Regarding the Pain of Others

Susan Sontag provokes us to think about what it's like to view violence and pain of all types through photographs. Do photographs about war, starving children, or dead bodies sensitize us to the violence going on around the world? Should we be changed by looking at such photographs? Sontag doesn't try to answer these questions, but instead aides us in creating our on conclusions. She gives a brief history of photo-journalism and war photography. She questions whether war photographs, those which depict gruesome scenes, are considered art. She considers the fact that some war photographers moved corpses to create a "better" photograph and whether these actions made the photos better or worse. Sontag explains that war photographs, no matter what type of experience you've had with war, are supposed to shock you. They're supposed to make you think about things outside your own life and your own hardships. Sontag points out that in every photograph that shows some form of pain, whether the photograph is of a wounded soldier or a starving child, that people were affect by the scene presented in that photograph. That wounded soldier had a family and that starving child had the potential for something greater than him or herself. However, some people might look at those types of photographs for hours, and still not understand the meaning behind them.

I've had numerous conversations in history classes about how desensitized the younger generations are becoming, simply because of everything on the television these days. Video games and movies are becoming increasingly violent, too many things on the news at night is negative and same goes for the newspapers. It's amazing how quickly the most violent or gruesome of photos race around the internet when they are first uploaded. It seems like people sometimes aren't as upset as they should be when certain subjects are photographed. This book made me think about how every person in the world is fighting their own battles. Some might not be a devastating as war or poverty, but everyone is united by the fact that we're all fighting a battle of some kind. As our next project is rapidly approaching, I'm still having some issues deciding what to focus on. I think it might be interesting to focus on something less gruesome than war or poverty, but rather something on a smaller and more individualized level. We shall see though.