As bombs continue to drop from the sky, and hundreds of lives are continuously ripped away every day, it has become increasingly common to come across videos online of people dying, children crying, and innocents suffering injury and pain. 

In the realm of political activism, grief and guilt have emerged as powerful currencies, wielded not only to elicit compassion but also to mobilize collective action. While this can galvanize support, it also raises ethical questions about the commodification of human suffering.

The recent crisis in Gaza starkly illustrates this epidemic; Palestinian families, in their anguish, have been thrust into the public eye, sharing their grief on public platforms in hopes of provoking international action. Images and videos of children traumatized by violence have flooded social media in an attempt to compel viewers to act.  

This spectacle of suffering, however, risks reducing complex human experiences to mere tokens of political capital. Judith Butler, an American philosopher and gender studies professor, postulates that grief can create a tenuous sense of collective identity, a “we” that prompts solidarity. Essentially, grief has the powerful ability to connect people across different backgrounds and settings. Pain is a human experience, capable of forming a shared connection of understanding and empathy between people across the world. 

Yet, when grief becomes a spectacle, it can obscure the more pervasive, everyday violence faced by communities, turning moments of tragedy into a fleeting call for action that quickly fades from public consciousness. 

The dual nature of grief—as both a source of mobilization, and a burden for those who bear it—cannot be overlooked. For many activists, the act of politicizing personal grief can feel like an obligation, a way to lend weight to their arguments against systemic injustices. 

Many feel forced to recount their own losses, like the death of a loved one—to ground their activism in lived experience. However, this transformation of grief into a political narrative is often fraught with emotional labor, forcing individuals to relive painful memories to gain legitimacy in their advocacy.

The pressure to continually offer up one’s grief as a means of securing solidarity can be exhausting and humiliating. Dr. Hala Aylan, a licensed clinical psychologist, articulates “this expectation reduces complex identities to mere symbols of victimhood, stripping away the dignity of those who suffer. It creates an environment where compassion becomes transactional, contingent on the visibility of suffering.” Thus, the very act of mourning—a deeply personal process—can feel politicized, leaving little room for private reflection or healing.

In navigating the complexities of grief and guilt in political contexts, we must ask ourselves: How can we create a framework for solidarity that honors individual experiences without demanding their commodification?