-Susan Sontag
OK, the cover picture is disturbing. Actually, it just gets increasingly disturbing as you look at it more, and as you think about its implications. Susan Sontag's book Regarding the Pain of Others is about violence, essentially. Every day we are exposed--in newspapers, on the internet--to photographs of violence that is occurring in some distant part of the world. What effect does the viewing of that violence have on us? What effect does it have on the person whose suffering is depicted? What is the relationship between the viewer and the viewed, and how can we make that photographic relationship more compassionate and less exploitative?
Regarding the Pain of Others is a really interesting look at issues connected to photography, the gaze, representation in times of war and suffering, and the complex relationship between those who look and those who are looked at. This book deals with the outer limits of human cruelty and brutality, and how people respond when exposed to visual images of these kinds of acts.
Try this. I've recommended James Nachtwey's photographs before on this blog, but I want to recommend them again. Take a look at his famine photographs, for instance. They are not easy to look at, nor should they be. But as you look--as you gaze at this other flesh-and-blood person whose day-to-day reality is so different than yours--think about what you feel for that person. Think about how you are affected by the presence of a lens or the presence of the ocean. Think about how you are connected, and also the ways you will never be connected. Think about these words: complicity, silence, helplessness, voice. Think about whether there is even an appropriate way to respond to photographs like these.
Regarding the Pain of Others ends like this:
"'We'--this 'we' is everyone who has never experienced anything like what they went through--don't understand. We don't get it. We truly can't imagine what it was like. We can't imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is; and how normal it becomes. Can't understand, can't imagine. That's what every soldier, and every journalist and aid worker and independent observer who has put in time under fire, and had the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby, stubbornly feels. And they are right."
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3 comments:
Another thing I can't wrap my brain around is the atrocities that humans are capable of. How is it possible that one human can be so feeling, so caring, and so loving, and another human can be so numb, so vicious, and so evil? Is there such a dramatic dichotomy amongst any other species?
And yet aid workers, journalists, and others who come in contact with it HAVE to normalize it in some way to cope. I guess the trick is to be able to normalize it enough to cope, but not so much that you become numb to it. I don't know. This looks like a fascinating, but difficult, read.
I think you'd like this book a lot, Liz. It's thought-provoking.
It seems to me that a big part of the things humans are capable of has to with sociocultural factors. If you are raised to see another group of people as being sub-human, it's not such a big deal if that group of people suffers. In fact, it doesn't seem to be that hard to convince people that these "sub-human" groups deserve what they get, or like their lives as they are, or had it coming in one way or another. And it's also pretty easy to exploit people's natural drive for self-preservation.
Then sometimes I wonder if there's something karmic in atrocity. I can think of plenty of exceptions to this rule, but: often people who have been treated with viciousness and brutality go on to perpetrate similar acts on other people. While people who have mostly been treated with kindness and affecting are conditioned to see other people as being basically good, and treat people with corresponding goodness.
Of course, I can also think of many people who have been victims of horrific violence and gone on to be wonderfully kind, humane people. So... I don't know. Maybe it's more about what we let ourselves grow accustomed to.
Oh, and your question about other species is so interesting... I have no idea. Let me know if you learn anything about this!
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