Regarding the Pain of Others

AWESOME

Beautifully written and enlightening picture of the cruelty people afflict on one another without thinking or even realizing that the one that is receiving the pain is exactly like us, a human being, with a heart, a soul and a mind. Why can’t we as humankind learn to see beyond our differences and enjoy the beauty of living? Collectively we could do so much good if we lived and let live, as long as someone does no harm to others, why do we care what religion, sexual orientation, color or lack of, or whatever someone chooses to believe? Let weird be weirder and wacky be wackier as long as we live in peace with the earth and it’s resources. Sontag is a brilliant writer. I love her thoughts, I wish everyone would read her books.

This (new) book was delivered in very poor condition.

In this essay, Sontag weaves together complex philosophical arguments into an accessible, exhilarating and deeply touching read.Sontag's prose masterfully dances around the question of how pictures of atrocities have been used historically and can be politically employed today, how viewers' ethical standpoint has changed over the years: sketching how the experience of 'regarding the pain of others' has evolved over the centuries until today.Even though Sontag makes a plurality of well-taken arguments, her essay necessarily lacks extensive inquiries into the historical, cultural and political contexts to which varied pictures have responded to and have fallen into. Since variation in those contexts changes the audience's interpretation of depicted atrocities, her essay can be taken as a call for more research in this direction.

Susan had an amazing way of explaining the threat of using images and being numbed, mentally, from all the saturation that we find online and on TV.This book is very relevant for this period of time.