Anarchism, Force, and Violence

I, like Hannah Arendt before me, would like to reclaim the word ‘force’ from the world, as it is not a synonym with violence. Arendt presents force as simply the release of energy, making violence one type of force¹. Force is action; lack of force is only inertia. While I am indebted to Arendt for drawing the distinction, I would like to expand it and offer a more thorough conceptual framework. One can think of force in multiple ways; there is physical force and cognitive force, as well as productive force and destructive force.

Productive physical force is when one creates a physical object – constructing a building, for example, or constructing a weapon. Productive cognitive force is when one creates an idea that lacks physical form, also known as an abstraction (or “spook”, or “fixed idea”, if any of you Stirner lovers are reading) – the idea of your local anarchist organization, for example, or the concept of the state. Destructive physical force is violence, which is any use of force against a physical object that either hinders or destroys that object’s ability to exist. Destructive cognitive force encompasses any act that seeks to cognitively abandon an abstraction – abandoning the idea of the legitimacy of state power, for example.

None of these are inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’, as I attempted to demonstrate through my use of examples. None of these are exclusive, either; the conceptualization of a state quickly gives rise to buildings in which the state ‘resides’, just as propaganda of the deed is meant to assist in the destruction of an abstraction. While none of these are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, productive force is arguably more important for social change than destructive force. Destructive force only destroys, after all. It does not create.

People have a tendency to personify violence, likening it to an animal that is hard to control, or a virus that we cannot contain. I hate the personification of violence, as such tropes fail to even remotely approach understanding of the idea and subsequent act of being violent. What I partially agree with, however, and what I think these individuals are trying to say dramatically, is that violence tends to beget violence. What I wish to add is that violence tends to beget violence when it is used exclusively. If we hold that a legitimate society is one that exists without imposing one’s will upon another, then one can not bring about such a legitimate society by destroying all those who do not agree. We have to convince them, and we convince them through exerting our productive force in ways that promote that legitimate society. Exerting productive force while not compromising our vision demystifies the objects we oppose; it gets the imagination going, allowing others to think outside of the fixed ideas that they have supported due to the lack of feasible alternatives.

1 I don’t have On Violence on me right now, so I’ll fill in this citation later.