Distant Suffering
Morality, Media and Politics

Considers morally acceptable response to images of war, famine etc. brought to us by television.

Luc Boltanski (Author), Graham D. Burchell (Translated by)

9780521659536, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 October 1999

268 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

Distant Suffering, first published in 1999, examines the moral and political implications for a spectator of the distant suffering of others as presented through the media. What are the morally acceptable responses to the sight of suffering on television, for example, when the viewer cannot act directly to affect the circumstances in which the suffering takes place? Luc Boltanski argues that spectators can actively involve themselves and others by speaking about what they have seen and how they were affected by it. Developing ideas in Adam Smith's moral theory, he examines three rhetorical 'topics' available for the expression of the spectator's response to suffering: the topics of denunciation and of sentiment and the aesthetic topic. The book concludes with a discussion of a 'crisis of pity' in relation to modern forms of humanitarianism. A possible way out of this crisis is suggested which involves an emphasis and focus on present suffering.

Part I. The Question of the Spectator: 1. The politics of pity
2. Taking sides
3. The moral spectator
Part II. The Topics of Suffering: 4. The topic of denunciation
5. The topic of sentiment
6. The critique of sentimentalism
7. The aesthetic topic
8. Heroes and the accursed
Part III. The Crisis of Pity: 9. What reality has misfortune?
10. How realistic is action?

Subject Areas: Media studies [JFD], Cultural studies [JFC]