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The thing that struck me the most of all of this was the 3 guys in the middle of Jeff Wall’s picture or painting or drawing or whatever it is. The guy on the top has his bowels exposed and is “riding” the guy under him. The guy under him is kicking his legs and his blood covered face is playfully disgusted at the piece of flesh being dangled in front of him. It is so strange. It is like Slaughterhouse Five in that it takes something normal - a couple “fools” as Jeff called them - and makes it, or links it to, something horrific.

The Goyas weren’t “real” enough for me… very ironic when I consider what Sontag said in those interviews. However one picture I will never forget is Goya’s picture of Saturn.

http://images.bridgeman.co.uk/cgi-bin/bridgemanImage.cgi/400.XIR.52730.7055475/546.JPG

I think the Jeff Wall work is a photograph-the Goyas were considered almost too real at the time.

Another one to check out is Picasso’s Guernica painting depicting the bombing of the village of Guernica. He goes another way-like Vonnegut he kind of strips away the realism, and with it our expectations. What do you find more real-impressionistic images and works that concentrate on the feeling of the event or ones that try to depict it as accurately as possible?

In other words do you prefer art or photography?

Picasso’s Guernica http://arts.anu.edu.au/polsci/courses/POLS1005/2007/Images/Picasso.Guernica2.jpg

We studied that Picasso in spanish last year. “Studied”. It really does nothing to me, I guess I prefer photography when it comes to evoking these types of emotions.

I think what goes through my mind when I see anti-war art is “Oh, I see what the artist is trying to make me think here. Good try though.” I can’t say that I know what a mutilated corpse wants me to think about his (or worse, her) picture, and I can draw my own uninfluenced conclusions. This is what makes my stomach tighten. Does that make sense?

I think you do know what the corpse wants you to think because you said it was worse when it’s a female victim.

I don’t think the art is supposed to be anti-war. It’s just honest-the victims simply want to be acknowledged as what was once a person with a history and is now referred to as a causality or damage.

That’s why Wall’s work is so disturbing. It re-humanizes the corpses without changing their destroyed status. You don’t have to imagine what the bodies might have done because they’re doing it. We all become Billy Pilgrim when we look at Wall’s photograph. We can see the soldiers as both dead and alive at the same time. What Wall and Vonnegut are doing is trying to describe something that we don’t have a vocabulary for.

I thought it was ironic how Susan Sontag explained how a man questioned her about her experiences in Sarajevo (was it?) by asking her if she “personally felt that she was in danger” while she was there, and she didn’t even know how to respond, because of course she felt it danger—it was a war zone!

I think sometimes we are all guilty of it, but often times the images we see on the television screen don’t convince us of reality. Honestly, how often do we really stop and think “oh my gosh this is really happening?” I think Sontag was right when she said that until you are right there in the action, experiencing the violence and the horror firsthand, you truly can’t understand what is actually occurring. I think in this respect we are desensitized to war and images of violence. It’s hard for me to believe that we are indifferent towards images of war because we just don’t care about what’s going on, so I would have to agree with Sontag that the reason we find ourselves this way is because we feel powerless. I think this probably has something to do with Billy Pilgrim’s character in the Slaughterhouse 5; he has become so desensitized towards death and violence that his experiences in the war have almost dehumanized him, so much so that he doesn’t know how to return back to reality.

I also checked out the art work. I thought that Jeff Wall’s photograph was really disturbing, I’m not really sure why, but it bothered me a lot more than Goya’s work.

Is Susan Sontag from the east (NY or NJ)? She says “foreign” funny like Katie with her New Jersey accent. I agree with Sontag on the point that we so many images of atrocity we become desensitized. We see violence on TV, in the news and hear about it on the radio; we don’t ever stop to think about how all of this violence affects us. Random thought: Is it just a coincidence that the song in the middle of Sontag’s interview there is a little song about Green Berets and Billy’s son in Slaughterhouse Five is a Green Beret?

I don’t agree that Americans are made to fight but I do think that war (defined as a period of conflict) is inevitable. There is no way everyone will agree on everything all of the time. However, I do think we could escape the extremes to which wars are taken

I’ve viewed all of the stuff on the links and responded, but my response is kind of long- I didn’t want to post it on this site, so here’s a link to the page: http://lallal.learnerblogs.org/slaughterhouse-five-response/
Very thought provoking, however scary and depressing those thoughts may have been. So it goes.

I think that Americans are desentsitized to violence because we see it so often in films and on the news. I think it is easy for people to sit at home and see all those pictures and not even think of it as really happening. Like Susan Sontag said about the man asking her if she felt in danger while taking pictures, because many people think those pictures where almost “posed”, because sometimes politicians do that. So when they see violent images, they say oh how horrible but never do anything about it. The pictures of the “Dead Troops Talk” was really interesting to see because it puts images in people’s heads of how different people handle things or how different people appear in death. I was really disturbed by the picture of the three fools, because it almost seems like they are making fun of those men who died but the picture is trying to prove that there is always a fool in the group.

As far as the question of war being inevitable I am not sure where I stand about that. I believe that there is reason to fight sometimes to protect ourselves and then other times I feel people abuse the media to creat an idea that there is a reason to fight. A lot of things in this world have been gained or solved with violence and I don’t think that is something that is going to change. Is it impossible for us to escape this fate of war? I don’t know really, I feel that if people are willing to brave their life, there will always be someone to pose a threat.

I’m not sure where to start. I was too much of a coward to enlarge some of the thumbnail images in the Goya collection, and one of the more gruesome pieces of the photograph compiled by Jeff Wall. When I was younger, I watched the movie The Mummy and found it very difficult to sleep for the next few nights. I couldn’t get the image of the corpse out of my head. Every time I turned out the lights, I saw it. There is just something that isn’t right about animating the dead. My mom’s uncle just died two days ago. It was sad, of course, that his wife and friends were left without him, but he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. There is something peaceful and beautiful about death- even if a healthy child is killed during a war, at least he doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life knowing that such horrors as those that occurred during the war that he witnessed exist. I just don’t like the idea of bringing back to life a person who has been scarred by his death, or, in the case of the mummy, who has been dead long enough to rot. I don’t mean to say that everyone who dies brutally during a war wouldn’t be better off injured but alive, but it was horrifying to see the look on the soldier’s faces when they were brought back to life to see their horribly marred bodies. Am I making any sense at all?

