War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press have turned war into a vast video arcade game. Its very essence-death-is hidden from public view.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the desensitization of society towards war, viewing it as entertainment rather than a grave reality.
Chris Hedges's quote reveals how modern society has come to perceive war through a lens of distance and detachment, much like watching a game rather than experiencing its harsh realities. The military and media's portrayal of war reduces the actual suffering and death to mere spectacle, obscuring the true human cost and ethical implications of conflict.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the impact of media on public perception of war.
As long as we think abstractly, as long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of War our fulfillment, we will never understand those who do battle against us, or how we are perceived by them, or finally those who do battle for us and how we should respond to it all. We will never discover who we are. We will fail to confront the capacity we all have for violence.
The moral nihilism of celebrity culture is played out on reality television shows, most of which encourage a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal.
The few surviving Armenians no longer ask to go home. They do not ask for restitution. They ask simply to have the memory of their obliteration acknowledged. It is a moral obsession, the lonely legacy passed onto the third and fourth generation who no longer speak Armenian but who carry within them the seeds of resentment that will not be quashed.
It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.
Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.
There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege, it will always be at the expense of truth and justice
I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea.
The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.
When you clean up a city, you destroy it.
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
There has been an outpouring of anger and concern because of the actions of George Zimmerman, a private citizen who profiled a young boy and pursued him and tried to confront him, perhaps. But what George Zimmerman did is no different than what police officers do every day as a matter of standard operating procedure.
WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN? The Death of Rats looked up from the feast of the potato. SQUEAK, he said. Death waved a hand dismissively. WELL, YES, OBVIOUSLY ME, he said. I JUST WONDERED IF THERE WAS ANYONE ELSE.
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