Susan Sontag

1. Thinking is the essential, active mode of existence.

Being intelligent isn’t, for me, like doing something ‘better.’ It’s the only way I exist.

Mind is life. For Sontag, thinking is not merely an activity but the fundamental condition of being alive and autonomous. It is a life of desire and pleasure, an active engagement with the world that counters passivity and dependence. This intellectual vitality is seen as complementary to living fully.

Thinking is dialogue. Much of Sontag's thinking is generated through conversation and dialogue, which she finds more natural than the solitary act of writing. Conversation allows her to discover what she thinks and connect with others, serving as a principal medium for her intellectual and personal "salvation."

Hot exaltations. The life of the mind is characterized by intense feelings like avidity, appetite, craving, longing, yearning, insatiability, and rapture. Thinking is not detached or arid but deeply intertwined with desire and feeling, mirroring the way knowing acts in the mind of a thinker reaching out to the world.

2. Illness is a physical reality, not a psychological or moral metaphor.

Illness is illness.

Rejecting metaphors. Sontag's experience with cancer led her to critique the pervasive cultural tendency to assign psychological or moral meanings to disease. She argues that theories blaming mental states for illness are anti-intellectual and deny the physical reality of disease, distracting people from seeking effective medical treatment.

Illness is like being hit by a car. She views serious illness as a physical event, like an accident, for which one is not morally responsible. While acknowledging the psychological impact of illness, she insists on its biological basis, emphasizing the importance of rational treatment and the will to live over guilt or self-blame.

Historical shift. Historically, disease was viewed more matter-of-factly, without the spiritual or moral values later attached to it, particularly since the 18th century. The romanticization of illnesses like TB or the demonization of cancer reflect cultural anxieties and a collapse of traditional religious vocabularies for transcendence.

3. Challenge cultural stereotypes that limit identity and experience.

I think that the young-old polarization and the male-female polarization are perhaps the two leading stereotypes that imprison people.

Stereotypes are arbitrary. Sontag argues that societal categories like age and gender impose arbitrary limitations on how people live and what they believe they can do. These stereotypes often elevate values associated with youth and masculinity as norms, leading to feelings of inferiority in those who don't conform.

Desegregate everything. She advocates for challenging these polarities and allowing for a greater fluidity of identity and behavior. This includes questioning conventional notions of what is appropriate for different ages or genders, promoting freedom and choice over prescribed roles.

Beyond gendered expression. While acknowledging cultural conditioning, Sontag resists the idea of inherently masculine or feminine writing or sensibility. She believes individuals, regardless of gender, should be free to engage with any tradition or form of expression, aiming for excellence rather than conforming to stereotypes.

4. Art and culture offer transcendence and pleasure, demanding critical engagement.

To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world—in other to set up a shadow world of ‘meanings.’

Erotics of art. Sontag champions an "erotics of art," emphasizing the pleasure and sensuousness of engaging with cultural works. She values both "popular" and "high" culture, rejecting the need to choose between them and finding value in diverse forms like rock and roll and Dostoyevsky.

Against interpretation. Her famous argument is not against understanding art, but against reducing it to a single, hidden meaning. She advocates for experiencing the work itself, paying attention to its form and sensuous surface, rather than imposing interpretations that deplete its richness.

Critical engagement. While embracing pleasure, Sontag remains an "obsessed moralist," critically examining the impulses and contexts behind art, including potentially problematic ones like fascist aesthetics. She believes in disentangling the work from its abuses and understanding its complex, often contradictory, nature.

5. Photography encapsulates modern society's complex relationship with the world.

On Photography is a case study in what it is to be living in the twentieth century in an advanced industrial consumer society.

Equivocal connection. Photography embodies the ambiguous relationship between the self and the world in modern life. It is a polymorphous activity involving appropriation, possession, and consumption, reflecting a restless and often aggressive way of seeing.

Reflexive nature. The act of taking and looking at photographs is inherently reflexive, turning the world into images and reflecting back on the act of seeing itself. This is captured in the chosen cover images for her book, showing photography photographing photography.

Fragments of time. Still photographs function as fragments, capturing moments that stand in an inaccurate relation to the flow of life. They become artifacts of the past, imbued with nostalgia and meaning over time, but their nature is tied to representation in a way that abstract painting can transcend.

6. Sexuality is a powerful, culturally shaped force, not solely pleasure.

I think that he really didn’t understand the demonic in human nature and that he had a picture of sexuality only as something wonderful.

Dark and complex. Sontag views sexuality as a potentially dark and anarchic force, not just a source of pleasure. It pushes towards taboo desires and can be destructive if uncontrolled, explaining why societies have historically regulated it so heavily.

Overloaded with values. Human sexuality is distinct from animal sexuality, becoming a psychological and emotional phenomenon heavily invested with cultural values and expectations. It is often overloaded with meanings beyond simple physical desire, becoming a theater for power dynamics and insecurities.

Beyond stereotypes. While acknowledging potential differences in masculine and feminine sensuality shaped by culture, Sontag resists rigid sexual stereotypes. She finds the idea of purely sexual relationships challenging due to cultural conditioning, particularly for women, and sees the pursuit of impersonal sex as often linked to power rather than simple desire.

7. The writer's vocation is antisocial, focused on the world, not self-expression.

The point of my work is not to express me.

Attention to the world. Sontag sees the writer's primary task as paying attention to the world, to "the not me," rather than focusing inward on self-expression. Her work is based on the belief that a real world exists outside the self, and she is fascinated by understanding it.

Lending the self. While she may draw on personal experiences or fantasies, she views this as "lending" herself to the work, not representing herself directly. The goal is to follow imaginative impulses that take her outside her own life and feelings.

Discipline and interiority. The pursuit of a significant body of work requires intense discipline and a state of interiorness. This often means withdrawing from excessive social engagement and resisting the pressures of public life and media attention that can diffuse creative energy.

8. Truth is found by negating falsehood and embracing complexity.

I cannot understand the truth except as the negation of falsehood.

Truth as negation. For Sontag, truth is not a simple positive assertion but something carved out by rejecting falsehoods and oppressive ideas. This critical process is essential for intellectual liberation and understanding.

Embrace contradiction. Thinking involves navigating complexity and contradiction, using tools like "but" and "either/or" to explore different perspectives. Attempts to eliminate such nuances, as seen in some anti-intellectual movements, are seen as simplistic and potentially harmful.

Skepticism towards metaphor. While acknowledging the necessity of metaphors in thinking, Sontag maintains a skepticism towards them, viewing them as necessary fictions that can limit understanding. She is drawn to discourse that is clean, transparent, and goes beyond ingrained metaphorical thinking.

9. Seek self-transcendence and change through continuous evolution.

I write partly in order to change myself so that once I write about something I don’t have to think about it anymore.

Writing as transformation. Writing is a process of change for Sontag, a way to work through ideas and move on. This means she is constantly evolving, often feeling "somewhere else" regarding her past work, which can make discussing it challenging.

Desire for otherness. Her stories often explore the desire for self-transcendence, the enterprise of trying to become a different, better, or nobler person. This is not about becoming a specific "other" but about continuous growth and waking up to new possibilities.

Leap, risk, danger. Contemporary creative work is characterized by risk and uncertainty, with each project being a leap into the unknown. This intensity and challenge are what make the process exciting, pushing the artist to stretch and transcend their current limits.

10. Value marginality and resist standardization in life and art.

I think the world should be safe for marginal people.

Space for deviance. Sontag believes a good society should allow space for marginal people, dropouts, and deviants, resisting the pressure towards standardization and conformity. This includes allowing for unusual states of consciousness and ways of living outside the mainstream.

Against liquidation of high culture. While embracing popular culture, she pushes back against the wholesale discrediting of modernism and the avant-garde. She feels compelled to defend challenging art forms against philistinism and a mean-spirited tendency to dismiss complex work.

New forms. She believes contemporary writers must constantly seek new forms and approaches, as the old conventions are no longer sufficient. This requires a willingness to contradict influences and explore alternatives, even if it means working against prevailing trends.

Last updated: May 15, 2025