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and in th e late nineteenth and ea rl y twen tieth century in gen eral.
Arend t 's fri endship with Walter Benj amin and others in the Frankfurt
Schoo l, as well as hers and her husband's with Brecht, renders impl au–
sible the idea tha t she was no t keenl y aware of the reinterpretation o f
Marx by Lukacs and o thers. In terms of the interaction between
politi cal theory and hi stori cal ch an ge, Arendt did no t consider the
better understood Marx, the Marx of "obj ective" history. Again, Arendt
d id no t write about Marx
per se.
Rather, hers was a q ues t fo r an
effecti ve interpretati ve hi story, for a political
praxis
through theory.
Her use o f Marx, however inadequate from a narrow histori cal and
textual vantage point, appeared legitimate, especiall y in
The Human
Condition.
Furthermore, it is not cl ear tha t Jay's convincing obj ections
to
Arendt 's simplified noti on of Marx damages at all the cogency of her
po litical theoreti cal cl aims.
Take, for exampl e, the ques ti on o f vi olence. Jay sees ambivalence,
if no t contradi cti on in her view, no t onl y of violence in politics, but
also o f Marx 's ro le in the encouragement of violence as a means of
po liti cal change. In the two passages Jay chooses as contradictory,
th ere is rea ll y no contradi cti on a t a ll. In the first quota tion, which is
from th e "Traditi on and the Modern Age" essay, Arendt speaks o f
Ma rx's view of violence as a mode of political action . She contrasts
violence with other methods of politi cs. In the second quota ti on , from
1972, she addresses herself
to
Marx's view o f the causes of hi stori cal
change. Jay fail s
to
comp lete the second Arendt quote. In fact he ends it
mi sleadin gly with a peri od when there is a semi-colon after whi ch is
the fo ll ow ing phrase: "not vi o lence but the contradi ction inherent in
society brought about its end ." The mode of politi cal action to whi ch
hi stori cal contradi cti ons lead is vio lent revolution . In tha t sense,
Arendt tho ught Ma rx pl aced vio len ce in the center of di scuss ion as an
instrument of po liti cal acti on . Consequentl y, violence was of primary
concern . Yet, as a cause of hi stori cal change, violent acti on, no tabl y
when taking pl ace without the appropri ate hi stori cal context, would
no t be, in and o f itself, a cause of hi stori cal change. Vi olence, in
Arendt 's view of Marx , was primar y as an instrument of po liti cs and
quite secondary as a basic cause o f hi stori cal change. The spec ial
considera ti on of vi olence as a va lid and crucial mean s of political
acti on , much like the substituti on o f power and coercion for an cient
noti o ns o f legitimate authority, was influenced by political theory, and
certa in ly by Marx. Arendt sought to counteract those no ti on s by
searchin g back into class ical models. Her affecti on for some o f the
politi cs of the la te 196()s no twithsta nding, Arendt beli eved that in the
nuclear age, in a peri od after fascism , the use of violence and coercion
