These are some things I wrote on the back pages of Susan Sontag's "Regarding the Pain of Others" while discussing it last night.
The sublime is just a concept invented by western intellectuals in an attempt to escape their overwhelming edification of themselves.
----
Images of violence set people apart. They reaffirm group boundaries as we identify with either the perpetrator or the victim (or as not being a part of the situation at all, as in, that's happening over there). Whereas erotic (not pornographic) and romantic images tend towards and opposite effect of bringing people together, of softening the divides between different groups. Perhaps this points to part of the popularity, and institutional approval, of violent imagery in our society.
---
This next one is an almost verbatim quote from a prof:
"Aphorisms are mental laxatives. They're like a piece of chocolate x-lax. They contain some element with which one feels compelled to agree, and another with which one cannot but disagree."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment