Reply #45: I think there's a valid reason to view such a thing

[skygazer]

I'm reading a book right now about a woman who is a forensic anthropoligist who has worked on mass graves in Rwanda and Kosovo among other places. Her job is to try to identify bodies and determine numbers and cause of death so that information can be used at tribunals convened to punish those responsible.

It's heartrending.

A friend asked me, "why do you read such things?!" and I told her that I do it because I want to be horrified. Reading that someone has been beheaded in the daily newspaper does nothing to convey the true horror and awfulness of the act. If we are not aware, really aware, of the dreadful things that happen around us, where is the incentive to stop them?

It's not like Faces of Death, the viewing of which is more of a strange, voyeuristic compulsion - it's learning about a reality that is going on now, over and over, and as a result of actions our own government has taken. It's easy to say, "oh, I can't handle that" but we have that luxury. Many people don't. They are living the horror and I feel duty bound to feel as much of that pain as I can, from my sheltered existence.

I don't want to hide from these awful unpleasant truths. I want to know all about them and I want to be so enraged that I will work to stop them.