Hannah Arendt & Frantz Fanon On Violence

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Violence is a term that can mean many different things depending on who you ask. For some an action is not considered violent until there is an unnecessarily forceful action in occurrence. For others, violence occurs the moment you make physical contact. A quick search on the internet today defines violence as “the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy” (Merriam-Webster). This definition excludes the use of rhetoric, does that mean speech cannot be violent? Point is that defining violence is hard, it is even harder to properly understand violence. Hannah Arendt and Frantz Fanon are two philosophers who attempted to define and understand violence and ultimately came to two very different conclusions. These opposing conclusions really just confirm what I have already stated: violence is complex. Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth and Arendt’s On Violence were written in 1961 and 1972 respectively. It has been over 50 years since the latter of these two works was published, do their ideas hold any weight in today’s world? I believe that the answer to this question is yes.

Fanon wrote his Wretched of the Earth after bearing witness to French colonial efforts in Algeria. His discussion focused solely on the viewpoint of those who were being colonized, describing the distinction between areas in which the colonizers lived and those of the colonized. The swelling disdain, anger, and hatred that would boil up inside the minds and hearts of those who lived every day under the heel of an oppressive regime would ultimately lead to violence. A natural feeling resulting from all of the injustice done upon the native inhabitants of the region, but what purpose would it serve? Fanon discusses the prerequisites leading up to this first violent act and how the character of the oppressed had evolved over the course of the oppression which leads to him concluding that “Violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect” (Wretched of the Earth, Fanon). In effect, violence is a call to action for all those who can relate to the cause to come and join for the time is now or never. Fanon posits violence as a prerequisite to freedom and perhaps it is, but there have been times in history in which violence was not needed to obtain liberty. Frankly, these instances are unusual exceptions to the rule. Violence runs deep within the human psyche if it was wholly unnecessary and unnatural then why would humanity have retained the ability to be violent?

To find the answer and also simultaneously allow our depiction of violence to evolve we can turn to Hannah Arendt. While a person like Fanon would see violence as a necessary display of force and power, Arendt sees violence as acting in opposition to power rather than being in alignment with it. For Arendt, it is simple; violence is simply a farce to make up for a lack of any real power. You can think of this in terms of the following situation, consider that you happen to be in a bar one night and things get tense between you and some show off in the corner. The show off decides to fight you with his muscles but you are only equipped with a simple handgun, you’ll more likely than not be the victor in that encounter - assuming you know how to properly handle your weapon. Your usage of the handgun made up for the lack of strength you had because you knew your noodle arms wouldn’t protect you. Violence elicits feelings of fear and obedience out of those who bear witness to it, any legitimate cause or purpose you stood for or held high lost its merits the moment violence entered into the frame. Arendt herself puts it best when she says “Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power” (On Violence, Arendt). Exceptions to rules do exist and it is from Arendt that we are able to arrive at the most plausible answer for the previously asked question regarding humanity’s retention of violence and it is through the need to defend ourselves. On this matter Arendt says "In this sense, 'self-defense' is a reason for violence; but this reason is valid only for those who are capable of using violence effectively” (Arendt). Whether it was against predators when humanity was in its infancy or against one another we retain the means to be violent as a means to survive.

It would seem, to many at least, that the situation which prompted Fanon to write his piece would qualify as an effective use of violence even if it wasn’t in self defense, and beyond that both Arendt and Fanon seem to only focus on physical altercations but what about others. Fanon describing violence as an equivalence to power and Arendt describing violence as antithetical to power, how do we reconcile these opposing viewpoints and adapt them to the 21st century? Is there any purpose in doing this or should present-day philosophers start from the ground up?

There are relatively few ideas that are wholly original and are instead innovations built upon other ideas, so it wouldn’t be productive to start from scratch. Personally, I believe that Arendt’s views are more practical and expressive on the dynamic that exists. This doesn’t necessarily disqualify Fanon’s views either, that would depend on whether you would declare rebellion against an oppressive regime to be self defense, that discussion belongs in a work of its own as including it here would make this work lengthy and put it out of focus. A blanket statement like ‘violence begets violence’ is a slippery slope solely by the meaning of the statement itself. The moment a side uses violence and the other retaliates you will continue to push for more and more violent activity until one side comes out victorious and the ideals of the opposition are put on hold at best and vanquished at worst. A consequence of the 21st century is that physical altercations are not the only type of interaction that should be subjected to potentially being labeled as violent. Arendt and Fanon are not around to amend their words to fit the modern world but really they don’t have to. Both of their ideas are able to be properly extrapolated to fit the ever evolving world and truly it is best to read both in succession as the ideas of one cannot be fully understood without the other.