The writer in me distrusts the good citizen, the “intellectual…

The writer in me distrusts the good citizen, the “intellectual ambassador,” the human rights activist — those roles which are mentioned in the citation for this prize, much as I am committed to them. The writer is more skeptical, more self-doubting, than the person who tries to do (and to support) the right thing.

Sourced, Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)

Other Susan Sontag Quotes

Yes, this is Europe. The Europe that did not respond to the Serb shelling of Dubrovnik. Or the three-year siege of Sarajevo. The Europe that let Bosnia die.
A new definition of Europe: the place where tragedies don’t take place. Wars, genocides — that happened here once, but no longer. It’s something that happens in Africa. (Or places in Europe that are not “really” Europe. That is, the Balkans.) Again, perhaps I exaggerate. But having spent a good part of three years, from 1993 to 1996, in Sarajevo, it does not seem to me like an exaggeration at all. - View Quote Details on Yes, this is Europe. The Europe that did not respond…
There is a peculiarly modern predilection for psychological explanations of disease, as of everything else. Psychologizing seems to provide control over the experiences and events (like grave illnesses) over which people have in fact little or no control. Psychological understanding undermines the “reality” of a disease. That reality has to be explained. (It really means; or is a symbol of; or must be interpreted so.) For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of anything else) as natural, death is the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied. A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter. - View Quote Details on There is a peculiarly modern predilection for psychological explanations of…
I’m sickened by the way that the delivery of so-called humanitarian aid is once again being used as a justification — or cover — for war. - View Quote Details on I’m sickened by the way that the delivery of so-called…
All modern wars, even when their aims are the traditional ones, such as territorial aggrandizement or the acquisition of scarce resources, are cast as clashes of civilizations — culture wars — with each side claiming the high ground, and characterizing the other as barbaric. The enemy is invariably a threat to “our way of life,” an infidel, a desecrator, a polluter, a defiler of higher or better values. The current war against the very real threat posed by militant Islamic fundamentalism is a particularly clear example. - View Quote Details on All modern wars, even when their aims are the traditional…
Stop the War and Stop the Genocide, read the banners being waved in the demonstrations in Rome and here in Bari. For Peace. Against War. Who is not? But how can you stop those bent on genocide without making war? - View Quote Details on Stop the War and Stop the Genocide, read the banners…
An erotic life is, for more and more people, that which can be captured on digital photographs and on video. And perhaps the torture is more attractive, as something to record, when it has a sexual component. - View Quote Details on An erotic life is, for more and more people, that…
Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens — and real diseases are useful material. - View Quote Details on Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear,…
Styles change, style doesn’t. - View Quote Details on Styles change, style doesn’t.
The sublimity of color in Hodgkin’s pictures can be thought of as, first of all, expressive of gratitude — for the world that resists and survives the ego and its discontents. - View Quote Details on The sublimity of color in Hodgkin’s pictures can be thought…
Reality has come to seem more and more like what we are shown by cameras. It is common now for people to insist upon their experience of a violent event in which they were caught up — a plane crash, a shoot-out, a terrorist bombing — that “it seemed like a movie.” This is said, other descriptions seeming insufficient, in order to explain how real it was. While many people in non-industrialized countries still feel apprehensive when being photographed, divining it to be some kind of trespass, an act of disrespect, a sublimated looting of the personality or the culture, people in industrialized countries seek to have their photographs taken — feel that they are images, and are made real by photographs. - View Quote Details on Reality has come to seem more and more like what…