"There's no place like home. There's no place like home...." What if, one day, for millions of people, home didn't exist anymore? Most of us don't explore the infinite possibilities that could occur at any moment, because if we did, we would probably go crazy. But here's one that relates to our current classwork: what if, one day, you ended up looking at pictures of a more familiar, American looking version of Hiroshima? How would you react to the images that would appear if, this past summer, Kim Jong Un had actually gone through with his threats? Would you think, "Thank God it wasn't me"? Would you be torn apart by blind rage, or slumped in unmeasurable sadness? Hopefully none of us are ever put into such a position, despite the constant downward spiral of current worldly events. However, if we were, I know some of us would not want our younger siblings to see these pictures, or maybe we'd even be too repulsed to look at them ourselves (I was a little scared of what I would find when I searched for a picture of Hiroshima). But the fact remains that the events from which these images sprang will have actually transpired, and though critics will argue, no manipulation of the camera will change the violent truth: this is the power of freezing time.
There is no violent photograph currently in existence that cannot teach a person something, no matter his age or beliefs. Visually depicted, violence is undesputably one thing: tragic. There is a reason that the only people who have unconditionally supported violence in the past have been brainwashed, clinically insane, or forced to fight for the survival of entire nations. Would people have left their families to fight in World War 2 if the purpose had been any less urgent? In a way, they had no choice but to fight violence with violence, or fire with fire. Ideas such as this manifest so much power in tragic photographs that those of us who view them cannot simply be "voyeurs" who are incapable of drawing lessons from violence (Sontag 42). Whether or not such images move us to make a change in society or speak out against future evils, we are all forced to learn from them; how could death and suffering not evoke a reaction?
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| Hiroshima (The New Yorker) |
Wow, your reminder that an incident as devastating as Hiroshima could, in all possibility, happen again was profound and much needed. I think you're right when you say that we never consider the likeliness of such events, mostly in order to preserve our sanity. Looking back at similar events throughout history, I don't think you are wrong when you argue that it is hard to not learn from the past, and yet -in a very ironic manner- we find that history often repeats itself. Your blog post is extremely thought-provoking! Good job.
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