Analytic immunity to shock is really social distance from its victims

Evidence

Looking back now, I cringe at how easy I had it. If I felt immune to shock, it was mainly because of my distance from its sources. It wasn’t my family members who were killed from the air. It wasn’t my neighborhood that was in line for demolition, nor was it my kid’s teachers who were getting fired so that public schools could be converted to private ones. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 18

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A compact, self-directed critique: the observer’s supposed immunity is only privilege dressed as method. This is a genuine challenge to the classic position of the detached critic.
• XREF: Connects to standpoint-theory critiques of objectivity that surface in Klein’s earlier work and in feminist science studies. — connects to: Closeness without distance is the individual’s real protection against social infringement — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 109