Sanitization of War

Sanitization of war refers to the idea that contemporary warfare and its morbid consequences are euphemized, dehumanized, and aestheticized through various dissimulations of violence and the media’s showcasing of war making as a disembodied, bloodless, and costless activity. The intended results of shielding the bodily costs of war from public view are closely related to the concept of political will for war: to neutralize the casualty tolerance of the public and to circumvent the related backlash of domestic and international society regarding military involvement. In this regard, the concept is primarily used to pinpoint the deliberate omissions and picturesque displays surrounding the mediations of contemporary warfare, which is directly linked to the ways in which certain forms of political violence are justified and possibly legitimated ...