"Regarding the Pain of Others" by Susan Sontag

Questions that the author attempts to answer:

1. How has the camera and the media played a role in war coverage?

2. What is the response among the masses upon viewing these shocking photos?

3. What are some factors that decide whether or not photos of war will be shown to the public?

Photography has been able to provide the masses with the unbelievable destruction that comes with the territory of war. With its inception in the 19th century, photography has shown many morbid pictures of war: bodies spread out in the fields of Antietam during the Civil War, mounds or corpses in desolate trenches in Europe during World War I. In her piece "Regarding the Pain of Others", Susan Sontag points at that "the scale of war's murderousness destroys what identifies people as individuals, even as human beings" (61). To her point I believe she is on to something.

While photography can replicate the image, it cannot replicate the emotional feelings that one gets from viewing the photo as opposed to being at the scene . I believe that is one of the negative effects that has occurred from photos relating to the destruction of war. As a viewer, there is a sense of separation that one feels upon viewing these graphic photos. We can see the death and the carnage, but it does not strike a deeper chord with us. I know for me, emotionally I would be smacked in the face if I stood on a battlefield and saw dead bodies riddled on a field. It would strike a chord in me because of the human element and connection that I could feel. When I old photos from World War I of bodies on a field with their heads turned from the camera, they look more like objects than deceased human beings. It can look staged and I feel bereft of raw emotion. 

That way of thinking is dangerous because we undermine the humanity that was lost. Casualties are not just statistics and numbers. They are divine individuals with special qualities that make them strictly unique. They are individuals who had hopes and dreamers shattered by the destructions of war. They are members of families that have now lost someone truly special. Sontag's point is to warn us that we should not dehumanize the loss of life, something that we tend to do upon viewing photos from the battlefield.