On his book Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells Us about Hate Speech
Cover Interview of March 27, 2011
In a nutshell
This book attempts to place hate speech into a context of long lineage.
While hate speech has almost undoubtedly been around for as long as people have been able to recognize differences between their groups and others, the recognition that there is an impropriety in the speech is of far more recent vintage.
But there is another variety of expression that has long been regulated: obscenity. I do not argue that hate speech is obscene—but that the concerns that lead a society to place certain sexual material in that category are similar to the concerns raised by hate speech.
While obscenity has focused on sex, the concern has been less about sex and more about degradation.
Cultures that have allowed rather explicit pornography do not view sex as degrading. It is in cultures that do see sex as degrading that pornography comes to be considered obscene—and subject to restriction.
While there are certainly subject matter distinctions between classical obscenity and hate speech, they may be seen as similar—in that both may be viewed as degrading.
If there are to be restrictions on hate speech, as exist in many countries and in some situations even in the United States, the relationship between obscenity and hate speech may provide a basis for identifying racist, sexist or homophobic speech. The path of the law in defining obscenity may provide guidance in identifying expressions of hate.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
This book attempts to place hate speech into a context of long lineage.
While hate speech has almost undoubtedly been around for as long as people have been able to recognize differences between their groups and others, the recognition that there is an impropriety in the speech is of far more recent vintage.
But there is another variety of expression that has long been regulated: obscenity. I do not argue that hate speech is obscene—but that the concerns that lead a society to place certain sexual material in that category are similar to the concerns raised by hate speech.
While obscenity has focused on sex, the concern has been less about sex and more about degradation.
Cultures that have allowed rather explicit pornography do not view sex as degrading. It is in cultures that do see sex as degrading that pornography comes to be considered obscene—and subject to restriction.
While there are certainly subject matter distinctions between classical obscenity and hate speech, they may be seen as similar—in that both may be viewed as degrading.
If there are to be restrictions on hate speech, as exist in many countries and in some situations even in the United States, the relationship between obscenity and hate speech may provide a basis for identifying racist, sexist or homophobic speech. The path of the law in defining obscenity may provide guidance in identifying expressions of hate.