Violence and Politics in the work of Hannah Arendt

Abstract

This text aims to elucidate the relationship between violence and political action in Hannah Arendt’s work. In the heat of Arendt’s texts, this article develops the hypothesis that violence occupies a paradoxical spot, or at least a place that’s not exactly the expected a priori: starting from a position in which violence is per se ruinous of politics —where violence is the opposite of power—Arendt diagnosis of the modern crisis of poolitics puts us on the threshold of a conception that sees violent action shadowing one of the latest forms of man’s ability as an actor —which Arendt estimates as deviant or incomplete. And simultaneously warns us that this deviation, that shadowing, leads inexorably to deepening political crisis.