Key Arguments

• The space of appearance is constituted by speech and action and therefore precedes any constitutional form or government.
• Unlike built spaces, it does not endure beyond the activities that bring it into being; it disappears with dispersal or arrest of action and speech.
• Civilizations and empires can decline from internal decay because the public realm remains only a potential unless continually actualized by action.
• Political communities are undermined and ultimately destroyed by loss of power and impotence; material wealth cannot compensate for this loss.
• Power exists only in its actualization through the unity of word and deed—when words disclose realities and deeds establish relations and create new realities.

Source Quotes

The space of appearance comes into being wherever men are together in the manner of speech and action, and therefore predates and precedes all formal constitution of the public realm and the various forms of government, that is, the various forms in which the public realm can be organized. Its peculiarity is that, unlike the spaces which are the work of our hands, it does not survive the actuality of the movement which brought it into being, but disappears not only with the dispersal of men—as in the case of great catastrophes when the body politic of a people is destroyed—but with the disappearance or arrest of the activities themselves.

The space of appearance comes into being wherever men are together in the manner of speech and action, and therefore predates and precedes all formal constitution of the public realm and the various forms of government, that is, the various forms in which the public realm can be organized. Its peculiarity is that, unlike the spaces which are the work of our hands, it does not survive the actuality of the movement which brought it into being, but disappears not only with the dispersal of men—as in the case of great catastrophes when the body politic of a people is destroyed—but with the disappearance or arrest of the activities themselves. Wherever people gather together, it is potentially there, but only potentially, not necessarily and not forever.

That civilizations can rise and fall, that mighty empires and great cultures can decline and pass away without external catastrophes—and more often than not such external “causes” are preceded by a less visible internal decay that invites disaster—is due to this peculiarity of the public realm, which, because it ultimately resides on action and speech, never altogether loses its potential character. What first undermines and then kills political communities is loss of power and final impotence; and power cannot be stored up and kept in reserve for emergencies, like the instruments of violence, but exists only in its actualization. Where power is not actualized, it passes away, and history is full of examples that the greatest material riches cannot compensate for this loss.

Where power is not actualized, it passes away, and history is full of examples that the greatest material riches cannot compensate for this loss. 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. Power is what keeps the public realm, the potential space of appearance between acting and speaking men, in existence.

Key Concepts

• The space of appearance comes into being wherever men are together in the manner of speech and action, and therefore predates and precedes all formal constitution
• it does not survive the actuality of the movement which brought it into being, but disappears
• What first undermines and then kills political communities is loss of power and final impotence; and power cannot be stored up and kept in reserve
• Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal

Context

Chapter V, 28 POWER AND THE SPACE OF APPEARANCE (lines 3905–4060); opening definition of the space of appearance and its dependence on ongoing action and speech.