understood as ‘ power with ’ for Arendt precisely because it localizes the space in which power can form as the horizontally organised , communal and public spaces between us all .
Arendtian power thus binds the notion of political power to this central notion of human plurality insofar as it is the , ‘ elementary grammar of political action … whose rules determine the rise and fall of human power .’ 19 That is to say that , any of the concepts Arendt uses to illuminate the characteristics of power , whether it be the ‘ public realm ’, the ‘ web of relationships ’, or even the ancient Greek polis , have a spatial and discursive connotation . They are concepts based in communication and relation insofar as they are markers of the way in which we share the world with each other and , perhaps more importantly , how we speak and act with each other in that world . At bottom , then , Arendtian power is undoubtedly bound up with the disclosure of our distinctness and our plurality to others through our capacity for speech and action . Arendt ’ s notion of power thus emanates outwards from the initial acts of conversation because , for Arendt , speech and conversation should occur with others and never over them ; language , like the conception of power that relies on it , should always be horizontal and never vertical or hierarchical . Thus , for Arendt , power can only ever be actualised , ‘ where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities , and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities .’ 20 There can be no power , for Arendt , without us first publicly disclosing ourselves to each other in order to establish new relationships with one another as a result . Clearly , then , as Penta notes , ‘ the qualities essential to Arendt ’ s unique description of power can be reduced almost entirely to the qualities of speech understood as conversation within the … horizon of language .’ 21 That is , the characteristics of speech , as outlined in active conversation , are the very things that underwrite Arendt ’ s notion of power because they are the very things that allow individuals to connect in an open and public setting .
This Arendtian motif of the importance and centrality of language is highlighted by Jürgen Habermas who argues that Arendt ’ s reconceptualisation of power relies on a communicative model of human action , where power appears fundamentally as , ‘ the formation of … communication directed to reaching agreement .’ 22 For Habermas , this communicative model , in
19
Arendt , Violence , 172
20
Arendt , The Human Condition , 200
21
Leo J . Penta , “ Hannah Arendt : On Power ”, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy , Vol 10 , No . 3 , 1996 , 212
22
Jürgen Habermas , “ Hannah Arendt ’ s Communications Concept of Power ”, Social Research , Vol . 1 , No . 44 ( 1977 ), 4