Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech
The feminist campaign against pornography, the furor over a racial epithet in the O. J. Simpson trial, and Iran's continuing threat to kill Salman Rushdie exemplify the intense passions aroused by hurtful speech. Richard Abel offers an original framework for understanding and attempting to resolve these pervasive and intractable conflicts. Drawing on sociological theories of symbolic politics, he views such confrontations as struggles for respect among status categories defined by nationality, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, and physical difference. Abel convincingly exposes the inadequacies of the conventional responses to speech: absolutist civil libertarianism and enthusiastic state regulation. Instead, he argues, only apologies exchanged within the communities that construct collective identities can readjust social standing damaged by hurtful words and images. In recasting the problem in terms of equalizing cultural capital, Abel opens a new pathway through the wrongs and rights of speech.

1119970129
Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech
The feminist campaign against pornography, the furor over a racial epithet in the O. J. Simpson trial, and Iran's continuing threat to kill Salman Rushdie exemplify the intense passions aroused by hurtful speech. Richard Abel offers an original framework for understanding and attempting to resolve these pervasive and intractable conflicts. Drawing on sociological theories of symbolic politics, he views such confrontations as struggles for respect among status categories defined by nationality, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, and physical difference. Abel convincingly exposes the inadequacies of the conventional responses to speech: absolutist civil libertarianism and enthusiastic state regulation. Instead, he argues, only apologies exchanged within the communities that construct collective identities can readjust social standing damaged by hurtful words and images. In recasting the problem in terms of equalizing cultural capital, Abel opens a new pathway through the wrongs and rights of speech.

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Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech

Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech

by Richard L. Abel
Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech

Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech

by Richard L. Abel

Hardcover(1)

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Overview

The feminist campaign against pornography, the furor over a racial epithet in the O. J. Simpson trial, and Iran's continuing threat to kill Salman Rushdie exemplify the intense passions aroused by hurtful speech. Richard Abel offers an original framework for understanding and attempting to resolve these pervasive and intractable conflicts. Drawing on sociological theories of symbolic politics, he views such confrontations as struggles for respect among status categories defined by nationality, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, and physical difference. Abel convincingly exposes the inadequacies of the conventional responses to speech: absolutist civil libertarianism and enthusiastic state regulation. Instead, he argues, only apologies exchanged within the communities that construct collective identities can readjust social standing damaged by hurtful words and images. In recasting the problem in terms of equalizing cultural capital, Abel opens a new pathway through the wrongs and rights of speech.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226000565
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 05/06/1998
Edition description: 1
Pages: 390
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

Table of Contents

Preface
1: Fighting Words
2: Pornography, Racial Hatred, and Blasphemy
3: Theorizing the Contest
4: The Politics of Respect
5: The Poverty of Civil Libertarianism
6: The Excesses of State Regulation
7: Taking Sides
Notes
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

Stanley Fish

"People are always asking me what I mean when I say that there is no such thing as free speech and it's a good thing too. Now I can jut tell them to read Richard Abel's insightful new book and they will understand."

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