Does death still hold the same power it does in protests today?
After reviewing the content we’ve covered over the past few weeks it has occurred to me that frequently in protests, death marks a pivotal moment that transforms the movement. The ultimate price has been paid, someone has given their life for the cause. For example, Billy Sell in “The Strike.” and Thích Quảng Đức in “Still Burning: Self-Immolation as Photographic Protest”. Even if someone might not understand the pain that the oppressed are going through, people all understand the loss of life. Many would do anything to prevent it. This is why acts of protests like self-immolation and hunger strikes are so effective. They immediately make one think of what could have led to this person or people deciding that this cause was worth dying? That this was the only solution? It displays the pain and injustice suffered by the collective group, taken on by the individual.
However, I raise a question. In this digital age of social media, does death still hold the same power? I’m not arguing for or against any position but rather starting up a conversation. In this day and age we have access to see virtually anything we want at any point in time. I’m not saying for other movements that change happened immediately, or death doesn’t spark protests or conversation in the modern age (George Floyd, Renee Good, Aaron Bushnell), but I’m wondering if when others see death today, if they are desensitized. The Civil Rights Movement was one of the first times Americans could see the unjust treatment of African-American’s on their screens. Today, we see so much of violence and death constantly. I simply wonder if society today would react as strongly to Thích Quảng Đức. Would we scroll? Or would it spark conversation but die down? Is anything shocking? Is death unique?
Its true, we are too desensitized nowadays to death. Its become such a common thing to see people dying covered on the news and spread to social media, that it lacks the impact it should have. the loss of life reduced to a statistic, people have to get creative to drive a message across.
Your title really caught my attention and this reminded me of our conversation just yesterday about social media. To your question if death still hold the same power in our current digital times, I think the answer is complicated, but unfortunately leaning towards no in a lot of cases.
Take George Floyd’s death for example. There was a bystanders video of the moment he died that was spread about many times, and even to this day you can still sometimes come across it. It was a very powerful video, arguably sparking a lot of the leading outrage. But on the other hand, I’ve seen those clips used for satirical, typically racist effect for pop culture events like Love Island or the WNBA. I think majority of people have grown numb to death, with how much it is around us and spread, especially with the lack of things actually being done about innocent deaths, such as one-year old Kohen Kartier Wiley being shot and killed by the police only a few months ago, but there has not been as much coverage or outage about it.
We have everything too close at hand. With the internet we are capable of seeing whatever we want whenever we want. As younger generation gets their hands on the internet at earlier and earlier ages they are constantly exposed to the things in life that they shouldn’t necessarily have to think through and that in turn desensitizes them. Also the negative things in life are often what is advertised to us to keep our attention even when we expect it.
In a world in which mass shootings of schools do not bring our entire society to a halt, nor was COVID-19 nationally mourned, and in which we engage in “forever war”, I do believe we are too benumbed. I don’t know what it will take to resoften our national heart, but I do know we need it. Thank you for opening this conversation.