in front of the images...

Sontag的這段節錄是目前令我最感焦慮的文字。原因在於，道理已被寫出來了，而我卻意識到自己對影像世界的無知以及在道德行動上的匱乏與茫然。
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And it is not necessarily better to be moved. Sentimentality, notoriously, is entirely compatible with a taste for brutality and worse. (Recall the canonical example of the Auschwitz commandant returning home in the evening, embracing his wife and children, and sitting at the piano to play some Schubert before dinner.) People don't become inured to what they are shown--if that's the right way to describe what happens-- because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration. But if  we consider what emotions would be desirable, it seems too simple to elect sympathy. The imaginary  proximity to the suffering inflicted on others that is granted by images suggests a link between the faraway sufferers--seen close-up on the television screen-- and the privileged viewer that is simply untrue, that is yet one more mystification of our real relations to power. So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent, it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinent-- if not an inappropriate--response. To set aside the  sympathy we extend to others beset by war and murderous politics for a reflection on how our privileges are located on the same map as their suffering, and may-- in ways we might prefer not to imagine-- be linked to their sufferings, as the wealth of some may imply the destitution of others, is a task for which the painful, stirring images supply only an initial spark. (Susan Sontag,  Regarding the Pain of Others)

受到感動不一定是宗好事。濫情（sentimentality）可以醜臭地與嗜啖畸暴或更糟糕的口胃相結合。（最經典的例子是奧許維茲﹝Auschwitz﹞集中營的納粹軍官，他們日薄歸家時，摟妻吻女，晚飯前於客廳鋼琴上彈奏舒伯特的樂曲。）人並非因為受到數量龐雜的影像衝擊而變得無動於衷──若這是個適恰的形容。令感受呆滯的原因是有所感而無所行動。所謂冷感，所謂情感與道德知覺的痿閉狀態，其實充斥著憤慨與受挫的情緒。若要從人的七情之中挑選最佳之「情」，那顯然不是憐憫。認為影像帶出的悲憫之情，能令──透過電視特寫鏡頭看到的──遠方的受害者與優哉遊哉的觀眾變得天涯若毗鄰起來，根本不切實際，徒然掩蓋了我們與權力之間的切實關係。我們感到憐憫，指的是我們感到自己不是釀造災痛者的幫兇。我們的憐憫宣告了我們的無辜清白，以及我們宛如真切的無能為力感。甚至可以說，不論我們懷抱多少善意，憐憫都是個不恰當，甚或隱含侮辱的反應。把我們對戰燹烽煙、板盪世情中偷生的黎民的憐憫挪開吧！不如去反省為何身處於同一張地圖上，我們如此矜貴，他們如此潦倒──我們可能不願意這樣想像下去吧──這種我貴他賤可能是血肉相連的，因為少數人的優裕可以導致許多人的窮愁困蹇。對這類自省的歷程，那些令人心痛斷腸的照片只能為我們提供那最初的激發火花。（蘇珊‧桑塔格，《旁觀他人之痛苦》，陳耀成譯。）