There is also 'disaster pornography' too, though. Last week on NOW with Bill Moyers, British journalist Julie Flint talked about the problems with that too. In other words, there is a vicarious thrill factor people get from seeing these really pornographic images of violence, death, and suffering that doesn't result in anything changing. We just get to be disaster voyeurs, or war voyeurs.

Actually, a lot is being written about those kinds of things right now. I've mentioned these works in other threads too, but I'll list a couple of them again as they seem quite relevant to the thread:

'War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning' by Chris Hedges

'Regarding the Pain of Others' by Susan Sontag

'A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide' by Samantha Power