The film “Battle for Algiers” can be analyzed thoroughly through Frantz Fanon’s and Hannah Arendt’s polar opposite theories on violence. The implication of both theories is represented in the film that has captured the understanding of both insightful phenomena. Fanon’s views on violence are it unifies individuals into forming a complex unit organism that works together, rinses, in addition it is presented as an effective and productive mean that support the process of decolonization. In contract, Arendt’s theory detaches the concept of violence from power and emphasizes that the driven reasons for violence is anti-political. Both philosophers present distinctive theories upon the use of violence; Fanon elucidates his philosophy on violence that it’s a necessary journey to claim freedom, while as Arendt work degrades the use of violence in a modern political society that uses violence as a mean to sustain or accomplish a matter.
Frantz Fanon is known for his contribution in the issue of decolonization and the study of mental disorders affected by colonization. He believes that oppressed peasantry could only claim freedom and regains its justice through process of revolutionary violence, through this the population will confront the issue of decolonization that is a collective of psychological and physical racial colonization effect (Fanon, 1963). Fanon is among the few exceptional philosophers supporting decolonization from anti-colonial organizations in Algeria. In the wrestling struggle to declare freedom, Fanon (1963) made clear that the out-most effective mean is through violence. In his book “The Wretched of the Earth,” he introduces the binary structure that needs to be outclassed; in other words, to surpass the mentality...
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...tes sustainability and assurance in the implication of this philosophy outcomes minimum deaths casualties and sustains violence to a manageable risk level. While as the real effectiveness of decolonization derives from forces of violence that demands positive change and independency; as fanon mentioned, violence starts to break down when fear is installed into the colonial superior (1963).
Works Cited
Arendt, H. (1969). A special supplement: Reflection on violence. (Vol. 12). New York: Retrieved from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1969/feb/27/a-special-supplement-reflections-on-violence/?pagination=false
Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. (p. 106). New York: Grove Press.
Wesson, G. (Producer), & Pontecorvo, G. (Director). (1966). The Battle of Algiers [Motion picture]. United States: Rialto Pictures - Domestic Theatrical Distributor
¬¬¬Though most American people claim to seek peace, the United States remains entwined with both love and hate for violence. Regardless of background or personal beliefs, the vast majority of Americans enjoy at least one activity that promotes violence whether it be professional fighting or simply playing gory video games. Everything is all well and good until this obsession with violence causes increased frequency of real world crimes. In the article, “Is American Nonviolence Possible” Todd May proposes a less standard, more ethical, fix to the problem at hand. The majority of the arguments brought up make an appeal to the pathos of the reader with a very philosophical overall tone.
[1] Since the dawning of the industrial revolution, producing the stratification of socioeconomic status into a competitive class hierarchy never before seen, conflict theorists have appeared to define the unjust. From William Blake’s poetry to Karl Marx’ manifestos, from Bethlehem steel strikes to the current Labor Party, from Fidel Castro to the Mexican Zapatista movement, from Lenin to Mao Tse Tung, from the Molly Maguires to Jimmy Hoffa, the desire to upgrade the conditions of the working class have had a continual role in justifying violence, providing an equilibrium to keep capital interests in check, motivated whole countries to gain newly instituted political leaders and formats of rule, even in offering some form of purpose for, identity with, and release of violent rage inside the tribal nature of humans in a world of disintegrating, or disintegrated, tribes. The question of the new millennium might very well be whether or not humans can live without enemies. In a country, if not a world, with creature comforts easily secured, labor issues becoming obsolete, where will modern man direct his barbaric energy?
In the course of Colonization, the world was divided into binary categories of the colonizer and colonized. These binary groups were based on a division of class, gender, race, ethnicity and the oppression of cultural traditions. Traditions of language, religion, labor, and social values were based on theologies of the colonizers, enforced upon the colonized. These binaries can be associated with the Manichean binaries discussed by Frantz Fanon in his book entitled The Wretched of the Earth. In Post-Coloniality, societies gain independence either through diplomatic political transitions or violent revolutions against the occupying force. Regardless of how independence is achieved, these societies undergo a multitude of socio-cultural changes. The colonized populations struggle to rebuild their communities, individual identities and national identities. The process of this decolonization is a long-term and strenuous procedure that varies from one culture to the next. Periods of colonial oppression have negative repercussions on social structures and prohibit certain cultural growth. It is the nationalism that bonds individuals together in creating a national identity, rebuilding the state while imagining the community and representing it in the traditional cultural affiliations of the indigenous populations.
Several philosophers have provided individual theories on different forms of government as well as how societies prefer to live. Researching the observations different philosophers created is quite interesting. Recognizing that many of the views philosophers had has now shown to be true regarding contemporary issues. The contemporary issue this paper will examine will be the violent acts law enforcement displayed towards their citizens during the G20. This paper will also discuss how John Mills in On Liberty and Rousseau in Discourse would have viewed this issue as well as personal opinions to both Rousseau and Mills ideologies. Through this paper insight on these philosophers views as well as the violence during the G20 will be displayed.
In her book, On Violence, Hannah Arendt studies violence as it relates to war, science, power, aggression, and the like. In this paper, I will speak on the topic of violence as it pertains to aggression. I argue that we, as human beings, possess at least a basic level of aggression that is explainable through animalistic research and characteristics. This argument is one that contradicts the overarching ideas of Arendt’s thoughts on the topic. Through an explicative and then disputatious discourse, I hope to bring validity to my viewpoint.