It was really disturbing to me to see the soldiers in Wall’s photograph responding to their injuries. It reminded me of a play I saw when we hosted the MIFA competition over midwinter break: it was called Bury the Dead. it was about a group of animated dead soldiers who refused to be buried. The president of the US had the wives of the dead soldiers go try to persuade them to be buried. I had such a problem with the way the wives reacted and agreed to persuade their husbands. Every one of their various reactions seemed so unreal (and it wasn’t just because they were bad high school actors). But then I thought: How are they supposed to react? How am I supposed to react? What should I feel when I look at those paintings and photographs, or film clips of war on the news. I don’t think I’m desensitized to them yet, or else I could look at them without a problem; I just can’t imagine what it would feel like to see my husband dead, to see other people dismembered, or hanged. It’s too unreal to me- when I see them in print or on the tv or on the computer, sitting in my pjs, under a down blanked with the heat on in my cozy little house, eating a piece of red licorice, I can’t help but think of them as happening in any place other than in a movie or book. That’s the only place I’ve every experienced those horrors. And (in response to the question Mr. Kreinbring has posed) yes, I do feel powerless in the face of war; not necessarily because I can’t do anything to help, but because I know I’m not willing to do anything that would really be effective. I’m too selfish to put my own life in danger, or to expose myself to horrors that will haunt me the rest of my life. I suppose war is inevitable, because there are, and probably always will be, people who can think of no better or more efficient solution than to fight over it. If animals use violence to solve their problems, why shouldn’t we? We are, after all, animals. Maybe it’s our nature to use violence. But we aren’t just animals. If we can think and reason and invent wonderfully complex machines and medicine, can we think of no other method of resolving disputes than to resort to our animal instincts?

I also wanted to mention a point that Sontag made about Goya’s paintings: she thought Goya’s captions added a lot to the effect they had on the viewer, and I agree. (Luckily, they were in Spanish, so I could understand the majority of them) They were so simple… just by saying “yo lo veo” (I saw it), (which Vonnegut does in SH5 as well), it makes the painting seem a bit more real. It made me think, “wow- somebody actually saw this in real life?” which is completely ridiculous, but it was my honest reaction. I suppose that is basically my reaction to most war films, books and images: it’s really hard to imagine that crap like that actually happens. I guess people must become desensitized– how could someone do any of it?

It is hard to write about what war means to me because I have so much to think about it all gets mixed up together. When I think of war my natural response is somewhere along the lines of, “ooh that’s terrible” or “that’s so tragic.” War pictures are heartbreaking and are terribly grotesque to look at. I cannot speak for everyone, but quite frankly I think it’s a response that is desensitized to a certain extent from lack of experience. It is merely a reaction of the moment. You may know that war is terrible, but I think that most people are immune to intense emotions that it can evoke. I think that we all go on living our lives not deeply caring about war when it does not touch us personally. Most every day I wake up… go to school…go to soccer practice…maybe to work and there is never usually a point in my day where I stop and think about a war that is waging right now and the violence that is going on in a foreign country. It isn’t directly happening to me, or my family, and not to any of my friends so therefore I go on living my life with my biggest worries encompassed by my AP calculus test tomorrow. This may not be the way that I should react to war, but essentially it is. Don’t get me wrong it is not that I am a terrible person and just don’t give a crap. It’s just that I haven’t really been touched by a war that has felt real to me. I still have goose bumps when I look at violent scenes and feel pity for those soldiers who risk their lives. But, all in all, it is still a 2-D picture on my computer screen. My ignorance combined with a lack of options to take on such a huge task to make a difference make me feel powerless in the face of war and as if there is nothing that I can do about it. I agree with Sontag when she states that people are not fully convinced of the seriousness of war.
Billy pilgrim’s reaction of “so it goes” is his desensitization to war and violence by equaling the playing field and just saying that stuff is going to happen no matter how terrible. I do think that war is inevitable, but I also think that it is just an appalling solution that is a fall back plan. Some of the solution may dwindle down to human nature and the raw anger to fight for something, but even that explanation is disturbing. I don’t believe that Americans are made to fight, but I think we do it for lack of a better solution. The pictures by Goya are gruesome and show the violence and disgust in savage war. War is quite barbaric and it is just sad to think that it is the only option that we think of when we want to get our way. The picture by Wall is harrowing in its own way. When I first looked at it I was kind of taken aback because the soldiers were laughing. It kind of made me mad at first because I thought “that’s not funny.” The picture evokes a different emotion about war unlike a typical gory war picture.

Billy Pilgrim’s Reaction:

The violence is inevitable to Billy because it *was* inevitable for him. He was drafted and forced into World War II. He was forced into seeing something he wished not to see, something that forced him into a seclusion of sorts. Billy has gone to war. He went to war and saw. He saw the horrors and atrocities.

How boys aged within minutes, how innocence, for lack of a better term, was robbed from them.
Because of his powerlessness to remove himself from the war, there were only two things he could do: Accept or deny.

Throughout Slaugherhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim is stuck regarding Dresden. He logically knows that Dresden occurred and accepts it as fact. However the terrors are so dreadful he wishes to deny it.
Through the Tralfamadorians, Billy learns to accept everything as is. Everything becomes routine, mundane. To reach harmony of sorts, this he unsticks his emotions. He becomes inhuman.

As we have discussed in class, Slaughterhouse Five makes war horrifying by making it common and everyday, by illustrating how inhuman it forces us to become.

Sontag, Goya, Wall, and Being Desensitized:

We are indeed desensitized to images of violence by seeing it. Humans and all other animals have evolved to adjust to our environment, whether it be sun, rain, or war. What has kept us in existence demands that we adjust to survive.

Humans come with defense mechanisms like denial, repression, and suppression to help us cope with such startling situations.

However, this does not affect our ability to comprehend. As an intelligent person asks Sontag about Sarajevo, realizes that those images were real, and reacts, he proves that our exposure to images of violence is often repressed, kept out of conscious awareness but does not affect our actual grasp of the situation when made complete unavoidable.

Before hearing Sontag’s commentary regarding Goya’s Los desastres de la guerra, I flipped through them rather quickly. None of it phased me. I had only looked at the pictures, completely disregarding the captions. It wasn’t until after I heard Sontag’s comments regarding the captions did I revisit the pictures and look at the captions.

Some of Goya’s captions does some of what Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five does to Billy. It makes it unavoidable and mundane for me. For example, item 8, where a woman stands over several bodies to light a cannon. The caption says, “What valor!” I say, “What horror!”

Jeff Wall’s photos shocked me. The intensity of it. It blew me away for a second. The second picture in the series, the one with the young boy whose missing a part of his skull and right hand. The appalling sight was revoltingly fascinating. The intensity? The vividness of it? Whatever you’d like to call it. It ensnared my eyes.

