A01=Richard L. Abel
Author_Richard L. Abel
Category=JPVH
Category=QDTQ
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780226000572
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 04 Jun 1999
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The feminist campaign against pornography, the furore 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. In this study Richard Abel offers an original framework for understanding and attempting to resolve these pervasive and intractable conflicts. Drawing on sociological theories of symbollic politics, he views such confrontations as struggles for respect among status categories defined by nationality, religion, race gender, sexual orientation and physical difference. The text seeks to expose the inadequacies of the conventional responses to speech: absolutist civil libertarianism and enthusiastic state regulation. Instead the author argues that only apologies exchanged within the communities that construct collective identities can readjust social standing damaged by hurtful words and images. Abel recasts the problem in terms of equalizing cultural capital and aims to open a new pathway through the wrongs and rights of speech.
