Regarding the Pain of Others

Susan Sontag's "Regarding the Pain of Others" was an interesting book if not a bit repetitive. Her particular writing style threw me a bit. It's not that it was hard to comprehend exactly just more that it seemed like a stream of consciousness and is hard to understand her position, the fact that she talks about not being sure herself doesn't help. I felt more inclined to come to my own conclusions, something sadly a lot of books don't do. A problem in the literary and academic world in general is the writing style of "this is my opinion and anything else is wrong".

Two particular things in this book stood out to me. The first one was at the beginning of chapter five when she says, "Peace is the norm, if an unattainable one. This, of course, is not the way war has been regarded throughout history. War has been the norm and peace the exception." This brought back memories of discussions I have had about such ideas, war in ancient times versus now. It is a concept that fascinates me, how can society as a whole (there are always exceptions) completely change its attitudes about war over time to the extent that they are opposite. I'm not saying either way is right, because in general when there are two opposite sides of an issue or argument the middle ground tends to be right.

Think if you will solely on the concept of fighting and violence. Today we are raised from birth that it is a bad thing and we are discouraged against it in all it's forms. The first time we naturally lash out in violence it is reprimanded, even in the verbal form of questioning one's parents for the first time. I think arguing is simply fighting with words. As we get older we are only more conflicted when we see examples of commendation for bad things if they are in the right context, it is acceptable to fight if you are in a ring. Or it is acceptable to kill or steal if it is for your country. It becomes no wonder we are so psychologically messed up as people in this age. Constantly being told not to do things but seeing others rewarded for doing them in the right setting. You can't fight but if you are in a ring with an audience you can get money and a shiny belt. This leads to my own little theory on what is fundamentally wrong with people today.

We tend to actively forget if not outright deny the simple fact that we are animals. That is all we are, animals with a god complex. In ancient times people were brought up learning to fight, being taught to wield a sword before the age of ten. The Spartans, an extreme example I admit, would take young boys and throw them into the wild and if they were strong enough and in a sense animal enough they would survive and be welcomed back as a true Spartan. While it is true modern science and engineering have made it unnecessary to have these abilities it has denied us a central part of our nature. We are violent creatures with a pack mentality occasionally taking precedent over our instinct to survive. This is a cynical point of view but I'm saying this is what we naturally are, the way we are raised sways our natural instincts to ridiculous amounts.

This leads me to the next part that stood out. She talks about our desensitization to violent images because of films, T.V., comics, games, etc. I don't agree with this. Many people have blamed violent films and games as causes for people doing violent things. This is the biggest load of B.S. I have seen in a while and the biggest cop out ever. A comedian put it best when he asked these people, "What violent video game was Hitler playing exactly?" There has always been violence and there always will be. These kinds of films and games allow people to quell these natural violent urges so that they don't take them out on real people. The only ones who aren't are the ones who were already mentally or emotional disturbed to the point they just as likely would have done it anyway. Relating to and getting into the characters, even more so with games, allows us to vicariously live out and do things we would never do in real life to satisfy that deep buried urge. She mentions a woman living a town over from one that was being bombed and she saw it one the news and the flipped the channel. People tend to ignore that which doesn't directly affect us.