Before the taking in the captions, I considered the photographs of Jeff Wall as more effective. In hindsight now, they are probably equally effective in their personal eras.

Had I took the time to carefully look through Goya’s pictures instead of succumbing to today’s instant coffee culture and need for speed, I may have been more shocked by Goya’s but as it stands now, Jeff’s shook me into a stupor.

Vietnam on Screen:

I agree that war is indeed inevitable. Those who fear war are doomed and destined for war, as seen by World War II. It is regrettable that we have yet to discover a way, and chances are will never discover an acceptable way, to stop war and violence without war and violence.

The only times I believe Americans are forced to fight are when they are drafted. The only times I believe America has been forced to fight include the Revolutionary War, World War II, and the War in Afghanistan. During all other times, Americans are not made to fight but are taught propaganda that lead them into thinking war is the only option or war is the just route. Like Great Britain, America has often fought for her gain. That is neither right nor wrong, but just is. There is no being that is unselfish. It is nothing more than another part of human nature.

Because it is human nature, it is impossible to escape such a fate. As Franklin D. Roosevelt has said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” If we fear war, we will always have it and would succumb to it. To rid ourselves of this fear of war, not embrace war, we make ourselves less vulnerable. Alas, like many things, this too is but a slippery slope.

Emmanuel Dongala:

As a matured, fully-developed person, one must acknowledge his or her faults. Responsibility is a part of growing up. I believe one should and must, in order to be an adult, take full responsibility of one’s actions whether the effect of one’s actions is intentional or not.

However, I do not agree that we cannot be surprised by the horrors that we ourselves create. Not all actions have a foreseeable result. Only hindsight is 20/20. Had every action have a foreseeable result, we would not be human but all knowing gods. Had every action have foreseeable consequence, life would be all sunshine, flowers, and happiness.

As I have listened to Sontag’s ideas of being desensitized to violence and seen the pictures of Goya and Jeff Wall, I have arrived at the conclusion that they are wrong. We are not desensitized to violence; we cannot be desensitized to violence because if we were, then the pictures of Goya and Wall would not seem abhorrent. If we were desensitized to violence then no person would protest war because they would not care about the violence in war, it would be seen as a normal event that is inevitable. However, that is not the way people around the world, let alone Americans view war. There has been countless war protests, people do believe that war can be stopped, people recognize the violence that is there. Often, it is indeed too horrible for it to be truly understood, and such psychological defenses such as repression and denial force us to look away and pretend that the violence we see is actually not real. What must be understood is that war is not honorable, it is not beautiful, it is not heroic, it is a horrific event in itself, and it provides the perfect opportunity for even more horrific events to happen. I watch the news, see that a woman was raped, and people think “so it goes. Stuff happens. Too bad.” Later on the news a squad of soldiers rapes a girl in a war zone. When this happens, there is a national scandal, everyone cares, and yet the poor girl on the corner of the local city is told that what happened to her was bad but not much else. People make a national outcry when a local solider dies in war, but when my cousin is shot in the drug store the event is on the news for a day maybe two, then the story fades. There is no sense to the reactions, I expect the local solider to die in war, and I am not surprised that a girl could be gang raped by soldiers in war because it is during war that it happened. I feel much more horrified for the girl on the corner and the guy in the drug store. As civilians we have no right to judge the horrors of war until we have experienced them. Until we have been in the fighting and have had comrades die at our side, how can we possibly judge their deaths to be more horrible then the murder of a local person? We may feel powerless in the face of war, only because we do not understand it, because we have not experienced it and cannot understand it until we do experience war. We think war will come and hope that it does not reach out to affect our lives, but ultimately whether war will or will not come is never set. Just as glaciers may melt away into nothingness, war may be delayed, stalled or prevented, and the decision does not lie with one person or with one group of people, it takes the actions of many to forestall war, just as it takes many different climate factors to melt away a glacier. Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse V accepts this just as he accepts everything else that is mapped out in his time traveling life. So it goes. He blindly accepts what is going to happen because he believes that that was the way it was meant to be. Based on this, Billy Pilgrim would think that some wars are meant to be fought, while others are meant to be averted. The ones meant to be fought are inevitable. The others are not.
Yes I do believe that war is an unavoidable inevitable event. This is because war is a tool for those in power. War is a means by which certain ends may be achieved. It is also one of the easiest and if won, most beneficial ways to accomplish a goal. As long as there are nations and governments there will be war. The fact that people view war as a bad event is not going to change the fact that armies enlist, people volunteer to fight, and leaders call upon people to fight for many reasons. As for Americans, we are not made to fight. We may have won our independence with war, ascertained out freedom with war, but every other county that exists in the world today has the boundaries they have because of wars won or lost. Every country has been impacted by some war in their history. If Americans are made to fight, then humans in general are made to fight and our entire race will eventually expand to fight other races now unknown, or our society will dissolve into anarchy and chaos.

Why is it that so many little boys are fascinated with the idea of war, guns and planes? Is it because America has taught them from an early age that war is cool, war is good, and WAR IS INEVITABLE? Is it truly inevitable? The inevitability of war is really a question left up to society. We see it as inevitable, as part of our daily routine. If we were to really try and rid ourselves of this mindset would it be possible to rid ourselves of future devastation and humiliation of war and its destruction? We are taught at an early age that war is inevitable, it will always be here haunting us, and so we must move on and hope that we won’t have to physically involve ourselves in the matter. No matter how hard we try we cannot get rid of its inevitability and all its associates.
Sontag’s use of the word, blasé perfectly illustrates our reaction toward today’s world. We have become so accustomed, so familiar and comfortable with the idea that millions are dying over an argument, that if correctly, could be solved with conversation and compromise we forget it’s a war, and see it as every day life. Have we become desensitized? Yes. Sontag describes our reaction (emotion) as powerless or impotent. I disagree. Sontag’s reference to Homer’s Iliad recognizes the idea of war being a natural human activity. After listening to Vietnam on Screen, McAdams and Suid, the reaction they received after returning home from the war, wasn’t bliss or a multitude of thanks, it was how many people did you kill? If we see war as a means of killing for the fun of it, how do we expect its inevitability to disappear? Although war films are supposed to create a sense of fear and awe, it becomes a form of entertainment when constantly portrayed over and over again; similar to how television audiences are desensitized from its meaning. Producers and film directors recognize this emotion and instead of using the film for the sole purpose of educating the American people, entertainment becomes a definite factor, and it takes away from the value and respect for the people who fought and died during the war. If people see war a source of entertainment how can we ever expect to move on from its devastation?
The images Goya and Jeff Wall portrayed of war are just as moving as Vonnegut’s writing. Both alluded to the idea of the war being mundane, and inevitable. Jeff Wall’s picture, Dead Troops Talking reminded me of Vonnegut’s So it Goes. People see war and hear about the casualties and for a second stop and think and then this feeling of sympathy and shock wears away and they continue life as if it were to have never happened. The talking and laughing dead illustrates society’s reaction to their deaths, risks and work. Today over seas, millions of people’s heads, legs, and arms were blown off, So it goes.

