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Summary for the course of Politics of Conflict
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- K001349A
- Instelling
- Universiteit Gent (UGent)
Summary for the course of Politics of Conflict
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Violence and/or poli.cs1) - Violence and power è Arendt
à focus on the IMPLEMENTS of violence, the use of violence
- Violence is inherent as a strategy on decoloniza.on è fanon
o (as colonialism is something inherently violent)
2) Power comes with numbers
- In the realm of legi.macy, of sharing ideas
3) violence à destruc.on
- Violence cannot really build up something (Arendt)
- Violence is aKributed in an emancipatory value, it’s used the free oneself, to break
free and become conscient (fanon)
4) Means – end - discussion
- Arendt: the use of violence can be used as a necessary means towards an end (=
liberty, abstract liberal goals, na.onal liberty), but that these means can also
overtake the ends
,Ø H. Arendt
- Author
o H. Arendt: “On violence” and “banality of evil”
o Fled during WWII
o Taught in NYC a[er the WWII and during cold war
o Abt progressive violence, progressive movements (eg the an.-war movement in
Vietnam war becoming more violent during .me)
o Iden.fies herself as a le[ist thinker
- Text : on violence
o Goal/core in her text : differen.a.ng poli.cs from violence
o Says we should not conflate violence with power: these are 2 fundamentally
different things that should not be conflated
o Challenges in a line of thought, a philosophical line of thought, that has always not
necessarily equated poli.cs with violence but at least understood violence of
being a cons.tu.ve element, an inevitable element of poli.cs power.
§ Tries to understand power in a different way: more abt a poli.cal strategy
§ Violence is abt certain implements : abt having certain things, as an
intstrumental thing, not as a poli.cal strategy
§
o Differen.ates
§ Violence
§ Poli.cs & power
Ø Background
- Why is she making this differen.a.on?
- Towards end of ’60, a set of progressive movements, thinkers,… are star.ng to
‘roman.zice’ violence, an inevitable use of violence
o Tries to point out: “don’t expect too much of violence”, to be careful
- Need different approach to power and poli.cs vs violence
Ø Central arguments
- Power can never be equated with violence
- Violence as a poli.cal strategy: danger that violence as a means becomes an end in itself
- Power is located with the people/delibera.on/consensus…
- Violence has no construc.ve capacity
,Ø Power can never be equated with violence
- Power and violence are something different
- Violence is to Arendt an instrument, a tool, but has no capacity of its own
- Power is mostly seen in a rela.onal way, someone is powerful, the other is less powerful ;
there is a kind of hierarchy ; a rela.on between A and B by which A can have a
rela.onship of command of B
- Power does have a capacity
- = more closely linked to convincing people, talking to people, ac.ng poli.cal, being “in
numbers”
- A group of people can be powerful by using arms, but s.ll they need to be convinced that
using these arms, instruments, tools, violence,.. is useful for a certain purpose
- → ‘Where commands are no longer obeyed, the means of violence are of no use. Hence
obedience is not determined by commands but by opinion, and, of course, by the number
of those who share it. Everything depends upon the power behind the violence’
- → ‘Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in
existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is
“in power” we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act
in their name. The moment the group, from which the power originated to begin with (…),
disappears,“his power” also vanishes’
Ø Violence as a poli.cal strategy: danger that violence as a means becomes an end in itself
- There is a danger: in the classic jus.fica.on for the use of violence
o We o[en use violence to be liberated, to be freed at a later state
à violence is a means towards a very progressive and jus.fiable end
- “be careful!”
o There is a danger that this means end falls discussion
o It is impossible to totally differen.ate the means from the end, and there is always
the danger that the means (violence) will take over the end
- → ‘If goals are not achieved rapidly, the result will not merely be defeat but the
introducJon of the pracJce of violence into the whole body poliJc. AcJon is irreversible,
and a return to the status quo in case of defeat is always unlikely.’
, Ø Power is located with the people/delibera.on/consensus/numbers/being numerous in a
public space… (not with domina.on!)
- → ‘What makes man a poliJcal being is his faculty to act. It enables him to get together
with his peers, to act in concert, and to reach out for goals and enterprises which would
never enter his mind, let alone the desires of his heart, had he not been given this giM—to
embark upon something new.’
o Due to the unpredictability of poli.cal ac.on, impossibility of means (violence!) –
end (liberty!) thinking
o Ac.ng poli.cal can never be a means towards something else, ac.ng poli.cal is
the realm of freedom
o Ac.on provokes reac.on in an infinite and constantly evolving web
- Power in her approach is more abt ac.ng together; its abt having NO hierarchical rela.on
o “Being powerful is being many” according to arendt; its about numbers
§ Raising huge numbers of people, to act in unison and while being
convinced in a united form in a movement of people
o Power = abt having the capacity to be able to move a group of people, to persuade
them to change instances and make violences
§ Points at the aspect of persua.on and consent
- Poli.cs = a realm of liberty wherein ideally this hierarchical rela.onship is dissappearing
o à Arendt: a poli.cal regime can not solely be based on violence
- Arendt: ‘The human condiJon’ (1958)
o → ‘… the smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of the same
boundlessness, because one deed, and someJmes one word, suffices to change
every constellaJon’ (p. 190)
Ø Violence ≠ power: violence has no construc.ve capacity
o It can destroy
o She also admits that some.mes destruc.ons MIGHT be needed, but that you
shouldn’t expect too much of the construc.ve capacity of violence a[erwards
- Power is not an inherent capacity, it develops by convincing people and gaining legi.macy
- Violence as a poli.cal strategy: danger that violence as a means becomes an end in itself
- Ac.ng poli.cal can never be a means, it is in the ‘now’
o You don’t have to do poli.cs to be liberated in the end: being/ac.ng poli.cal is
being free as such in the now!
- → ‘Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effecJve
command, resulJng in the most instant and perfect obedience. What can never grow out
of it is power.’
o + violence as something inherently instrumental:
o → ‘Power is indeed of the essence of all government, but violence is not. Violence
is by nature instrumental; like all means, it always stands in need of guidance and
jusJficaJon through the end it pursues’
è Arendt: power is abt the capacity to “raise numbers”, to act in unison… rather than just using
these implements (violence) as a poli.cal force
è “A powerful state is a state that manages through the law, that generates consent through
the law”
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