The aforementioned scenario is a scene from the movie The Battle of Algiers directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. The Battle of Algiers is a film that depicts the violence of colonialism and decolonization in French Algeria. The Wretched of the Earth is a book written by Frantz Fanon that depicts the same violence. In both sources, both Pontecorvo and Fanon discuss the necessity of violence in decolonization. Although the film and text discusses violence in colonization and decolonization on a different scale and depth.
There are several significant, as well as less significant, themes that are put forth by the author. Some themes that are not as meticulously elaborated on, but still contribute to the book, include the idea that war can corrupt the government and it’s actions, police brutality was part of the norm of the 1960s, and the word “power” had more than one meaning during the civil rights era. All these themes are important to take into consideration upon reading this book; however th...
Arendt, Hannah. On Violence. San Diego, New York and London: Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1970
Goldstein, J. (1986). The Nature of Human Aggression. Aggression and Crimes of Violence. New York. Oxford University Press, 3-29.
Kevin Powers and Geoffrey Canada both describe violence and its effects on people in their novels. They assert that violence profoundly changes a person; however, they differ on the merits of these changes. Canada concludes that violence teaches people and helps them grow, while Powers concludes that it dehumanizes and scars them. The two authors also disagree on the necessity of violence. Specifically, Canada argues that violence is necessary and is used to gain distinction and status, while Powers argues that violence is unnecessary and causes people to lose their singularity and identity. Even further, Canada believes violence protects the boys and their lives, while Powers believes violence kills the young soldiers. From their personal experiences, Canada claims boys in the South Bronx need to be violent to gain respect and to survive, while Powers claims the violence of war is a waste of young men’s lives as they lose respect and even their lives.
In both of his major works, Fanon describes the active involvement in this process as an essential part of the liberation of the self; as in his view, agency was central to self-actualization. However, in Fanon’s model, violence, which could plausibly be manifested on a symbolic rather than physical level, is only the beginning; the first step of a painful and lifelong struggle to overcome the psychological damage inflicted by the colonial aggressor. Hence, violence is not a release of accumulated tension, but rather a reclaiming of subjectivity that moves the colonized from a zone of nonbeing to the zone of being through an act of active self-assertion. Fanon does not promote violence for its own sake. For him violence in never a Selbstzweck; it is a last resort to eliminate a system created and maintained through violence. Moreover, Fanon makes clear that this use of violence could negatively affect the colonized. In the final part of the book, in which he describes the psychological long-term effects violence has on both victims and
Embittered by his experience in the French Army, where Africans and Arabs answered to white superiors and West Indians occupied an ambiguous middle ground, he gravitated to radical politics, Sartrean existentialism and the philosophy of black consciousness known as négritude (Djemai). Négritude is the affirmation or consciousness of the value of black or African culture, heritage, and identity (dictionary). Fanon also fell under the influence of Tosquelles, an innovative practitioner of group therapy. Applying Tosquelles 's methods at a hospital in a suburb of Algiers, where Fanon arrived in 1953, he earned the trust of Arab patients whom French psychiatrists had treated with a mixture of pity and contempt (Macey). In Fanon 's new home, Macey reminds us, one million Europeans ruled over some nine million Arabs and Berbers, largely illiterate and cruelly exploited. After the Algerian National Liberation Front launched a revolution in 1954, the French Army used Gestapo tactics to restore order. Suspects were given electric shocks to the testicles, raped with bottles and often beaten to death. Entire villages were destroyed in retaliation for the death of a single soldier. While secretly aiding the rebels, Fanon cared for victims and perpetrators alike, producing case notes that shed invaluable light on the psychic traumas of colonial war
QUESTION ONE: Hannah Arendt argues for a crucial distinction between politics, which she takes to be the realm of speech, conversation and debate, and violence, which she suggests is ‘speechless’. Others we have studied this term propose something different – that politics and violence are inseparable, and that one invariably entails the other. With direct reference to at least one of the authors considered in Theories of Conflict and Violence, consider the relationship between politics and violence. Hannah Arendt was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. After witnessing the atrocities of both World Wars and the worldwide tension during the Cold War, no concepts or theoretical understandings of the crimes and events that occurred were developed, inciting Arendt to comment on political violence.
This paper will discuss a thirty-two year old pregnant woman named Regina, who was brought into the emergency room with many superficial injuries. She is accompanied by her five year-old son. Later in the conversation, Regina discloses that she is a victim in intimate partner violence. Violence is a very common occurrence in partner relationships. According to McHugh and Frieze (2006), it is estimated that more than a quarter of relationships involve at least one violent incident. Partner violence can include anything from a heated argument or yelling, to physical attacks or threats such as hitting, slapping, or pushing (McHugh & Frieze, 2006). Often, the women in relationships are the victims of the abuse, posing the simple question, “why doesn’t she just leave.” For most women, it is near impossible to remove themselves from the relationship because of psychological factors. She may be worried that her partner will abuse her worse should he ever find her. She may fear the guilt that she could experience for leaving the relationship, or she may be concerned about money situations, had he been the sole provider (McHugh & Frieze, 2006). There are many reasons why a woman may feel ‘stuck’ in an abusive relationship, which is why support groups and therapeutic communication are important. The purpose of this paper is to create a therapeutic conversation with Regina and her son, in order to build an appropriate intervention for intimate partner violence using the psychoanalytical theory.