Mass Grave - Wounded Knee, South Dakota As you know, graphic images and displays have been used in numerous instances and issues from seal pups, furs and meat is murder to fetal rights and abortion rights, from cigarette smoking to The Holocaust, Native Genocide and Black Lynching including 14 year old Emmett Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955)
Without trying to defend or justify the use of images to get people's attention on an issue I will say this, it matters what spirit the person or persons utilizing these “signs” are acting in. There’s a big difference between acting in love for all people involved and acting in a self-righteous, we’re always right, hateful manner. Sometimes this is obviously the case, sometimes the viewer may not be ready to accept the realities implicated with those images.
My first thought on "squick" is, might this be another way for one to turn off their conscience? Fainting from the site of blood in surgery aside, are not most reactions of physical repulsion connected to a sense of right and wrong?
Surely you will agree that some things are morally reprehensible and we have a mind and conscience so as to be able distinguish between choices and use sound "judgment". Regardless of what one chooses to be their code of "internal beliefs and ethics" there are many examples we could both think of that in our "judgment" are just plain wrong.
Some people believe that shooting abortion providers is morally justified. Others believe that having sex with children is normal and we hear that there is plenty of pornography out there to prove it. What about the pornographers of war and torture, can you say Iraq, Abu Ghraib and Gitmo? Haven't the people behind these actions lied to themselves or perhaps incorporated "squick" to force the realities that their actions were deserving of being judged as morally reprehensible or worse out of their minds so they could continue in senseless was and barbaric torture? We are in a war of words, images and emotions, there is a war on for our minds and a lot more.
In some cases “repulsion” may be “an illegitimate measure of virtue”, in most it’s something to listen and react to accordingly, or to be concerned about if our repulsion reflex is no longer where it once was.
P.S. Speaking of "fetal pornography" what do you think of this "pornography" aimed at teens?
