snippets

Someone who is perenially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelty upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood.

No one after a certain age has a right to this kind of innocence, superficiality, to this degree of ignorance, or amnesia.

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Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. Memory is achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead. So the belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as humans who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the normal course of events die before us - grandparents, parents, teachers and older friends. Heartlessness and amnesia seem to go together.


Susan Sontag - Regarding the Pain of Others