I started by clicking on the illustrations in the collection by Goya, and honestly I had no interest in looking at them. They were much too boring; I guess I can formulate the idea that gruesome images full of blood and guts and horror, along with sex, is what society wants, it is what sells. For instance, movies like Saw and Final Destination are full of the most, well I guess not so much “unthinkable”, but gross depictions of death. I don’t believe that the actual act of dying is what scares people or gives twelve year olds nightmares, but more so the moments before you die, when you see what’s coming to get you; the axe, sharp/pointed or blunt object coming full force to bash your face in.
I immediately click on the link to Wall’s photographs.
Here I found what I was actually wanting to see, the most shocking and disturbing image; a young soldier with his brains showing. Collectively the photographs as a whole were shocking, which began to fill my mind with questions like, is this real? Who were these people? How could you think of such a thing to create? How did he do that? I carefully looked each one over and read each of the captions.
Again I was reminded to what I had said earlier and about the questions headed by Mr. Kreinbring about being “desensitized” to images of war. Of course we are. We see them at a distance, as Lea has said it best, “…when I see them in print or on the T.V. or on the computer, sitting in my pj’s, under a down blanket with the heat on in my cozy little house, eating a piece of licorice, I can’t help but think of them as happening in any place other than in a movie or book. That’s they only place I’ve ever experienced those horrors,” People are powerless in the face of war: we have been taught, all of our lives, how to react to these images, to be shocked, to cry, to cover our faces, but is there really a reaction to act? Kurt Vonnegut, in Slaughterhouse Five, illustrates the reaction of desensitization with Billy Pilgrim. I can happily agree with the idea that war is inevitable: People have been at war with each other since history has began, they have this natural and constant want to be dominant over one another. Because of this, I don’t believe that Americans are made to fight but every country’s people, forever. End.

I found this assignment to be bizarre. Like every generation in the US, I’ve grown up hearing about war, terrorism and violence….but not just from the news. It’s in the movies I watch and the music I listen to. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve become desensitize to violence. I think propaganda and the media is partly to blame for this; but I also think that human ignorance is the other factor. As much as I would love to say that war in Iraq touches me in some way… I can’t say it honestly. As much as I would love to travel to Iraq to help those who desperately need me…I can’t. It would be too hard to face the reality of war. And I think that it is fear, not “lack of interest,” that people like me suffer from. The pictures, although grotesque, I could face. But to see something in person, would traumatize me and essentially put me in the place of Billy Pilgram. I would be immersed in my own thoughts, to the point where I don’t know which way is up. I would drown in memories and nightmares and possibly face them in a nonchalant manner, like Billy.
So then, is war inevitable? Can we truly stop something that we don’t want to see? As much as I would love to live in a world of peace, I don’t think it will be happening very soon. I don’t think war is inevitable and I don’t think violence is human nature (call me naïve, but I like to believe that people are generally good). But, I do believe that hatred is inevitable. I don’t know how to convey this properly, but feelings of jealousy and fear will always exist. For instance, even though the Civil Rights Act was passed, racial discrimination still occurs. I see it everywhere…my own friends will admit their prejudice, and sometimes I find myself being a bit racist. But never truly do I understand the effects, until I, myself, can feel the judgment burn through me. So then, I make the initiative to stop my own prejudice, hoping that it will “pay-forward.” The same goes for the war in Iraq. I said before that the war never truly touched me, or never really caught my interest. However, a few months ago, Prime Minister Benzair Bhutto was assassinated. And for some reason, I felt drawn to her, probably because of my feminist tendencies. But that’s when I learned that I would have it hard too; I learned that regardless of my status in American, or any other “liberal” country, I would always be hated or regarded as a piece of property elsewhere. Last semester in Composition, I read a short story called A&P, and this quote, which I will never forget, came to mind: “(…) and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.”
I don’t know if this truly answered the question, but I feel as if I just defended myself against the attack of being blind. And with that, I have learned that I must attempt to make the reforms need to change the problems that I did not create.

**SORRY ABOUT THE DUPLICATE. THIS ONE IS MORE ORGANIZED.

I found this assignment to be bizarre. Like every generation in the US, I’ve grown up hearing about war, terrorism and violence….but not just from the news. It’s in the movies I watch and the music I listen to. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve become desensitize to violence. I think propaganda and the media is partly to blame for this; but I also think that human ignorance is the other factor. As much as I would love to say that war in Iraq touches me in some way… I can’t say it honestly. As much as I would love to travel to Iraq to help those who desperately need me…I can’t. It would be too hard to face the reality of war. And I think that it is fear, not “lack of interest,” that people like me suffer from. The pictures, although grotesque, I could face. But to see something in person, would traumatize me and essentially put me in the place of Billy Pilgram. I would be immersed in my own thoughts, to the point where I don’t know which way is up. I would drown in memories and nightmares and possibly face them in a nonchalant manner, like Billy.

So then, is war inevitable? Can we truly stop something that we don’t want to see? As much as I would love to live in a world of peace, I don’t think it will be happening very soon. I don’t think war is inevitable and I don’t think violence is human nature (call me naïve, but I like to believe that people are generally good). But, I do believe that hatred is inevitable. I don’t know how to convey this properly, but feelings of jealousy and fear will always exist. For instance, even though the Civil Rights Act was passed, racial discrimination still occurs. I see it everywhere…my own friends will admit their prejudice, and sometimes I find myself being a bit racist. But never truly do I understand the effects, until I, myself, can feel the judgment burn through me. So then, I make the initiative to stop my own prejudice, hoping that it will “pay-forward.” The same goes for the war in Iraq. I said before that the war never truly touched me, or never really caught my interest. However, a few months ago, Prime Minister Benzair Bhutto was assassinated. And for some reason, I felt drawn to her, probably because of my feminist tendencies. But that’s when I learned that I would have it hard too; I learned that regardless of my status in American, or any other “liberal” country, I would always be hated or regarded as a piece of property elsewhere. Last semester in Composition, I read a short story called A&P, and this quote, which I will never forget, came to mind: “(…) and my stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter.”

