A review by logantmartin
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag

challenging reflective fast-paced

5.0

Reading this in the 2020s was such a surreal experience. People have more access to images of brutality than ever before, and yet we are still living in the world of Virginia Woolf's imagined photographs of the Spanish Civil War. Thinking about the conflicts going on right now, it's hard to imagine how it's possible to justify the atrocities being committed. Sontag, as usual, makes it crystal clear: a picture is worth a thousand words, but which words we use is a matter of debate. There is always a justification for violence, no matter how flimsy, which is why the camera has not ended but merely shaped conflicts across the globe. In other words: a photo may make us want to stop violence, but stopping violence always depends on understanding who is perpetrating it.