PHI 170 Chapter Whole reading: Sontag Notes
Document Summary
Founding critique of modernity- the argument that modern life consists of a diet of horrors by which we are corrupted and to which we gradually become habituated. Wordsworth- uniformity of occupation produces a craving for extraordinary incident\ Baudelaire- every newspaper from the first line to the last is nothing but a tissue of horrors. Newer technology provides a nonstop feed- as many images of disaster and atrocity as we can make time to look at. Critics have suggested that the excruciations of war-thanks to television- have devolved into a nightly banality (dullness)- we are losing our capacity to react/compassion was growing numb. The conservative critique of the diffusion of images- our experiences with emotional freshness and ethical pertinence is being sapped by the relentless diffusion of vulgar and appalling images. Sontag considers this argument to be conservative because it is the sense of reality that is being eroded.
