💾 Archived View for gemini.onedimension.net › thought › beyond-emotional-pornography.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 03:51:02. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I recently caved and started following the war in Ukraine. I usually have a strict no-news policy, but like pretty much everyone else, I let myself get drawn into this whole thing.
The observation I've had of the coverage is very simple, and not particularly new or interesting: it's emotional pornography. The reporters try to show their audience the human cost of the war, the suffering of the everyday person. It makes a story that's impossible to turn away from; the reaction is base and visceral.
No doubt this is an important angle, and that suffering reveals something true about the world. Yet, I find myself wishing it wasn't so...simple. All we see is the suffering of the Ukrainian people, and the "monster" that unleashed that suffering upon them. Any nuance is--perhaps understandably given the situation--completely erased. The overwhelming narrative becomes one of west versus east, of good versus evil. From an American--or perhaps more broadly western perspective--it becomes impossible to see the events as simply events. Instead, it's seen principally in terms of its moral components; impossible to separate what is from what should be. One feels an attachment to these strangers on the other side of the world, one recognizes their suffering. That complicates the situation and blinds us to the ways in which the war is not just about an evil tyrant and his bloodthirsty rampage.
The world is not a cartoon. People are not pure evil. Understanding, in the truest sense, should be the goal of our study of this war or any other spectacle of humanity. So far in watching the coverage I have not come away with any more understanding of the values and principles of those involved. Uncovering these, I sense, would bring us face to face with uncomfortable feelings of familiarity[1]. The people behind this are people just like us, perhaps sharing some of the very same values we hold. And yet, due to context and circumstance, those values manifest in a way we are unable to appreciate, or even recognize.
Last updated Mon Feb 28 2022 in Berkeley, CA
1: /thought/i-might-be-evil.gmi