The Banality of Goodness: Humanitarianism between the Ethics of Showing and the Ethics of Seeing

Abstract

Raising questions about how vulnerable “others” are represented in our mediated culture, and whether such a spectacle of suffering has the power to move us to action, the essay investigates what kinds of aesthetic, ethical, and political challenges are connected with the mediatization of humanitarian space in the neoliberal age. Focusing on the communication techniques used to generate empathy between the spectator and the suffering subject, the paper moves from Lilie Chouliaraki’s The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism and Susie Linfield’s The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence to explore the complex relationship between the visual media, the needs of victims, and public attention, and unveils the many paradoxes intrinsic to the link between contemporary politics of humanitarianism and the government of human beings.