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Shock fatigue
Dec. 16th, 2018 09:48 amInspired by this post...
A few months ago, having heard a radio story or read a newspaper story or something about Octavia Butler, I went looking for some of her work to read. People suggested Kindred as a good place to start, so I walked into my neighborhood independent bookstore (I can say that! really!) and asked for it; conveniently, it was the only Butler they happened to have on the shelf.
So I read it, and didn't have nearly as strong a reaction as everybody told me I would. Yes, there's brutality and sadism and injustice, and sometimes bad things happen for no good reason except that Sometimes Bad Things Happen. Yeah, whatever: it's a speculative-fiction book, and I expect that stuff.
Much the same happened when, after years of hearing other people talk about it, I finally picked up and read The Handmaid's Tale. It's brutal and horrible and unfair and only a slight exaggeration of things that are actually happening in the real world. Yeah, whatever, more or less what I expected.
Have I lost the ability to be shocked? Has my whole culture lost the ability to be shocked?
A few months ago, having heard a radio story or read a newspaper story or something about Octavia Butler, I went looking for some of her work to read. People suggested Kindred as a good place to start, so I walked into my neighborhood independent bookstore (I can say that! really!) and asked for it; conveniently, it was the only Butler they happened to have on the shelf.
So I read it, and didn't have nearly as strong a reaction as everybody told me I would. Yes, there's brutality and sadism and injustice, and sometimes bad things happen for no good reason except that Sometimes Bad Things Happen. Yeah, whatever: it's a speculative-fiction book, and I expect that stuff.
Much the same happened when, after years of hearing other people talk about it, I finally picked up and read The Handmaid's Tale. It's brutal and horrible and unfair and only a slight exaggeration of things that are actually happening in the real world. Yeah, whatever, more or less what I expected.
Have I lost the ability to be shocked? Has my whole culture lost the ability to be shocked?
