Regarding the Pain of Others is an interesting, detailed explication of a subject Sontag touched on in her previous work, On Photography, but one that she felt needed some further explanation: the use of war photography as a medium by which the public might be awakened to the horrifying reality of the realm of warfare. Regarding the Pain of Others is a book-length essay that wanders all around the crucial thesis, exploring various aspects of both the subject and the medium before declaring a verdict on its efficacy.
Sontag's style is quite academic in form; she routinely references historical figures, authors, and philosophers to support and/or contest her arguments, such as Plato, Freud, Woolf, and many others. She goes about her argument with her characteristically straightforward prose, making the text readily accessible for a general audience, yet with a dignity and professionalism that causes even the hardest critic to contemplate her argument fairly. Rather than falling prey to the temptation to let her sources do all the heavy lifting, however, Sontag follows the practice of a good academic writer by formulating her own thesis and using her sources purely as support, making the form and content of the essay quite respectable to any audience.
Her argument, despite a bit of ambiguity surrounding the thesis, is that war photography can be quite effective, but it will never be able to actually replicate a firsthand experience, and its efficacy is in decline because of the inundation of images of today's culture, possibly making the effort actually counterproductive in some cases. Sontag follows many philosophers of her time (and even more after her time) in warning the reader about the dangers of image saturation in popular culture, especially with the advent of television, but she spends even more time arguing for the nebulous and difficult process of making a singular argument with photography: since it's difficult to make an argument with war photographs further than simply the reproduction of horrific images, the effect could vary depending on the audience: some might find it a reason for pacifism, while others might consider the image a demand for finishing the war as quickly as possible, increasing militancy rather than decreasing it.
In all, Sontag's argument is a solid one, explaining the difficulties of war photography as an art form, as well as imagery as a whole. It's interesting to note how her views on the subject in this essay somewhat contradict those of her previous work, On Photography, but she acknowledges these distinctions and gives reasons for them. This will remain one of the most important texts on the subject of war photography, and it is a wonderful introduction for anyone interesting in learning about the intricacies of the subject.
