— Overview
The book, for this reader, is an argument for watching the actual world, not only a spectacle of images.
— Contents and key concepts
A 2003 book, and a question from page 13
The student stays with Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, published in 2003. Sontag was born in New York on 16 January 1933. The Korean edition is widely known under a title that simply names the pain of others.
The line that holds the student first is on page 13: what does it mean to care about the suffering of people living far off, in a zone of conflict? On page 14 the book is described as an argument for watching the actual world, not a spectacle, and for thinking more truthfully about images, war, the limits of compassion, and the claims of conscience. The student hears that sentence as the book’s whole case in a tight form.
“We,” and photographs of someone else’s war
Sontag keeps asking who is included in “we,” and who is left in “they.” If the problem is to turn one’s eyes to other people’s pain, she writes, “we” should not be treated as obvious. The word often takes in those who only seem to pay attention to a mean war elsewhere — a much larger group of voters — and leaves out people in weaker countries, or people without a state who are risking their lives.
A journalism that makes an “exotic,” once colonial, people into a spectacle is, in her account, a habit more than a hundred years old. Looking at shocking pictures, the student is left with her question: who, exactly, is this “we” that is looking?
Mourn, but do not become foolish
“Let us all mourn,” one line runs, “but let us not all become fools.” The student also remembers, as a later shock of their own, the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster, when more than three hundred lives were lost in view of the world. That memory is not the subject of Sontag’s book; it is the place from which this reader came to her warning about images and pity.
The essay wanted to keep her question about a distant pain, and her caution about the word “we,” in the same frame. The same Korean pages, at their full length, are on CampusDown.
Sources
- A student reading of Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, through the opening pages and a warning about the word “we.”
Last updated 15 November 2026
Frequently asked questions
What book is this, and when did it appear?
Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others, published in 2003. Sontag was born in New York on 16 January 1933. The student is reading her on photographs of war and on the limits of pity.
Which opening lines stay with the student?
On page 13 she asks what it means to care about the suffering of people living in a distant conflict. On page 14 the book is called an argument for watching the actual world, not a spectacle, and for thinking more honestly about the use of images, the nature of war, the limits of compassion, and the demands of conscience.
Why does the word “we” matter here?
If the task is to look at other people’s pain, Sontag warns, “we” should not be taken for granted. The word tends to include those who only seem to attend to a distant, ugly war, and to leave out people in weaker countries, or people without a state who are fighting for their lives.
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