On Violence — Power, Bureaucracy, and Political Fragility (Audio)

Crisis in Perception · Jan 6, 2026 · 43m

Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world — one book at a time.

This episode explores On Violence by Hannah Arendt as a systems-level examination of how modern institutions confuse violence with power and mistake coercion for legitimacy.

Arendt argues that power emerges from collective action and shared agreement, while violence relies on tools and administrative force. As bureaucratic systems expand and technologies of destruction advance, violence becomes easier to deploy even as genuine political authority erodes. The result is a system capable of…