I don’t know if this truly answered the question, but I feel as if I just defended myself against the attack of being blind. And with that, I have learned that I must attempt to make the reforms need to change the problems that I did not create.

As I sat and listened to what Susan Sontag was saying I was forced to think about what we had talked about in class about the Odyssey. It is amazing the way people’s view on war has changed since we have been able to view it on a day to day basis on the news. In Homer’s time war was something that was for the most part seperated from the life everyone who was not a man or was not old enough to fight, and the people who did not expierence it had no clue about the horrors of war. As I take a look at myself I find myself in the same position. I have a hard time being moved by something I have not been a part of, or that I did not look at personally. There is too much missing. There is much more than words, and pictures in war, there are sounds, and feelings, and sights, that a person who has not expierenced it cannot relate to. My feelings were not provoked in anyway by Goya’s and Wall’s pictures. I feel no connection to the time or the place. I am however, upset about the possum I hit tonight on my way home from work. That is because I was there I felt, heard and saw it, and when it happened I felt nothing but sadness.

What I am getting at is, there is nothing that can replace the senses in such a situation. We can pretend we know about the feelings of people who have been in war, but the truth is we are too far removed from it, and because of that I do feel powerless when it comes to war. I feel powerless because I am not there. I am not saying I want to be there, but because of how removed I am from it, I feel there is nothing I can do to prevent it, provoke it, or have anything but fake feelings towards it.

I do have feeling about whether or not Americans are made to fight though. I think most people in the world are not made to fight, especially not Americans. We are given a choice in most cases, it’s either enlist or you don’t. Unless of course there is a draft, in which case yes, we are forced to fight. I feel people are more of tricked into fighting by the false feelings they have towards war, something they usually have no experience in. They feel patriotic, and they feel the heroism we associate with war, and think it is really like that despite the fact they, don’t know anything at all about it. When it comes down to it what disturbs me is the thought that people think such things about something they don’t know enough about. They fall victim to the stereo types and cliches, and other people’s reflections.

War, because of the views that surround it that make it seem heroic is inevitable, and until that perception is broken, it will always be around, and i feel that perception of war will never be broken. It cannot be broken until everyone has first hand experience in it. I know there are people who have never had a part of that, that don’t have that perception of war, but my question is how do they know if they have not had a part in it? How can a person support their feelings towards war if they don’t know all they can know about it? They can see, and hear about what goes on, and judge based on that but they don’t get the full story, they get bits and pieces, nothing more than a reflection of it. It is the same reason why I find it hard to believe in God. I simply cannot force myself to fully believe something I have not seen through my own eyes, because I know people have a way of twisting things to support what they want others to believe.

I want to feel something towards war, but i want it to be a true perception of it, and nothing I know of can beat experience. I am afriad that is the only truth.

After listening to Sontag, and viewing the photographs from Goya and Jeff Wall I feel that in ways we are and we aren’t desensitized to war and violence. I agree with much of the other students in saying that in the face of war we as individuals are fundamentally powerless. Billy Pilgrims’s reaction to this inevitability in the novel is his disassociation from time, sense of detachment, and his stress on the mundane aspects of life. Vonnegut uses repetition in the novel to demonstrate how the mundane is constantly interrupted with other events, also demonstrating the life lived by a soldier.

In the society that we live in today, we are ultimately raised on the idea that war is inevitable and that we don’t really have a choice as to whether it continues or not. Our only access to images of the war is through the media. Ignorance would lead us to believe, as many are lead to believe that the images we are presented with on TV are actually “true” images of war, not selectively chosen to be “suitable” for the citizens in the United States. The images that we are presented with we view from a far, few of us have been there to experience the harsh reality of what is actually occurring in Iraq. This idea along with the idea that Sontag presented “it is hard to take in reality through images” leads us to become desensitized towards war and its powerful effects. At this point in our lives I’m sure many have us have seen several horror movies or cliché war films in which over and over we have been introduced to the same idea, that war is just something people do. We don’t at this point really react anymore to the images we see, and who can really blame us? As long as I can remember I have seen images of soldiers killing each other whether in movies or on the news. Now for example we see first hand how the amount of media coverage on the war has changed from the beginning of the war in Iraq up until now, and how little we hear of it. Many people have lost interest and accepted war as the answer and a part of life.

On the other hand I disagree somewhat and only slightly by saying that if viewing the images of Jeff Wall has an effect on us then obviously there is some sense of sensitivity in us. Meaning that we are not fully desensitized to violence and war when in direct view, but from a far we are and feel as if we are “powerless in its face”. I feel that it in the world we live in today it is fundamentally impossible for us to escape this fate, and if there is any hope I wouldn’t expect to see a change for many years to come unfortunately.

I agree with Sontag’s assertion that in order to be “morally adult” we cannot be surprised by horrors that we have seen and still see ourselves create. I agree with this because we have the option of changing and always will but ultimately always opt to not deviate from the ways in which we are already set.

In Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the character Billy Pilgrim recalls when he was abducted by the tralfamadors, who were aliens of a different planet. Something that he learned from these creatures was to understand that death was just an even that occurred in life. One could look back on the different memories at any time he chose, and death, was just one of the events, rather than the event that ended it all. The way the tralfamadors would approach this concept would to be to simply say the phrase “so it goes”, as in, it is just another event of life. This was the start to renewing Billy’s mind so that he could deal with the horrific things he experienced in war, as just another event that occurred in his life, which does leave one feeling powerless. In Songtag’s recollection of the horrors of the war that she saw in Iraq in 2003, it was clear that there was nothing that she could say that would be able to make anyone fully comprehend what went on there unless they had been there. There is helplessness because people cannot understand it if they have no experienced it, and the way our society approaches war, leaves us desensitized to it. To express this idea, Goya and Jeff Wall had taken photographs of gory war scenes that they staged, where wounded men with missing appendages and insides spilling out, were having a fun time and laughing with each other as though nothing were wrong. These disturbing images play up the idea that we are desensitized to war, as though it is no big deal, just another event of life. This idea leaves us feeling helpless and powerless in the inevitability of war, and how it will affect people, in addition that no matter how one might try, mere words will never be able to fully do it justice or give even a glimpse of how it was to experience the war first hand.
I do believe that war is inevitable. There will always be conflicts in the world, and, since we are human, those conflicts will get out of hand, and people will want to fight over it to make a point, or to display their power. I do not think that Americans are made to fight, but I do believe that nationalism is encouraged, which prompts Americans to fight if there is a war to fight in, and because of this, I think it is impossible for us to escape this fate. There is no way to control everything that goes on all around the earth, and sometimes the problems hit close to home, therefore, if it does, we are supposed to defend our homes, even if it means turning to gruesome tactics, and though I do not believe this is right, I do believe that there is nothing I can do to stop this. However, I do not believe that in order to be “morally adult” we can no longer be surprised by the horrors that we ourselves create. Like Emmanuel Dongala gives as an example, he was speechless after the first time watching “Platoon”, and continued to be when he watched it after that. I think it is important to have those horrors revealed to us so that we can get a glimpse of reality, however, this should no desensitize us to the terrible things happening around the war, and not being surprised by them would be a strong mark of desensitization. Rather, knowledge of these horrors should make the necessity for “anti-war novels” unnecessary.

