Critique of violence in Hannah Arendt's political thought

The fact of violence has always maintained its main presence in the political thought from Ancient Athens where Platon invented political philosophy as an antithetical to the very possibility of Tyranny to the recent comprehension of political theory in the modern world where the horrors of totalitarian regimes have marked deep impact. The question of "Does violence have to be necessary for politics?" is one of the first questions that comes to mind to be asked. Based on the monopoly in the use of violence, political regime as the representative of determined power relations has necessarily carried its potentiality for the despotic utilitization of that power. That very possibility was the basic motivation behind the invention of political philosophy as an episteme of virtuous regime in preventing itself falling into the Tyranny. Liberal political theory with its talk of 'rights' , particularly with its 'right to resist' against despotic use of political power should be regarded as the earliest yet so subtle answer to the question of violence in the modern world. Nevertheless, unprecedented magnitude of atrocities in totalitarianism has reversed prospects of liberal optimism in the elimination of despotism. Contemporary liberal thought as exempting itself from the trap of being grand narrative in the ideas of Popper, Hayek and Gray represents itself as the pioneering of the open society, limited government and co-existence of different ways of life. The recent revival of interest for the concept of political is nothing but the reaction to the inadequacy of post-liberal solution to the fact of violence in our contemporary world. In this respect, contemporary political situation suffers from the symptoms of that impasse: politically weak nature of liberalism and theologically politicized character of Carl Schmitt's remedy. This study represents Hannah Arendt's critique of violence as the main way in skipping that impasse. The examination of Arendt's category of vita activa as involving the plural and the political character of human condition at the same time; the depiction of her emphasis upon the loss of world as a result of both world and earth alienations and as a source of totalitarianism in the modernity and the presentation of her unique analysis of the ideologies internally connected to violence is the focal subject of this work.