1. Power as collective action
Human Condition part 2

2. Review
The social: normalizing forces that suppress distinction, Courage, Individuality.
The private: the space of necessity, living and dying.
The political: the “space of appearances” where “agents disclose their identity”.
Labor: the routines of daily life and the processes of living.
Work: the making of our common world; the built physical and intellectual environment.
Action: word and deed in the space of appearance.
Macat

3. Labor: Animal Laboran
Labor is distinguished by its never-ending character; it creates nothing of permanence, its efforts are quickly consumed, and must therefore be perpetually renewed so as to sustain life. In this aspect of its existence humanity is closest to the animals and so, in a significant sense, the least human ("What men share with all other forms of animal life was not considered to be human").
Arendt refers to humanity in this mode as animal laborans; the activity of labor is commanded by necessity, the human being as laborer is the equivalent of the slave; labor is characterized by unfreedom.

4. Work: Homo Faber
homo faber; he/she is the builder of walls (both physical and cultural) which divide the human realm from that of nature and provide a stable context (a "common world") of spaces and institutions within which human life can unfold. Homo faber's typical representatives are the builder, the architect, the craftsperson, the artist and the legislator, as they create the public world both physically and institutionally by constructing buildings and making laws.
Work is still subject to a certain kind of necessity, that which arises from its essentially instrumental character; the activity of work cannot be fully free insofar as it is not an end in itself, but is determined by prior causes and articulated ends.

5. Ch. 5: Action What is action?
When and where does it occur? Under what conditions?
What is the power to act?
power contra strength, force, violence…

6. “The tyrant is powerless”

7. The paradox of plurality
“Human plurality, the basic condition of both action and speech, has the twofold character of equality and distinction. If men were not equal, they could neither understand each other and those who came before them nor plan for the future and foresee the needs of those who will come after them.
If men were not distinct, each human being distinguished from any other who is, was, or will ever be, they would need neither speech nor action to make themselves understood. Signs and sounds to communicate immediate, identical needs and wants would be enough” ( ).

8. Speech and action
How can we be unique and equal at the same time? Through action:
“Speech and action reveal this unique distinctness. Through them, men distinguish themselves instead of being merely distinct; they are the modes in which human beings appear to each other, not indeed as physical objects, but qua men. This appearance, as distinguished from mere bodily existence, rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no human being can refrain and still be human” (175).

9. Action and natality
“The disclosure of the "who" through speech, and the setting of a new beginning through action, always fall into an already existing web where their immediate consequences can be felt. Together they start a new process which eventually emerges as the unique life story of the newcomer, affecting uniquely the life stories of all those with whom he comes into contact. It is because of this already existing web of human relationships, with its innumerable, conflicting wills and intentions, that action almost never achieves its purpose; but it is also because of this medium, in which action alone is real, that it "produces" stories with or without intention as naturally as fabrication produces tangible things” (184).
So we can’t really ever know the full consequences of our action/speech?
How does this relate action and speech to “natality”, the beginning of something new?

10. “The tyrant is Powerless”
“the outstanding characteristic of tyranny [is] that it [rests] on isolation—on the isolation of the tyrant from his subjects and the isolation of the subjects from each other through mutual fear and suspicion—and hence…tyranny was not one form of government among others but contradicted the essential human condition of plurality, the acting and speaking together, which is the condition of all forms of political organization” (202). “Tyranny prevents the development of power, not only in a particular segment of the public realm but in its entirety; it generates, in other words, impotence as naturally as other bodies politic generate power” (202). So what is power?

11. Defining power: crucial distinctions
Force: forces as of nature; force is a function of nature
Authority: foundational, source of power
Violence: mute, silent, eviscerates power. “Where violence rules, power is altogether absent”.
Strength: traits of character or personal quality
Power: the capacity to act in concert with equals; power is a function of human
relations in contradistinction from nature.

12. Defining power
“Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, 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” (199).
“Only where men Jive so close together that the potentialities of action are always present can power remain with them” (200).

13. Defining power
“whoever, for whatever reasons, isolates himself and does not partake in such being together, forfeits power and becomes impotent, no matter how great his strength and how valid his reasons”.
“If power were more than this potentiality in being together, if it could be possessed like strength or applied like force instead of being dependent upon the unreliable and only temporary agreement of many wills and intentions, omnipotence would be a concrete human possibility”.
Power is the temporary alignment of many wills and intentions, brought together through word and deed among equals in the space of appearances, that brings unprecedented things into the human experience. Power is the potential for “collective action” to begin something new.

14. Why is the tyrant powerless?