How Will Americans Remember the War in Gaza?

"A single photograph from the day, in 1970, that four students there were killed by the Ohio National Guard is so powerful that, whenever I hear any mention of Kent State-its basketball team or its engineering program-the picture flashes in my mind. I'm sure I'm not alone. Kent State was reduced to a single photo because the press was far more centralized at the time, and had the power and the influence to edit, curate, and promote a particular version of an event."

"The media still makes an effort to direct our attention in this way. When the war in Gaza reached the end of its first year, multiple major news outlets published collections of images that seemed to them representative of the tragedy so far. More were published at the two-year mark. I am guessing that you did not notice these compilations, and I am almost certain that you have little idea which specific photos were assembled."

"What are the images of the war in Gaza that you will never forget? A photograph of six dead children tucked under a sheet? Footage of a father stumbling around, apparently carrying the headless body of his baby? Pictures of the bloody aftermath in the kibbutz kitchens? Do you know which images I'm referencing? Do you have your own list of images that I'll need to Google?"

There is a moral dimension to anxiety about shrinking attention spans and the public's capacity to sustain care for atrocities. Collective remembering depends on shared, salient images; historically centralized press created singular, enduring photos like Kent State's. Decentralized, phone-born imagery scatters attention into individualized streams and personalized horror reels. Newsrooms still attempt curation through anniversary compilations, but such efforts often go unnoticed. Personalized image exposure may accelerate forgetting and weaken unified moral responses. The relative duration of public haunting reveals both strengths and fragilities in communal moral engagement.

Read at The New Yorker