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Regarding the Pain of Others

Book by Susan Sontag · 42 quotes · Book Quotes, Books, Regarding The Pain Of Others

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Regarding the Pain of Others Quotes

“Someone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood.”

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“Indeed, the very first acknowledgment (as far as I am aware) of the attraction of mutilated bodies occurs in a founding description of mental conflict. It is a passage in The Republic, Book IV, where Plato’s Socrates describes how our reason may be overwhelmed by an unworthy desire, which drives the self to become angry with a part of its nature.”

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“People don't become inured to what they are shown - if that's the right way to describe what happens - because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration.”

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“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. People don't become inured to what they are shown — if that's the right way to describe what happens — because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling.”

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“Herkesin bildiği fotoğraflar, artık bir toplumun hakkında düşünmeyi seçtiği ya da düşünmeyi seçtiğini ilan ettiği şeylerin bütünleyici bir parçasıdır. Toplum bu fikirleri 'hafıza' olarak adlandırır ve onların toplamı da uzun vadede bir 'kurgu'ya dönüşür. Daha kesin bir dille konuşursak, kolektif hafıza diye bir şey yoktur -kolektif hafıza, tıpkı kolektif suç kavramı gibi aynı düzmece fikirler familyasının bir parçasıdır. Ama kolektif eğitim diye bir şey vardır. Bütün hafızalar bireyseldir, başka bir şeye indirgenemez; kişinin kendisiyle birlikte ölüp gider. Kolektif hafıza denen şey, hatırlatıcı değil koşullandırıcı bir olgudur: Bu nokta önemlidir ve bu, zihnimizin deposunda kilitli görüntülerle birlikte, olayların nasıl meydana geldiğinin öyküsüdür. İdeolojiler, anlamlı ortak fikirleri özetleyip kapsül haline getirerek öngörülebilir düşünce ve duyguları harekete geçiren, kanıtlayıcı görüntü arşivleri, temsili görüntüler biriktirirler. Poster olmaya uygun fotoğraflar (bir atom bombası denemesinin bıraktığı mantar bulutu, Washington D.C.' de Lincoln Anıtı'nda konuşan Martin Luther King, Jr. ve ayda yürüyen astronot, vb.) ses yankılarının görsel karşılıklarıdır. Onlar sayesinde -en az posta pulları kadar etkili bir hatıra olarak- Önemli Tarihsel Anlar'ı yad ederiz; gerçekten de, sadece zafer anlarını yansıtan fotoğraflar (atom bombasının resmi) posta pulu haline gelirler. Ne şans ki, Nazi ölüm kamplarından tek bir imzalı fotoğraf çıkmamıştır.”

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“It is a view of suffering, of the pain of others, that is rooted in religious thinking, which links pain to sacrifice, sacrifice to exaltation - a view that could not be more alien to a modern sensibility, which regards suffering as something that is a mistake or an accident or a crime. Something to be fixed. Something to be refused. Something that makes one feel powerless.”

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“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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“It is felt that there is something morally wrong with the abstract of reality offered by photography; that one has no right to experience the suffering of others at a distance, denuded of its raw power; that we pay too high a human (or moral) price for those hitherto admired qualities of vision - the standing back from the aggressiveness of the world which frees us for observation and for elective attention.”

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“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of 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.”

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