My post is really long. I got “inspired” to write a related, but slightly off-topic piece and I wanted to post it as well. Because of the way the formatting is for this blog page, I think it’s best if it’s only posted on my own blog page. Anyone can view it by going here:

http://hyperfire123.learnerblogs.org/slaughterhouse5/

Feel free to leave me comments as you wish.

Mr. Kreinbring - if you still want me to go ahead and post it on here, I can, just tell me and I will.

After listening to Sontag and seeing the photographs from Goya and Jeff Wall, I feel that over the years i really have been desensitized to images of war and violence. Propagandists and the Media show violence on tv, movies, advertisements, it’s everywhere. After a while you get used to seeing it. Of course the photographs are disturbing, but violence really is inevitable. Billy Pilgrim detaches himself, he disassociates himself with the war. His life is mundane but Vonnegut interrupts the mundane with images of violence, this is repeated throughout the novel.

As far as the question of whether war is inevitable or not. I think that sadly war is inevitable, people believe that Americans have to fight to protect us. I don’t think that Americans were made to fight, but I do think that it’s nearly impossible to escape from violence and war. Not everyone agrees that war isn’t the best for this country, and we’ll never all agree. It’s inevitable!

Billy Pilgrim’s reaction to the inevitability of war is to follow orders. He loses his sense of self and is unable to think for himself. He was so used to accepting orders without question, that when he was told to put on the fur coat, he never even considered that it might be to humiliate him. Billy himself had become desensitized. Not to war, but to life itself. Through the novel, it was obvious that Billy stopped thinking what most would call rationally. Most of the events he told were as-if from an out-of-body experience. He realizes that as a prisoner of war, he really is mostly powerless in the decisions he makes. The saying “so it goes” seems to emphasize Billy’s outlook that he can’t change what happens, but will live through it anyway.

War is inevitable and a sad fact of life. It is my belief there will always be jealousy, power struggles, shortages of resources, greed and cruelty. It seems pessimistic to say that war is a fact of life, but no matter how far back in man’s history you look, you will always find war. Saying that Americans are made to fight seems to be to broad of a generalization. Yes, war pervades our movies, songs and media, but that does not mean all of us are rushing off to war. There are still many Americans who protest war and many others who will not go so far as to protest, but silently disapprove.

In Goya’s work, I could see the meaning behind the pictures, but they did not affect me. They seemed too fake. I will admit this one stuck in my mind though. Applying this work to World War II, the wolf symbolizes the Allies. The wolf is writing a new set of treaties, but in his own best interest. The wolf makes the good guy image of freedom fighters seem like a facade. Winners always write history the way they want. Seeing through this then, the good no longer seems so good. The photographs struck me much more harshly. I see the loss of life and something in me is moved. For me, it have to see the reality of the situation for it to affect me.

I would say that in this day, one MUST be desensitized to war. There is too much cruelty in the world to take in. Starvation, war, murders, genocide; one person can’t fix it all, and it is just too much. Even in the U.S. When hurricane Katrina hit, it was in the news for a few weeks, many sent down supplies to help the homeless, but eventually we all moved on. The area that was hit has still not recovered and people are still doing recovery efforts. How many of us can say that we thought about Katrina victims in the last week…last month? The same goes for 9/11. If mentioned, we all know what is being talked about, but on our own how many of us can say that we thought about it recently? People have moved on because that is how we survive. Our grandchildren will not understand how we felt about 9/11 because they did not experience the loss we felt. Our grandparents cannot understand why we do not grieve about Pearl Harbor and instead talk of how cool the dogfight scene was in the movie Pearl Harbor. I believe that one MUST become desensitized to war.

I finally wrote a response without getting sidetracked!

To me, war is inevitable simply because there will always be a few people on this earth who want it to be. The question is not whether or not human nature dictates that we should fall into war time and time again, but whether or not people will ever learn not to do exactly what we are told. It only takes one person to want war and it will eventually happen – perhaps not the way the original person felt it would, but it will. People as a whole will follow whoever steps up to lead them. Whether it is a political leader, the media, or a teacher at school, people blindly follow them if they seem to have a valid point. For example, when 9/11 happened, we were told war was good. So, people lined up at the recruiting centers and the country went to war. Now people are told by the media that war is bad, so people want to stop the war. It is often said that one person can make a difference. That is truer than more people realize, as any person can create a change, especially a war. Just look at Adolf Hitler. He was upset at the treatment he suffered in jail, blamed the Jews and allies from the First World War, and caused the death of millions in World War Two. He wanted war, he got war. Going back to Plato’s The Cave, people only respond to the shadows. When one finally does go into the light, they create their own shadows for others to respond to.
However, it also would not be so easy to make people follow one into war if they weren’t already desensitized by it. People are not so much desensitized by the violence seen in everyday life, as the conflicting opinions thrown at them everyday. The media tells them the war and violence needs to be stopped, and then politicians say that the war and violence needs to continue; one person tells people war is inevitable, and another tells people that we can stop it. People are told to do so many different things that, unless one power takes over every thing they are told (such as the case of what Hitler did in Germany), they just stop caring. They start to not take it seriously anymore. Games and movies which almost seem to ridicule war allow them to keep from forming any real opinions. They start to see war and violence as a game in itself, not a reality. Only those who actually experience the effects of such violence, and are forced to experience war, realize that war isn’t a game to take lightly.
We discuss war and try to understand it. We can’t. Only through experience can one ever really understand, and then sometimes it is too much, as in the case of Billy Pilgrim. We only know what we are told, and with all the information thrown at us, it is natural to want to hide. People want war to be inevitable. That way, they don’t feel that they have to deal with it. They just listen, follow orders, and get on with their everyday lives. Our world works by a few people influencing the rest to do their bidding – and people like it. Forming one’s own opinion is too much work. People look for someone to follow. So long as there is one person on this earth who wants war, and it is still within human nature to constantly play “Follow the leader”, war will be inevitable.

