A Young woman has a fatal accident; and now pictures of that accident all over the internet. The person in who died is Nikki Catsouras; and the question that forcibly presents itself is the following: What end is served by these pictures? The death is a misfortune, and a terrible lost to her Nikki’s parents and family. But that does not begin to explain why the pictures of the accident can be found all over the internet.
It is not even remotely plausible that some profound moral lesson is being taught by the posting of pictures of the accident. For instance, an actual website has been set up to host pictures and video of the horrific accident. I will not mention the name of the website. However, the following is a jpeg image of the site’s homepage. I have deliberately decreased the size of the image and marked over it.
The site was not set up by her Nikki Catsouras’s parents. Quite the contrary, her parents are horrified that pictures of their daughter’s death are proliferating all over the internet.
The proliferation of these pictures is a case of unseemly voyeurism if ever there were one.
Now, an argument that is being invoked over and over again is “The right to know”. The invocation of this right turns the acquisition of knowledge into some sort of perversion—a fetishism, if you will.
Worse still, when this right is relentlessly applied it is actually incoherent. Suppose that the accident had occurred and her parents had been able to clean up all the debris after the proper authorities were finished. Consequently, given this supposition, only the authorities and the parents have any pictures of the accident.
Let us agree that the public has a right to know that there was an accident. What exactly does it mean, however, to claim that the public has a right to see the pictures of the accident? Is it any picture pertaining to the accident? Or is it only certain kinds of pictures pertaining so the accident; and if so, then what kind of pictures? Or, is it that it does not matter what kind of picture that one has of the accident, just so long as one has a picture of it.
As far as I can tell, the so-call right to know seem to apply to the third option: it does not matter what the picture is a picture. Alas, this reduces the right to know to none other than morbid curiosity.
The very idea of a right to know applies to information that can be presumed to be useful. The picture of a toe nail of the body is surely not useful. Although a picture of the decapitated head tells us that the accident was horrendous, it does not tell us anything that is indeed useful. After all, an accident can be absolutely horrendous even though a decapitation did not occur. Indeed, if as a result of an accident a body burns to the point that nothing is left but mere ashes, we have something pretty horrendous indeed, although no decapitation has occurred.
Useful information is one thing; morbid curiosity is quite another. The right to know has become synonymous with morbid curiosity; and thus understood, the right to know is both utterly indefensible and incoherent.
If one person has a right to something, then it follows that another is obligation to provide the thing in question. And it is utterly absurd to suppose—incomprehensible to maintain— that anyone has a right to satisfy the mere morbid curiosity of another.
It was reported on the news that the name “Nikki Catsouras” has of late been the one of the Googled names on the internet. Indeed, the story that was reported was about this fact and none other. The gruesome pictures are what people have been interested in seeing. And that fact is a very sad commentary on the American society.
The internet is wonderful in so very many ways. Alas, what is also very painfully true is that the internet has become an opportunity for individuals to indulge their most morbid fantasies. No doubt we all have them upon occasion. Perhaps that is even human. Indulging them, however, is another matter entirely. Once upon time, we generally were ashamed to do so. The internet has provided us with a cloak of privacy and with that cloak so many of us have lost a sense of shame. That does not portend well for the future.
Could you please explain, based on your article, why you have included an 816×1056 pixel screengrab of the offending website? For the sake of the family and their right to grieve in private, please remove the image. A 100×100 screengrab or less would have sufficed, but with what you have done here, you’ve replicated and copied the graphic images to a size that is clearly viewable.
I’m sorry, but you are fueling the fire here. I respectfully request that you remove these images from your server, please!
May I also add, that if you type nikki catsouras into google images, turn off safe search, and select large images, yours is the first link to show up. Was that your intention?
Crash on a public road at a toll booth, investigated by law enforcement, and the photos should not be available to the public? Sounds like guilt for letting the delinquent run amok. Of course, the photos are public domain after the investigation is complete.
They should be plastered all over the internet as a warning to kids AND parents. Parents should raise their kids better and kids should see as much gore as possible as a warning against speeding, drunk driving, and so forth. Yes, yes, I know there was supposedly no alcohol involved but the results are the same – a horrific crash.