Let's discuss the ethics of political violence?

The most dangerous assumption in the justification of political violence is the "instrumental fallacy"—the belief that violence is a neutral tool that can be discarded the moment justice is achieved. Proponents often argue that violence is a regrettable necessity for liberation, yet history and political theory suggest that the means used to attain power invariably dictate the nature of the power that follows. Violence is not a shortcut to justice; it is a recursive cycle that destroys the very social trust required for a stable, ethical society. ## The Strategic Failure of Force While proponents claim violence is often the only way to topple an oppressor, empirical data suggests otherwise. In their landmark study, [Why Civil Resistance Works](https://press.columbia.edu/title/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820), political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan analyzed over 300 conflicts between 1900 and 2006. They found that nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as their violent counterparts. The reason is structural: violence is inherently exclusionary. It requires youth, physical strength, and a willingness to kill, which alienates the majority of the population—including the elderly, parents, and the risk-averse. By contrast, nonviolent resistance allows for broad-based participation, making the resulting transition more democratic and less prone to civil war. ## Power vs. Violence: The Arendtian Critique Hannah Arendt, in her seminal work [On Violence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Violence), provides a critical framework for understanding why violence can never produce a legitimate political order. She distinguishes between **power**, which arises from people acting in concert through speech and persuasion, and **violence**, which relies on implements to coerce. > "Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it. . . The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world." According to Arendt, when a movement turns to violence, it signals a loss of power. Violence may achieve short-term compliance through terror, but it cannot foster the "consent of the governed" necessary for a lasting community. ## The Prefigurative Argument The ethical framework of **prefigurative politics** suggests that the means of a struggle must embody the ends being sought. If the goal is a society based on human rights and the rule of law, using extrajudicial killing or terror to achieve it creates a fundamental contradiction. 1. **Moral Erosion:** Soldiers of a violent revolution often become the secret police of the new regime, as seen in the aftermath of the French and Russian Revolutions. 2. **Institutionalized Paranoia:** Violence necessitates secrecy and hierarchy, which are the antithesis of the transparency required for democracy. 3. **The Cycle of Retribution:** Political violence creates a "blood debt" that justifies counter-violence from the opposition, leading to perpetual instability rather than a settled peace. Ultimately, to argue for the ethics of political violence is to ignore the "teleological suspension of the ethical"—the dangerous idea that a glorious future justifies a brutal present. As history shows, the "future" rarely arrives; we are simply left with the brutality we practiced along the way.