I find it interesting that, we invoke peace in other countries all around the world, for instance the conflict in Tibet with china. Not only this but we are absolutely surrounded by images of chaos and terror. Thus the phrase “war on terror” is only creating more terror. We see videos on this violence all the time, and the majority of us do nothing the only think we think about is when oil goes up, but when we see a still canvas of what actually goes on we are shocked? Why? You might say we are not there seeing it in real life, so we aren’t blown away when we see images. Nevertheless, the truth of the matter it is exists and no matter whether we want to admit it or not, it does exist!

Kurt Vonnegut is only a witness of these events, and can’t even image a word so valid for such a incident either can Susan Sontag. Can you because I can’t? Especially after reading/seeing the movie Heart of Darkness. “Maybe that’s a feeling that everybody has who was in a war, that if you hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t been in a war, in any war, you couldn’t really understand what it was like.” After listening to the interview with her, I have nothing but admiration on the moral position she has on pro life regards.

Billy Pilgrim was pro peace instead of anti war; he focused much of his efforts on teaching his children to never stain this conscious with blood by taking life from a another person in the use of war. Ironic, because Robert joins the green berets, which makes his parents so proud, why? He spent time teaching his kids that war is not a sport, after seeing the affect first hand on the cover up of Dresden. Another passage I heard on Vietnam on screen was “Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser, that’s why Americans have never lost, and will not lose a war” I was almost shocked when I heard this statement, still I am. It is a statement you don’t hear very often only from irrational enemies of the United States, by no means I am one of those. But the quote forced me to reflect on what the image of war portrays to people all over the world.

Most people would believe that war is inevitable because of humans thirst for greed, power, and entertainment. War should never be made into some kind of movie because it forces us to be entertained by it. Maybe one day it won’t be impossible for Americans and people all over the world to admit there is enough for everyone to go around, we don’t have to fight over anything, we have power lets use it!

I think we, and most Americans, are very desensitized to violence. Unlike millions of others in the world today the most violence we expirience is usually somewhere between a small fight between two individuals to perhaps a mugging or a robbery. Most Americans have never had a weapon pulled on them, or even know somebody who has been a victim of a violent crime such as murder. Even though these instances are much more common in our society we still find ourselves desensitized to this idea of violence, rather we follow the idea that if it wasn’t us or someone we know then it isn’t our problem.

With that in mind it is hard to comprehend how we can even begin to understand what war is truly like without actually expiriencing it ourselves. We certainly cannot go to the media to find out, as while the media preaches that it distributes informacion freely as well as giving the public what it needs to know only an ignorant person would not believe that there is a filter put upon what we see. The atrocities of foreign enemies are crammed down our throats while the bombing of civilians by American planes are swept aside as “military targets”.

With this violence against civilians swept aside by those whose duty it is to report the news, the task of educating others about these instances falls to writers and artisits. One specific example of this is Goya, whose paintings helped show the atrocities of a brutal war. I do not think these sort of paintings desensitize us to violence, but rather give us our best chance to understand at least a little of the horror that occurs in war.

One can argue that the greatest desenstizer to the idea of war is not media nor our removal from war, but the fact that war in itself is inevitible. This is hard to dispute as humans have been involved in wars for as long as history exists to indicate. These conflicts also find there ways into literature, from The Bible to the Illiad to Slaughterhouse Five. There are varying themes that can be found in war books, but they are all tied together by one fundamental idea. War will never stop. Slaughterhouse Five was not the first book to be written about a war and nor will it be the last. That doesn’t take away from its literary merit but it does illustrate how war is ingrained in society.

Billy Pilgrim found the way to escape war’s inevitability. Some may call it cowardly or ignorant, but it is a solution all the same. One must take the Tralfamadorian perspective, which is to accept the existance but simply ignore it. Focus on the good moments rather than the horrifying ones. However, in the society we have created to do such a thing is condemned. However, if someday all of the human race becomes unstuck in time perhaps we can all join Billy Pilgrim in accepting the Tralfamadorian perspective of life.

Do you agree with the idea that war is inevitable? Are Americans made to fight? Is it impossible for us to escape this fate?

I believe that we are all at fault for looking the other way. Today, all America sees is images of violence and war, on the television, through songs on the radio, and especially on the internet. These violent images have become mundane, and common to a fault. It seems that no one takes the time to think about what is actually happening, the person just turns their cheek. Sontag was a hundred percent correct in her theory that until you are right there in the action, experiencing the violence and the horror firsthand, you truly can’t understand what is actually occurring. No one can experience the effect of war until it is you in the green uniform crawling through the bush, seeing your fellow statesmen dying before your eyes or even the sound of planes overhead. We all say that is horrible but fail to realize that the idea of war and the reaction to it has become a habit. Sontag made another excellent point in saying that we feel powerless. America feels that we cannot stop war, it is inevitable. America has always fought whether to try to be “on-top”, display or prove our strength or even trying to take care of another countries problem. We do feel destined to war much like Billy Pilgrim. Death is a current thought or proven fact in his life making it mundane. He experiences death to a point that he just turns his head and shrugs his shoulders, much like America does today.

I also checked out the photos. Wall’s photography is very disturbing, especially where they are dangling the flesh in front of the man’s face (the fools I believe it is). It bothered me much more than the sketches. I just thought it is sad to see someone that twisted to produce such a series of photos. It made me queasy.

Are we desensitized to Violence? :

Sontag spoke about how images of violence can either stir emotion or completely have no effect on us and she was right. She said it all the way the artist/media portrays it and we need them to help us understand. But it all depends on the image.
As a person living in post 9/11 America I am exposed daily to violent subjects and images. Or at least what the media hypes them up to be. I can’t claim that I am desensitized to violent images because that is not what is shown in the media. Look at today’s images of war and violence. There are no gory images, bloody shots, and etc. You see pictures of happy times of the victim and the flag they died fighting for. Even when it us doing the killing you see images of soldiers dancing in the street and you cheer and don’t even bat an eye wondering how many people were slaughtered in victory.
The images I see contrast with that of Goya. Goya shows images of what truly happens during war and honestly the images stir true disgust. Their not even true pictures, just sketches of horrors we have heard of and they disturb me. I do not believed that people are desensitized to images of violence we see but if the news were to flash a picture like that then maybe people would react a little more strongly. Americans hear talk about people against our newest war and they say it can’t be stopped, it must run it’s course, we are powerless. I say yeah right! Flash images like Goya’s and see how much power you get behind the movement.
How Americans view violence now is similar to Jeff Wall images, everything is entertainment. Click on the TV and just watch it for an hour. Everyday on the news we hear about people dying or being abused and unless it’s a child or a helpless animal we don’t react. We just sit back, watch, then bunk down for a good episode of “CSI” or “Cops” or some other violent programming that’s ratings go higher as more violence and drama occur. We really need to pay attention and open our eyes to what is around us.
In a way I am, as are others, very similar to Billy Pilgrim. I/we feel trapped in the system around us. War and violence flashes before us and I/we feel nothing. Like him these are images of the past and present, always repeating in front us to shut us down and make us feel powerless. So I/we sit back and mutter “So it goes”.

