WHO PITIES HIS VICTIMS?:

The Sun Also Sets (Lee Harris, 5/23/05, Tech Central Station)

In the captions that accompanied the photos, [the Sun] described Saddam Hussein as "a pathetic figure as he washed his trousers in jail." He is a man who "once sat on thrones and treated himself as a king," but who now "sits astride a plastic pink chair while he carries out the chores of a laundry maid." All in all, the editors tell us, the surreptitiously taken snapshots of Saddam permit "a first fascinating insight into his pathetic life behind bars."

You will notice that the editors of The Sun use the word "pathetic" twice in their characterization of the pictures they have published, and it is this word that says it all. Pathetic comes from pathos, which means the inner stirrings of our passions; and it is not hard to guess what passions The Sun was trying to arouse in its readership -- namely, the passions associated with rejoicing over the humiliation of an enemy. They wished their readers to gloat over the pictures. They published the pictures simply to humiliate Saddam Hussein.

The Sun's defense against this charge has been to argue that Saddam Hussein deserves humiliation. Indeed, considering what Saddam Hussein deserves to have happen to him, the publication of photos of him is the merest trifle. This is a man who killed thousands of men, women, and children. Here is a dictator who deserves to be shot by a firing squad or hanged by the neck -- so why complain about a few intimate photos of him splashed around the world? Why not humiliate a man who humiliated so many others? Why on earth should anyone pity him?

But that's just the problem. By humiliating anyone in public, we invariably end up creating pity for him. That is why Oliver Cromwell permitted King Charles the First to be dressed like a king and to act like a king up until the final moments when his head was chopped off. The worst thing you can do with a fallen ruler is to make people feel sorry for him in his fall. The emotion of pity is deeply rooted in us, and it is often even more inexplicable in its actions than the emotions associated with sexual desire. We are often deeply stirred by compassion when we least expect to be.

To emphasize the pathos in a man's life is to invoke compassion for him. To show his pathetic side is the best way of getting us to feel sorry for him. If the editors of The Sun were trying to keep us from pitying Saddam Hussein, then the last thing they should have done was to present him as "a pathetic figure" living out "his pathetic life behind bars."

The problem with The Sun photos is not that they dehumanize Saddam; the problem is that they humanize him far too much.

It's worth considering the notion that were Adolph Hitler captured in today's Europe he'd not be executed, just sent to prison.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 24, 2005 12:00 AM