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  1. Longreads2/5/2012 min
    4 reads3 comments
    9.5
    Longreads
    4 reads
    9.5
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    • Plum4 years ago

      A really important piece!!!i want to read it many times. As a nurse I think about how best to respond to people suffering. Like the last line about never meekly submitting our stories, our pain, our dignity to the evergrinding wheels of the hit making machine.

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        4 years ago

        Upvote! Yes, Plum!! Thank you, as always, for sharing!! Your comments are always 💯✌️

        This article, for me, turned over a little stone that I’ve been trying to turn over for quite a while. It has something to do with how we glorify pain. It’s the downside of our national obsession with vulnerability. And, more broadly, martyrs.

        Im really embarrassed about a lot of the things that I blogged about in 2019. Pain is messy. Almost by definition. But it’s ALWAYS better when it’s out, because then at least we can all deal with it, together, with our communities.

        The commercial/consumer angle on pain - that’s what really shook me. For a convo that big, we really do need Sontag close at hand.

    • bill
      Top reader of all time
      4 years ago

      Ten. I’ve been following the hullabaloo over American Dirt quite closely. This is an even bigger story about the source of Oprah’s power. It’s amazing.

      Also, Susan Sontag is everywhere, which is always a good thing. Her words are poetry.