Is war inevitable? :

I would love to believe that war is not inevitable but I would be filling myself with lies. The saying goes history repeats itself; unfortunately history is full of violence and wars. Not all wars are pointless though. Where would America be without the Revolutionary War against Britain or what would’ve happened to African Americans without the Civil War. As long as there is something to fight for their will be people fighting. Let’s face it we live in a male-run society where dominance is key. If someone has a point to make and fight for they will. It’s dog-eat-dog and biggest guns win. Unfortunately America has the biggest guns and as long as we have them we feel like we can fight with anybody over anything, and we do. It’s this whole patriotism meets superiority group-think mindset that has been input into us since day one. America thinks, being as we are the best according to us, that we have a service to but our guns into every problem/conflict of the world. I fear it’s how we’ll always be until the rest of the world joins up and destroys us (nervous laugh). As for escaping this fate it seems more possible. Maybe if we learned to just except each others difference or at least find more peaceful ways to come to a conclusion then maybe there is hope.

I agree with Susan Sontag about how art, media, and life has desensitized our society. The media with its broadcasting of the war although not in its entirity has exposed everyone to the atrocities of war. I believe war may be an inevitability and we feel powerless against it the same way we feel powerless against governments, and against global problems. We have convinced ourselves as a society that one person cannot do anything and that if anything is to get done, the government and the military will take care of it which eventually leads to war. Billy can’t cope with this and just doesn’t focus on it. He time travels and offers to die many times out of pity for himself and others. Billy believes that war is an inevitability much like American society today.

The Goya art was not as moving mainly because it is harder to relate to it. Although it is military on civilian deaths, that is what we are used to now in today’s society. But spears and bayonettes simply don’t have the effect they once did. Jeff Wall on the other hand makes his more modern. Although we do not see the actual attacks the fact that they are in moder military outfits moves me the most. Our society has grown up on movies like Pearl Harbor and Saving Private Ryan which shows the same things but in less detail and in less disgusting ways. Wall’s photographs move me more than Goya’s do mainly because I feel that i can relate to them better.

Yes i agree that war is inevitable, no matter what there will always be a conflict between someone. There is no such thing as a perfect world where everyone gets along, if there was then we wouldn’t have wars. Susan Sontag brings up a good point that we are bombarded with images of violence in our everyday lives. I don’t agree with her entirely because if we were desensitized we would not be horrified by beheadings or very graphic images of violence in the media. Im not saying that i think that we aren’t completely desensitzed by war but i think we are desensitized by certain aspects of war or violence. I think that we are desensitized to the idea of war because the majority of us have not have to face war ourselves. One example of how the media desisensitizes us and war is by rattling off information about the war and then talking about some scandal that happened in the entertainment industry in the same broadcast. The media constantly manipulates the viewers into thinking what they want them to think.

As for Ameicans and war, I think that American will always be in a state of conflict or war, where we feel strongly against something and feel as though we must act upon it. The Vietnamon Screen audio clip brought up a good point that the history of our nation was brought up upon war, and ever since we have always been in some form of war. It is inevitable in the sense that we will never agree with everyone because if we did then there would be world peace.

Yes i agree that war is inevitable, no matter what there will always be a conflict between someone. There is no such thing as a perfect world where everyone gets along, if there was then we wouldn’t have wars. Susan Sontag brings up a good point that we are bombarded with images of violence in our everyday lives. I don’t agree with her entirely because if we were desensitized we would not be horrified by beheadings or very graphic images of violence in the media. Im not saying that i think that we aren’t completely desensitzed by war but i think we are desensitized by certain aspects of war or violence. I think that we are desensitized to the idea of war because the majority of us have not have to face war ourselves. One example of how the media desisensitizes us and war is by rattling off information about the war and then talking about some scandal that happened in the entertainment industry in the same broadcast. The media constantly manipulates the viewers into thinking what they want them to think.

As for Ameicans and war, I think that American will always be in a state of conflict or war, where we feel strongly against something and feel as though we must act upon it. The Vietnamon Screen audio clip brought up a good point that the history of our nation was brought up upon war, and ever since we have always been in some form of war. It is inevitable in the sense that we will never agree with everyone because if we did then there would be world peace.

War is a hard topic for me to put into words. While listening to Susan Sontag, I wondered what it would be like to experience war. I came to the conclusion that I would never really know what it feels like to be in the middle of a war. I believe that this is anyone’s output on war if they haven’t really experienced it. One can either support the war or be against it but the average American is only impacted by war through means of television and the media. There are so many video games resembling to the war and images that make war seem like a game. When people watch the news and see all the suffering that is occurred because of war, they pity the idea of that suffering but they continue on with their lives. To most American war is a thing from a different world. Far from them, far from their families and far from their ordinary lives. This is not true for every one but generally speaking it is pretty accurate. I believe that war in the United State is inevitable. Looking back at our history, we can say that we are a country that has been involved in many wars. It even has been proven that our economy is better when our country is at war. I think it’s absurd how our country takes democracy as an excuse to take over other countries. Even though people don’t see it that way, I think that every time our country goes to war with another country it is just to expand territory and influence. Americans are made to fight because ever since we were young we say pictures of war. Violence on T.V is growing by the day. Kids play with toy guns and are raised to like violence. It is a shame for me to think this but I believe that it is impossible for us to escape war. We are a country that advertises and promotes war.

I have this book at my house now!! Can’t wait to read it!

I read the first few comments off of this and decided to take a look at Jeff Wall. Such creative photography (simultaneously disturbing and engaging) and paintings.

If anyone gets a chance to read this check out Chuck Connely. I watched a documentary on HBO on demand on him and his work. Very interesting stuff.

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