〇この本が書かれた時代背景から、また著者が大学に居たことから、学生運動を強く意識した議論が多く、その意味で懐かしくはあるが、やはり古いという感じは否めない（当時の記憶がまったくない人たちにとってはなおさらそうであろう）。〇そのような論考のなかから私なりに汲み取った著者の結論は、「Weberなどの一般的な議論によれば、権力powerとは相手を自身の思うとおりに動かすものであり、その究極のかたちが暴力violenceだということになる。しかし、実は権力と暴力はまったく違うものである。権力の究極的形態は、多数が一人を支配すること（民主政ではもちろん、君主政でも多くの人の支持が欠かせない）であり、暴力の究極的形態は、一人がその他多数を支配することである（なるほど！）」というものである。権力powerが消滅したところで暴力violenceが現れて人を支配するようになるということか。権力と切り離すことによって暴力を完全否定するのが著者の意図であるように思える。

This short and very readable work was first published about the time I graduated and was very widely read, and with intense interest. I have recently come back to it.Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" in the context of Adolf Eichmann who had a key role in the holocaust. As a Jew who had fled Germany she was (it seems to me) clearly moved by the reality of violence; by the need to have as little of it as possible; and by a desire not to commend those who like Fanon and Qtub advocated the kind of terrorist violence we are defending ourselves against today. But she also says that no-one's yet come up with an alternative to violence for settling our incompatible conflicts; the trouble with peace is you need armies to enforce it. This whole argument sounds rather like the Orwellian "war is peace" to me.I think it is a worthwhile, stimulating, very well written book - but of course of its time.I thought some other reviews expected more of the work that was realistic - I don't myself expect a relatively short work to cover everything or to fully reference everything; if one wants that aspect of Arendt's work one can go to her longer publications.

I used this book for my exam in criminology, violence in society.I like the book it is tiny and easy to carry.however I have found that it is easy to lose as well.

This book came rather quickly, perfect condition paper back copy. Inexpensive book and fit for purpose.The book was much smaller then I imagined but who cares.... I just need it for reference material from my uni course and then I'll probably sell the book myself to someone else.