Regarding the Pain of Others - Recap How to respond to photographs of suffering from remote locales? How to move from passivity and hopelessness into action Style Complex sentences (36) Sophisticated vocabulary ( plangent, bellicose ) Yet tone is relaxed, conversational Occasional use of colloquial language for effect (37) Assumes familiarity with literary sources; epigraphs from Charles Baudelaire and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; opening pages reference Virginia Woolf Additional references to Plato (96), the philosopher Edmund Burke (97), Simone Weil (12), among others Assumes knowledge of politics and history on global scale Assumes knowledge of visual art (Marysas, Laocoön) 1
Digressive; meandering quality is suggestive of Woolf s essay Recall that in Woolf s essay, she questioned the Barrister s use of the pronoun, we, noting that the barrister assumes a commonality between himself and Woolf when he asks, How in your opinion are we to prevent war?... (Woolf 153). Woolf queries this notion of we, noting that despite similarities of socio-economic class, there exists the gulf of the gender divide (Woolf 154) However, as Sontag points out, once Woolf challenged the gender differences between herself and the barrister, she assumes that she and the barrister will be united in their reaction to the photos of barbarity Nevertheless, Woolf s style in Three Guineas can be seen as a effort to undermine the patriarchal structures she critiques Rejects literary devices such as a uniformly linear narrative argument is often convoluted; backtracks as it reconsiders positions previously dismissed; Reveals patriarchal structures to be arbitrary, rather than absolute 2
Sontag is also trying to destabilize the pronoun, we, but from a different perspective Her concern is not the ways in which we elides gender, but rather the ways in which we elides the various positions involved in looking at the photographs When we look at a photograph, we are inferring information about an earlier interaction between a victim and a perpetrator or between a victim and disease, There are three positions: viewer, victim, perpetrator 3
In looking at a photo of suffering, we, the viewers, may see ourselves as the subject, looking at the victim, as object, as someone to be seen, not someone, (like us) who also sees (73) we may forget the humanity of the victim; We may take the role of passive observers who see, but who are not, could not be involved; create an identity for ourselves in which we are safely exempt from such suffering We may forget or elide our own ability to participate in the suffering of another; tendency in Western countries to imagine that we would never commit atrocities or acts of barbarism; our identity is partially constituted through belief that we save others from such injustices, yet commit no such injustices ourselves Sontag troubles these roles and our relationships to them through her writing style By considering what it is to be the victim and the perpetrator as well as the observer, she forces us to abandon our privileged position in the centre as observer who feels immune to suffering and the creation of suffering Her digressions, elaborate considerations of multiple points of view work just as Woolf s did, to undermine traditional ways of thinking. 4
Sontag avoids systematic analysis She defers resolution Destabilizes a central position as means of interrogating the we assumed by Woolf s barrister, by Woolf, and by ourselves in our looking and reading Destabilizes the distinctions between observer, victim and perpetrator While her essay doesn t tell us how to specifically respond to photographs, it shows us, through the use of language, both how to move from our passive stance and to enact a self-awareness about our own potential to enact suffering. Essay offers a moral stance, an ethics of looking and responding If we can recognize our own potential to cause suffering, it may open the way for reconciliation, rather than judgment, retribution, revenge If we can recognize the subjectivity of the victim in the photo, it may remind us to move out of our passivity into compassion and awareness, and possibly action 5
Audience Willingness To consider difficult subject matter: graphic discussions of suffering To tackle complex and abstract ideas To tackle complex sentences and vocabulary To consider the fallibility of institutions To critique the government Familiarity with literary and philosophical sources Familiarity with visual art, historical and political events Intellectuals, policy makers Content Photographs of suffering may serve as evidence of injustice As viewers, we have responsibilities to consider the photograph s origins, captions, the context in which the photo is displayed or reproduced, the photographers intentions Recognize the ways in which we constitute the content Importance of written word in providing understanding and persuading others of a particular perspective Narrative is more effective than the image in persuading someone; becomes justification for writing 6
Content No we should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people s pain (7). This essay asks, Who is we? Essay offers a moral stance, an ethics of looking and responding If we can recognize our own potential to cause suffering, it may open the way for reconciliation, rather than judgment, retribution, revenge If we can recognize the subjectivity of the victim in the photo, it may remind us to move out of our passivity and into compassion and awareness, and possibly action we has to include the viewer, the victim and the perpetrator 7