If a shocking image is seen to have any moral value – be that image artistic, literary, theological, or otherwise – that value is typically understood to reside in the power of the shock to wake us up. A shocking image can challenge complacency, clothe the reality that eludes us with the visceral, lure the unrepresentable towards something that can almost be grasped. It can bring to the realm of awareness something we have – on some inarticulable level – always known to be true.
