Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Look into the void...

...for it is you.

Gerard has a long and excruciatingly thoughtful piece on the refusal to imagine.  From what I've seen in the last 10 years, 8 months and 19 days, the refusal to imagine starts with the refusal to look.  Look at what has happened, knowing the we can easily become part of it, either as perpetrator or victim.  (But remember, there are no victims, only volunteers.)  So, some images from around the web as a reminder  (warning - really graphic stuff below the break):

WW II


9/11/2001



Paul Johnson, 2004





Suicide Bomber, 3/2003 (Iraq?)

I know it's not pretty, but it is what we,as a species can do if we don't look at it, imagine it, and say "not today."  If you don't like these pictures, if you think they are too graphic or too disturbing, then I suggest you either suck it up, or be prepared to be in a photo just like one of these, as victim or perpetrator.



1 comment:

Mme Scherzo said...

I once posted an essay in 2006 on this very topic. Here's the link: http://tastyinfidelicacies.blogspot.com/2006/08/doing-it-for-childrenand-puppies.html

Unfortunately, the link in the headline goes to a dead link, sorry, but I pasted the essay in full. I'd been having an online argument with a commenter who was taking the Palestinian side on everything, and this was my final, exasperated response to his nonsense.

Unless we start to imagine the unimaginable, we are going to find ourselves confronted with some very unpalatable realities.

This is going to end in guns, I don't kid myself.