3.22.2006
Regarding the Pain of Others (History and Theory of the Body)
Title
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
Sontag's short book looks at the history and ethics of looking at the
pain of others and further along this vein of self and other says: "No
'we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other
people's pain." (7) This discussion takes place on the field of war
and photographic representation. "Nonstop imagery (television,
streaming video, movies) is our surround, but when it comes to
remembering, the photograph has the deeper bite. Memory freeze-frames;
its basic unit is the single image." (22) "Photographs had the
advantage of uniting two contradictory features. Their credentials of
objectivity were inbuilt. Yet they always had, neccesarily, a point of
view. They were a record of the real - incontrevertible, as not verbal
account, however, impartial, could be - since a machine was doing the
recording. And they bore witness to the real - since a person had been
there to take them." (26) "Eventually, one reads into the photograph
what it should be saying."(29) "The memory of way, however, like all
memory, is mostly local." (35)
Sontag asks what do we ("we") do when we are confronted with the
photographic image of bodies suffering? "It seems that the appetite
for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire
for ones that show bodies naked...No moral charge attaches to the
representation of these cruelties. Just the provocation: can you look
at this? There is a satisfaction of being able to look at the image
without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching."(41) She notes
that many of the most famous war images have been staged - why do we
feel disappointment at this? She also discusses the distribution of
war images and the censorship of them. "The exhibition in photographs
of cruelties inflicted on those with darker complexions in exotic
countries continues this offering, oblivious to the considerations
that deter such displays of our own victims of violence; for the
other, even when not an enemy, is regarded only as someone to be seen,
not someone (like us) who also sees." (72) What do we do with the
beautiful image of suffering? "Photographs objectify: they turn an
event or person into something that can be possessed. And photographs
are a species of alchemy, for all that they are prized as a
transparent account of reality." (81)
What do photographs have to do with collective memory - "what is
called collective memory is not remembering but a stipulating."(86)
"Harrowing photographs do not inevitably lose their power to shock.
But they are not much help if the task is to understand. Narratives
make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us."
(89)
And on the ethics: "One should feel obliged to look at photographs
that record great cruelties and crimes. One should feel obliged to
think about what it means to look at them, about the capacity actually
to assimilate what they show." (95)
"People can turn off [the televised picture of suffering] not just
because a steady diet of images of violence has made them indifferent
but because they are afraid." (100) "It is because war, any war,
doesn't seem as if it can be stopped people become less responsive to
the horrors. Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be
translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with
the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been
communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do - but who
is that 'we'? - and nothing 'they' can do either - and who are 'they'?
then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic."(101) 'To set aside
the sympathy we extend to others beset by way and murderous politics
for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as
their suffering, and may - in ways we might prefer not to imagine - be
linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the
destitution of others, is a task for which painful, stirring images
supply only an initial spark." (103)
Keywords
Pain, We, Real, Memory, Photograph, Image, Suffering, Fear.
Other Thoughts
"And photographs of the victims of war are themselves a species of
rhetoric. They reiterate. They simplify. They agitate. They create the
illusion of consensus." (6)
"They weep, in part, because they have seen it many times. People want
to weep. Pathos, in the form of narrative, does not wear out."(83)
"Citizens of modernity, cosumers of violence as spectacle, adepts of
proximity without risk, are schooled to be cynical about the
possibility of sincerity." (111)
"It is intolerable to have one's own sufferings twinned with anybody
else's." (113)
"Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself.
Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have to the dead. So the
belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as
humans, who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the
normal course of things die before us...Heartlessness and amnesia seem
to go together. But history gives contradictory signals about value of
remembering in the much longer span of collective history. There is
simply too much injustice in the world. And too much
remembering...embitters. To make peace is to forget. To reconcile, it
is necessary that memory be faulty and limited."(115)
"There is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking." (118)
"A narrative seems likely to be more effective than an image. Partly
it is a question of the length of time one is obliged to look, to
feel." (122)
"'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; 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 time under fire, and had
the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby, stubbornly
feels. And they are right." (126)
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003
Field
History and Theory of the Body
Summary
Sontag's short book looks at the history and ethics of looking at the
pain of others and further along this vein of self and other says: "No
'we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other
people's pain." (7) This discussion takes place on the field of war
and photographic representation. "Nonstop imagery (television,
streaming video, movies) is our surround, but when it comes to
remembering, the photograph has the deeper bite. Memory freeze-frames;
its basic unit is the single image." (22) "Photographs had the
advantage of uniting two contradictory features. Their credentials of
objectivity were inbuilt. Yet they always had, neccesarily, a point of
view. They were a record of the real - incontrevertible, as not verbal
account, however, impartial, could be - since a machine was doing the
recording. And they bore witness to the real - since a person had been
there to take them." (26) "Eventually, one reads into the photograph
what it should be saying."(29) "The memory of way, however, like all
memory, is mostly local." (35)
Sontag asks what do we ("we") do when we are confronted with the
photographic image of bodies suffering? "It seems that the appetite
for pictures showing bodies in pain is as keen, almost, as the desire
for ones that show bodies naked...No moral charge attaches to the
representation of these cruelties. Just the provocation: can you look
at this? There is a satisfaction of being able to look at the image
without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching."(41) She notes
that many of the most famous war images have been staged - why do we
feel disappointment at this? She also discusses the distribution of
war images and the censorship of them. "The exhibition in photographs
of cruelties inflicted on those with darker complexions in exotic
countries continues this offering, oblivious to the considerations
that deter such displays of our own victims of violence; for the
other, even when not an enemy, is regarded only as someone to be seen,
not someone (like us) who also sees." (72) What do we do with the
beautiful image of suffering? "Photographs objectify: they turn an
event or person into something that can be possessed. And photographs
are a species of alchemy, for all that they are prized as a
transparent account of reality." (81)
What do photographs have to do with collective memory - "what is
called collective memory is not remembering but a stipulating."(86)
"Harrowing photographs do not inevitably lose their power to shock.
But they are not much help if the task is to understand. Narratives
make us understand. Photographs do something else: they haunt us."
(89)
And on the ethics: "One should feel obliged to look at photographs
that record great cruelties and crimes. One should feel obliged to
think about what it means to look at them, about the capacity actually
to assimilate what they show." (95)
"People can turn off [the televised picture of suffering] not just
because a steady diet of images of violence has made them indifferent
but because they are afraid." (100) "It is because war, any war,
doesn't seem as if it can be stopped people become less responsive to
the horrors. Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be
translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with
the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been
communicated. If one feels that there is nothing 'we' can do - but who
is that 'we'? - and nothing 'they' can do either - and who are 'they'?
then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic."(101) 'To set aside
the sympathy we extend to others beset by way and murderous politics
for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as
their suffering, and may - in ways we might prefer not to imagine - be
linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the
destitution of others, is a task for which painful, stirring images
supply only an initial spark." (103)
Keywords
Pain, We, Real, Memory, Photograph, Image, Suffering, Fear.
Other Thoughts
"And photographs of the victims of war are themselves a species of
rhetoric. They reiterate. They simplify. They agitate. They create the
illusion of consensus." (6)
"They weep, in part, because they have seen it many times. People want
to weep. Pathos, in the form of narrative, does not wear out."(83)
"Citizens of modernity, cosumers of violence as spectacle, adepts of
proximity without risk, are schooled to be cynical about the
possibility of sincerity." (111)
"It is intolerable to have one's own sufferings twinned with anybody
else's." (113)
"Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself.
Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have to the dead. So the
belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as
humans, who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the
normal course of things die before us...Heartlessness and amnesia seem
to go together. But history gives contradictory signals about value of
remembering in the much longer span of collective history. There is
simply too much injustice in the world. And too much
remembering...embitters. To make peace is to forget. To reconcile, it
is necessary that memory be faulty and limited."(115)
"There is nothing wrong with standing back and thinking." (118)
"A narrative seems likely to be more effective than an image. Partly
it is a question of the length of time one is obliged to look, to
feel." (122)
"'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; 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 time under fire, and had
the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby, stubbornly
feels. And they are right." (126)
# posted by SMRT : 12:02 AM
