Richard Bernstein proposes to explore the meaning, forms and justifiability of violence in his recent volume (p. viii). He does so because of a claimed ‘paradox about violence’ (p. 1): namely, that while current ‘representations of real or imagined violence’ are vast (p. viii), contemporary thinking about violence is paltry. Bernstein intends to address this paradoxical situation by thinking about violence more adequately or by thinking about it ‘without banisters’. The manner of such thinking is not entirely clear, but it is loosely characterized as a sustained, non-instrumental, non-foundational and experientially based intellectual activity (pp. vii–ix, 2, 104). In practice, however, Bernstein engages critically with a number of twentieth-century theorists who think about violence ‘without banisters’. Thus, he thinks about thinkers about violence rather than violence as such, notwithstanding a few pages at the end of the book which may indicate otherwise (pp. 176–84). His is a volume in the history of ideas rather than systematic philosophy (which is not to deny the value of either discipline for the other).
The theorists with whom Bernstein engages in the five core chapters of his book are Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon and Jan Assmann. These theorists are selected on the basis of their influence, diversity and range of interests in violence (pp. 1–2). Despite the (purported) diversity of this selection, however, one wonders why some of the principal analytic philosophers of violence – such as Bernard Gert and Robert Audi – are ignored entirely. These philosophers have contributed significantly to our understanding of violence, but perhaps they are guilty of thinking ‘with banisters’ in some sense. In any case, what is striking about Bernstein's selection is that some of the figures selected – for all their scholastic influence – have done little to advance our understanding of violence. Indeed, some have arguably served to confuse rather than clarify. Schmitt, for example, has practically nothing to say about violence (as opposed to ‘enmity’) as such. Consequently, as Bernstein admits at the outset, ‘he doesn't provide us with the conceptual resources for judging and condemning any sort of violence’ (p. 3). Bernstein also admits that Benjamin ‘does not provide an adequate basis for an understanding of violence and its interplay with nonviolence’ (p. 5), though apparently he raises some important questions, albeit in an ‘opaque, enigmatic, elusive’ fashion (p. 75). To be blunt about this matter, critical engagements with Schmitt and Benjamin are unlikely to improve our understanding of violence, though they may appeal to the relevant historians of ideas.
The more interesting chapters of Bernstein's book focus on theorists who actually investigate violence and do so in a comprehensible manner. His chapters on Arendt and Fanon are most interesting, especially to the degree that Bernstein challenges the conventional understanding of the relationship between these supposedly antithetical thinkers. He makes a convincing case for the idea that ‘Their respective analyses are not as incompatible as they may initially appear. They each provide a corrective to the deficiencies of the other's position’ (p. 169). Nevertheless, Bernstein is arguably over-charitable with respect to Arendt's conceptualization of violence – vis-à-vis power, strength, force and authority – as he attempts to refute the view that her ‘distinctions seem arbitrary – as if she were offering stipulative definitions – without justifying them’ (p. 82). Her definitions of these terms are, I think, both stipulative (which is fine) and arbitrary (which is not). Though Bernstein may be over-charitable to Arendt in this conceptual respect, and though he appears generally sympathetic towards her, he is by no means uncritical. What he emphasizes, above all, is the inadequacy of her position on the justifiability of violence: ‘Although Arendt tells us that violence can be justified, she never really thematized the difficult issue of when, and under what circumstances, it can be justified’ (p. 101). Thus, Arendt is a questionable guide to conceptual matters – and no guide at all to evaluative matters – of violence.
Bernstein presents Fanon as a complex critic of (rather than a mindless apologist for) violence (pp. 106–107). A comprehensive reading of The Wretched of the Earth – such as that outlined by Bernstein – justifies such an interpretation. Nevertheless, he follows Arendt in criticizing Fanon's ‘rhetorical excesses … when he speaks about the cleansing and transforming power of violence’ (p. 9). In my view, he also downplays the extent to which Fanon is a thinker ‘with banisters’: a theorist who not only employs a quasi-anarchist class analysis which he extends to matters of race; but also a humanist for whom the ultimate good is not liberation (as Bernstein suggests on pp. 8, 107, 125, and elsewhere) but humanization (as is indicated in passing on p. 116).
The chapter on Assmann is perhaps the most surprising in Bernstein's book. One reason for this is that Assmann is less influential in philosophical circles than Schmitt, Benjamin, Arendt and even Fanon. So, his inclusion is unexpected in such a work, not least because influence is one of Bernstein's selection criteria. Indeed, he even makes the highly spurious and scholastic claim that ‘One measure of any thinker's significance is the stature of those who feel the need to confront, discuss, and criticize his [sic] work’ (p. 15). (In an echo of this scholastic kind of claim, my engagement with a certain theorist was recently dismissed by an eminent philosopher on the grounds of obscurity.) Another reason that Assmann's inclusion is surprising is that he is less politically oriented than the other four authors, as Bernstein acknowledges (p. 10). His concern is not with political violence as such, but with the relationship between religion (or monotheistic religion) and violence. This relationship has received attention since the Enlightenment, at least, but may be of special significance in our allegedly ‘“post-secular” age’ (p. 144). Assmann's central thesis, which Bernstein attempts to evaluate, is that ‘revolutionary monotheism is potentially violent; this propensity [though not inevitability] is built into the Mosaic distinction’ between true and false religion (p. 145). This (admittedly interesting) claim – about in-built propensities – is a curiously essentialist one for Bernstein to take seriously, even if he does not uncritically endorse it.
Having engaged critically with five more or less influential theorists, who have more or less to say about violence, Bernstein finishes with a few general remarks on violence in the final third of his concluding chapter. These remarks are, to be frank, not innovative. They boil down to the following: (1) There are, and probably always will be, lots of forms of violence – some old, some new, some overt and some concealed – and these ought to be challenged, both theoretically and practically (pp. 176–179). (2) Violence is often met with violence, and sometimes with justification; but even when justified, violence is insufficient and should not be regarded as an end in itself (pp. 179–181). (3) There are good arguments for nonviolence, but limits to the exercise of nonviolent power; there therefore appear to be justifications for some violence, but no universal principles governing this; justification is, in fact, a matter of political judgment (pp. 181–184).
What, then, to make of Bernstein's book overall? As a work in the history of twentieth-century ideas about violence and related topics, it has some merit (especially the third and fourth chapters read as a piece). As a philosophical investigation of the problems of violence – the conceptual, classificatory and evaluative problems that Bernstein proposed to tackle in his Preface – it is arguably of more limited value. However, it will doubtless appeal to scholars of Schmitt, Benjamin, Arendt, Fanon, Assmann and Bernstein himself.