This is a blog for the community of Sociology 98/198, "Violence, Violation, and Vulnerability: From Visible to Invisible," in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, Spring 2010.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Time: June 5, 2006
"When the media bombard us with those 'humanitarian crises' which seem constantly to pop up all over the world, one should always bear in mind that a particular crisis only explodes into media visibility as the result of a complex struggle. ... To put it cynically, Time picked the wrong victim to the struggle for hegemony in suffering. It should have struck to the list of usual suspects: Muslim women and their plight, or the families of 9/11 victims and how they have coped with their losses" (Zizek 2008:3).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
"Bombarding" is a good use of metaphor. This guilt ridden spiral is lost in the midst of the market. It is lost to those who are not willing to expose themselves to the reality of catastrophe, the sense that Benjamin asserted. These, in themselves unfathomable, are the impetus for systematic change, piling up on top of each other. The move us forward in their meaninglessness yet expose the threats which await us all. We may commit ourselves to change, but we must act instead of talk. That, I think, is both the easiest and toughest move of all.
ReplyDelete