Floresca1
Carlton Floresca
Professor Wills
English 100
23 October 2012
“Watching Suffering From a Distance” Response
In Susan Sontag’s “Watching From a Distance”, she makes points about images of violence, and writes about its realities. She points out that people have some sort of uneasiness or fear about violence that causes people to turn away when it is mentioned in the media and some may even be surprised when they learn of the kind of violence that takes place. Sontag writes, “Someone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of the gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological childhood” (437). In this quote, Sontag makes a point that people surprised by graphic acts of violence, have been ignorant about the realities of violence. She blames the images the media puts out as a result of an uninformed audience when it comes to violence when she writes, “It seems as if there is a greater quantity of such news than before. This is probably an illusion” (Sontag 438). Sontag blames news medias for putting out common news stories of images and violence such as shootings but do not mention the more graphic crimes that actually occur in the world. The media instead decides to censor out real crimes that are more violent than others because of the fear of losing viewers but they also risk having an audience that is less informed. Sontag condemns violence when she writes, “Images have been reproached for being a way of watching suffering at a distance, as if there were some other way of watching. But watching up close without mediation of an image is still just watching” (439). Seeing violent images makes one want to act upon the violence and stop it. Unfortunately, Sontag implies that actions cannot be taken against violence because a person will make their choice and no one can stop a person from making their own choices. Only the person committing the violence himself can choose not to turn to acts of violence.
When Sontag writes, “No one after a certain age has the right to this kind of innocence, of superficiality, to this degree of ignorance, or amnesia” (437), she talks about who has a right to violence and who does not. By being vague when she writes “no one after a certain age”, she implies that no one should be involved in acts of violence no matter what the age of a person is. An example would be the violence seen on the news. One usually sees older people, adults, committing most crimes. Sontag basically says that older age does not justify or allow one to commit violent acts. Just because children are taught not to be violent, being an adult does not excuse one to let loose and have a license to violence. Innocence and ignorance are a problem in society today due to the lack of reality portrayed in the media today just as Sontag writes. The media uses ignorance and sugarcoats the graphic details of a violent crime or act instead of being straightforward with their information. As a result of being misinformed about the realities of violence, one’s mind is “innocent” and becomes surprised when learning about vicious violent acts. Just as the media is the problem with innocence, people who choose to ignore violence can be a problem as well. Due to one’s own ignorance, they lead themselves to be misinformed about violence because they choose to look away from the graphic acts that occur when in reality these are the type of crimes happening around the world. The problems with “ignorance” and “innocence” are found in the media and the choices of the way people react to the topic of violence.