Speaking Respect/Respecting Speech

The feminist campaign against pornography, the furor over racial epithets, and Iran's death threat against Salman Rushdie exemplify the passions aroused by hurtful speech. Such conflicts are increasingly pervasive and intractable. Sociological theories of symbolic politics illuminate such confr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Sociology of Law Vol. 1998; no. 50; pp. 214 - 234,282
Main Authors Abel, Richard L., Fujimoto, Ryo
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Japanese
Published The Japanese Association of Sociology of Law 1998
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Summary:The feminist campaign against pornography, the furor over racial epithets, and Iran's death threat against Salman Rushdie exemplify the passions aroused by hurtful speech. Such conflicts are increasingly pervasive and intractable. Sociological theories of symbolic politics illuminate such confrontations as struggles for respect among status categories defined by nationality, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation and physical difference. The two conventional responses to harmful speech-civil libertarianism and state regulation-both are fundamentally flawed. Only apologies exchanged within the communties that construct collective identities can readjust their social standing and thereby equalize cultural capital.
ISSN:0437-6161
2424-1423
DOI:10.11387/jsl1951.1998.214