Susan Sontag, born Susan Rosenblatt on January 16th, 1933, was an American writer, 
philosopher, and political activist. Sontag lived a rather solitary, bleak childhood, born in New York and raised eventually in California. She graduated high school at the age of 15, and finished college education at the University of Chicago. After being provided with “an incomparable platform” with which to share her work in 1963, she rose to prominence as a noteworthy author and philosopher. Though described as rather aloof, Sontag was regarded as one of the most influential writers of her generation, admired and studied by many. Some of Sontag’s core values centered around her regard for different perspectives, her strong convictions, and her ability to criticize and elaborate of past works—her book-length essay Regarding the Pain of Others contained ideas that directly opposed her previous thoughts described in a prior essay, titled On Photography.
Sontag displayed a particular interest in the cultures of other countries, inspiring her to travel around the world and informing much of her political activism. A passionate protester of the Vietnam War, these ideas of our relation and views of violence are discussed in Regarding the Pain of Others. Sontag examines the role of the photographic image in our lives, and how we interpret these photographs as a way to remember tragic historical events. Approaching the issue from “an explicitly ethical perspective”, Sontag determines that through images, we can interpret the need and pain of the subjects, although more modern aspects of visual media may corrupt the truthfulness of said images.
Sontag chooses to elaborate upon the relationship between war, feelings, and images, all ideas that are tied very centrally to her activism and ideologies. In Regarding the Pain of Others, she uses different examples, such as etchings, paintings, and photographs of war and invasion. She does this in order to examine differences between “staged” photographs as opposed to “imagined” paintings of certain events, and how the viewer perceives and interprets pain differently in each. Overall, Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others is a dissection of our love of spectacle, our need to perceive pain and emit compassion, and our use of photography in order to possess a deeper understanding of the world and those who inhabit it.
Works Cited:
Furstenau, Marc. “The Ethics of Seeing: Susan Sontag and Visual Culture Studies.” Post Script, vol. 26, no. 2, Winter 2007, pp. 91–104. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=24996095&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Homberger, Eric. “Obituary: Susan Sontag.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 29 Dec. 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/dec/29/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries.
McLaughlin, Jim. “Putting Her Body on the Line: The Critical Acts of Susan Sontag, Part I.” Post Script, vol. 26, no. 2, Winter 2007, pp. 10–23. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=24996089&site=eds-live&scope=site.
I think Sontag’s dedication to her writing and political activism is very remarkable and inspiring. She dedicated her entire life to the things she cared most about. I think it is very obvious she truly cared about making the world a better place and sharing her thoughts on the world to help future writers and scholars with their thinking and writing.