Three symptoms of contemporary social sensibility in Mexico

Abstract

In this essay various characteristics of social contemporary sensibility are analyzed. Three images depicting the recent violence in Mexico are assumed as symptoms. These images are examples of the manner in which violence and cruelty are presented by the media in the world today. They are a photograph from the Mexican weekly Proceso for an article involving femicide in Ciudad Juárez, the photograph of a student murdered during the Ayotzinapa events, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, and the work by the artist Teresa Margolles: PM 2010. Even though the images are shown on different mediums, the three allow for the problematization, each in its own way, of the production and reproduction of violence during recent years in Mexico. However, the three images can be used to exemplify the general contemporary assumption in regard to “lives that do not matter”. This violence corresponds in some instances to a lack of social sensibility that due to the media experience results in creating a distance between those of us who “see” cruelty as entertainment or a spectacle and those who are the victims of such cruelty. In other instances, violence is the correlate of a sensibility that accepts and legitimizes it thus allowing its reproduction.