Susan Sontag Quotes About War
-
War-making is one of the few activities that people are not supposed to view 'realistically'; that is, with an eye to expense and practical outcome. In all-out war, expenditure is all-out, unprudent – war being defined as an emergency in which no sacrifice is excessive.
→ -
War tears, rends. War rips open, eviscerates. War scorches. War dismembers. War ruins.
→ -
Where once it was the physician who waged bellum contra morbum, the war against disease, now it's the whole society.
→ -
Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. And “terrorist” is a more flexible word than “communist.” It can unify a larger number of quite different struggles and interests. What this may mean is that the war will be endless---since there will always be some terrorism.
→ -
War is a culture, bellicosity is addictive, defeat for a community that imagines itself to be history's eternal victim can be as intoxicating as victory. How long will it take for the Serbs to realize that the Milosevic years have been an unmitigated disaster for Serbia, the net result of Milosevic's policies being the economic and cultural ruin of the entire region, including Serbia, for several generations? Alas, one thing we can be sure of, that will not happen soon.
→ -
War is elective. It is not an inevitable state of affairs. War is not the weather.
→ -
I was enthralled and moved by Azar Nafisi's account of how she defied, and helped others to defy, radical Islam's war against women. Her memoir contains important and properly complex reflections about the ravages of theocracy, about thoughtfulness, and about the ordeals of freedom-as well as a stirring account of the pleasures and deepening of consciousness that result from an encounter with great literature and with an inspired teacher.
→
Related Authors
-
Simone de Beauvoir Writer -
Virginia Woolf Writer -
Leni Riefenstahl Film director -
Nancy Kates Filmmaker -
Umberto Eco Essayist -
Walter Benjamin Literary critic -
Annie Leibovitz Photographer -
John Berger Art critic -
Roland Barthes Philosopher -
Marina Abramovic Artist -
Camille Paglia Teacher -
Diane Arbus Photographer -
Maria Popova Writer -
Philip Rieff Cultural critic -
Elfriede Jelinek Playwright -
Christopher Hitchens Author -
Joan Didion Author -
Edward Said Professor -
Maria Irene Fornes Playwright -
Norman Mailer Novelist