War Images: A Catalyst for Moral Action?

The power of photography to define meaning, shape perspective, and reinforce ideology cannot be underestimated. Ample evidence of this power is provided by the Bush AdministrationÆs refusal to permit photographs of American casualties in coffins arriving home. From images of American marines raising the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima to the mushroom cloud that rose over Nagasaki after U.S. forces dropped a second atomic bomb on Japan, war photographs have a powerful impact on society (SEE Photos 1 and 2). However, whether a war photograph features an emaciated Jew in a Nazi concentration camp or a statue of Saddam Hussein tumbling down, all war images photographed carry with them the perspective of the photographer. In her book On Photography, Susan Sontag (p. 20) warned that ôImages transfix. Images anesthetize.ö This analysis will explore photos of war images in order to more fully understand this type of photography.

Images do transfix and images do anesthetize. This is particularly true of war images that show extreme brutality or violence or those that immediately symbolize an ideology for large numbers of people. The image of the toppling of the status of Saddam Hussein provides an immediate reinforce of the power and strength of U.S. and Western values, (SEE Photo 3). War images are often capable of undermining ideology as well. War images of the dead arriving home in coffins were restricted from public vie

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the author maintains in On Photography, ôsomething went dead; something is still crying,ö (Sontag, p. 19). Sontag seems to believe that images of horror and brutality have a capacity to negate. They have the ability to deaden our emotions toward violence and, thereby, increasing our tolerance for it. Likewise, she is not convinced that that war images embody the qualities of something real. More frightening is the fact that she thinks we tend to see real events in terms of the qualities of images, thereby desensitizing our response to images and acts of brutality. Likewise, Sontag (p. 89) searches for some morally redemptive value in being witness to such images, but after a search that yields no answer the author suggests there are only two kinds of people or reasons for viewing images of the horrors of war: ôperhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate itàor those who could learn from it.ö It is this point made by Sontag that I view as not only her most valid one but also her point of greatest limitation. She does not provide moral action to resolve the situation of the prevalence of such images. She laments the existence of them
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1384
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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