Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag - Garage.
In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag examines the manner in which war is perceived, taking into account such factors as sex, culture and status. She contends that war imagery is open to both interpretation and manipulation.Plot Summary Regarding the Pain of Others is a book-length essay by Susan Sontag published in 2003. Sontag initially addresses a question posed to writer and anti-war activist Virginia Woolf: “How in your opinion are we to prevent war?” but then, deducing that war is perennial, Sontag uses the remainder of her book to examine the relation between photography and feelings and ideas about war.In her follow-up to Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag returns one year later with the article “Regarding The Torture Of Others.” She argues that photographs determine how “important conflicts are judged and remembered.” Sontag is critical of the Bush administration for their desire to “limit a public-relations disaster” rather than “deal with the complex crimes of.
In Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag explores visual representations of war and violence in today's culture - from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War and contemporary horrific images of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Israel, and Palestine - asking a series of questions: What is the purpose of showing the atrocities of war?Regarding The Pain Of Others. trade, and of the satisfactions of starting a war or continuing to fight one. If governments had their way, war photography, like most war poetry, would drum up support for soldiers' sacrifice. Indeed, war photography begins with such a mission, such a disgrace.
In Regarding the Pain of Others, Sontag is alerting us about the dangers of the wearing out of our moral feelings.
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