Regarding the Pain of Others

I picked this up to answer some questions i have asked myself since we are now in the times of live streamed genocides. My questions were answered by Sonia Sontag and her philosophy on war photography and its implications for both the victims of war and us the viewers. Christina Sharpe in her poignant book “Ordinary Notes” on her work against museums said “Spectacle is not repair” and Sontag here says “Compassion is an unstable emotion, without action it withers”. It not enough to simply watch or view injustice and it does not do the restorative work we think it does.

War photography has sometimes the effect of creating exceptional forms of injustice. What of the genocide and famines that are not filmed. The victims of current Sudanese civil war are an example of this as well as gross examples of injustice in modern cities we live in. if you are in South Africa you should care about home demolitions in Cape Town just as much as in the occupied West Bank. An injustice far is normally an injustice close by in another form.

probably a 5 stars if i was smart enough to understand more than half of it

The book that raises lots of questions regarding one's conscience and interpretation about war, subjecting photography as the center of it all. The image of suffering, photography or movie, is a memory that speaks directly, and it speaks in one language to all generations. The danger of exhaustion from the overflow of images of victims of violence is always present, it cannot be evaded in modern world and it should not be treated with artificial measures of media control. Like engagement, exhaustion cannot be a permanent human state. More importantly, despite the risks involved, our duty is not to close eyes for the pain of others. This is, I think, Sontag's conclusion and this is my own, too.

at first i wanted to give this 3 stars because (especially in the beginning of this book) i find sontag's writing style very difficult to read smoothly for some reason, and it took way longer than it should have for me to read my 77 page pdf of this – but the actual contents of the essay are so fascinating, comprehensive, relevant, and even satisfying (in that it addressed - not necessarily answered - questions i've long had about the popularity of gory images online) to warrant 5 stars (despite my strongly disagreeing with a few of the points made) "That we are not totally transformed, that we can turn away, turn the page, switch the channel, does not impugn the ethical value of an assault by images. It is not a defect that we are not seared, that we do not suffer enough, when we see these images. Neither is the photograph supposed to repair our ignorance about the history and causes of the suffering it picks out and frames. Such images cannot be more than an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn, to examine the rationalisations for mass suffering offered by established powers. Who caused what the picture shows? Who is responsible? Is it excusable? Was it inevitable? Is there some state of affairs which we have accepted up to now that ought to be challenged? … The frustration of not being able to do anything about what the images show may be translated into an accusation of the indecency of regarding such images, or the indecencies of the way such images are disseminated—flanked, as they may well be, by advertising for emollients, pain relievers, and SUVs. If we could do something about what the images show, we might not care as much about these issues."

3.5

Some favorite excerpts: "So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent, it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinent--if not an inappropriate--response. To set aside the sympathy we extend to others beset by war 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 image--be linked to their suffering, as the wealth of some may imply the restitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark" (102). "Each situation has to be turned into a spectacle to be real--that is, interesting to us...Reality has abdicated. There are only representations: media" (109)

This is it. That’s how you write an essay. Eloquent, strong, cognizant of nuance, and thoroughly researched. Sontag sets up argument carefully, artwork by artwork, bringing in the context of creation and consumption and then meticulously deconstructing every part of it. What is the purpose of a war photograph? How do we define our relationship with a remote conflict? And who are these “we” we talk about? As she says in the introduction, “no ‘we’ should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people’s pain” and it sets up the attitude of this short book. I wish some of the reference material was part of the book and that it was longer. But I guess there's On Photography for that.

(4.5)I enjoy Sontag's writing, and although a bit tautological throughout, each repetition serves the purpose to connect and enlarge on a point made previously; allowing for each chapter to be more of a tangent to the main thesis rather than a linear argument building upon itself. Interesting re-read. Things have certainly changed in the last 10 years, though the arguments made are still more relevant. I would be curious about her take on the impact algorithmic personalization of content and images.