Hannah Arendt's Reflections On Violence: The Relation Between Power And Violence

Power and violence are ideas active in some of the most impactful and important aspects of human life. Commonly characterized, constantly redefined, and at times defying definition and distinction, the precise meaning of these terms and how they are interrelated is in constant conversation. Professor and political theorist, Hannah Arendt, delves into the intricacies the two concepts and how they operate in the terms of a nation’s political power and use of violence in her Reflections on Violence. Arendt meticulously strips these ideas to their bare bones and makes particularly definitive claims, some of which may rouse objections. Contemporary society is more than familiar with the complex workings between political bodies and the accompanying violence; a simultaneously removed yet familiar example of this being the issues surrounding the drug cartels which wreak havoc on Mexican border towns and their citizens. These atrocities have been captured by Shaul Schwarz in his 2013 film Narco Cultura, which serves as an amazing modern platform on which to contemplate Arendt’s opinions on violence and power. Considering Arendt’s claims and the information presented in …show more content…
The Narcos go to prove that power does indeed grow out of the barrel of a gun and that for violence to take place one must have power provided by the people’s support, both point’s made by Arendt. Sadly, they go even further to disprove her statement that violence cannot create power, considering their current position; they have power which maintained by violence. Whether or not this power is created by violence is of deeper speculation. As for the end result of the Mexican drug war and the conversation of relationships between power and violence, the possibilities are numerous thus