Perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it - say, the surgeons at the military hospital where the photograph was taken - or those who could learn from it. The rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be. Susan Sontag
About This Quote

When we look at a photo or a video of children who have been wounded or even killed, we are not doing anything to help those children. We are just standing by and looking at them as part of the action.

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More Quotes By Susan Sontag
  1. The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.

  2. That's the source of the meditation on death I've carried in my heart all my life.

  3. A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.", Frankfurt Book Fair, October 12, 2003]

  4. The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both.

  5. Writing is a mysterious activity.

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