Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells Us about Hate Speech

Kevin W. Saunders

Published by New York University Press 2011

Degradation

What the History of Obscenity Tells Us about Hate Speech

Kevin W. Saunders

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814741443.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Throughout history obscenity has not really been about sex but about degradation. Sexual depictions have been suppressed when they were seen as lowering the status of humans, furthering our distance from the gods or God and moving us toward the animals. In the current era, when we recognize ourselves and both humans and animals, sexual depiction has lost some of its sting. Its degrading role has been replaced by hate speech that distances groups, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, not only from God but from humanity to a subhuman level.
In this original study of the relationship between obscenity and hate speech, First Amendment specialist Kevin W. Saunders traces the legal trajectory of degradation as it moved from sexual depiction to hateful speech. Looking closely at hate speech in several arenas, including racist, homophobic, and sexist speech in the workplace, classroom, and other real-life scenarios, Saunders posits that if hate speech is today’s conceptual equivalent of obscenity, then the body of law that dictated obscenity might shed some much-needed light on what may or may not qualify as punishable hate speech.

Author / Editor information

Saunders Kevin W. :

Kevin W. Saunders is Charles Clarke Chair in Constitutional Law at Michigan State University College of Law. He is the author of Violence as Obscenity: Limiting the Media's First Amendment Protection and Saving Our Children from the First Amendment (NYU Press, 2003).

Reviews

Rodney Smolla,author of Free Speech in an Open Society:
Saunders’ scholarship is characterized by painstaking research, often delving deeply into the historic antecedents to the legal doctrines and policies he is addressing. His intellectual courage, particularly his willingness to espouse with passion and persuasive intensity positions that are often controversial, marks him as one of the most significant champions for re-thinking the direction of modern American constitutional law dealing with freedom of speech.

Richard Delgado,co-author of Understanding Words That Wound:
Kevin Saunders puts forward a striking thesis, namely that hate speech deserves regulation under the First Amendment because it degrades the human personality of those whom it targets. In likening hate speech to pornography and obscenity, Saunders provides a novel and arresting approach that avoids entanglement in the thought-ending clichés that have marked much previous scholarship on this subject.

Kevin Saunders:
Professor Kevin Sounders' book addresses two topics in the First Amendment law not commonly associated with one another, obscenity law and hate speech . . . the book makes a substantial contribution to this decidedly thorny area of First Amendment law.

Michael J. Gentile:
Degradation is provocative and...well presented; it should make interesting reading for both legal professionals and others interested in First Amendment issues.

Melanie Zoltan:
Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells Us About Hate Speech presents a compelling and timely argument.

S. B. Lichtman:
While the book covers much ground that is familiar to even casual scholars of the subject, it does so in an innovative fashion, interweaving diverse topics such as global religion, the theory of evolution, and contemporary critical race and legal theory.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Pornography, Life, and the Gods in the Greek and Roman Eras Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
3. The Arrival of Christianity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
4. The Modern Era Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
5. A Look at Other Cultures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
6. What about Hate Speech? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
7. Using Obscenity Doctrine to Address Hate Speech Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
8. Applications Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
9. Variable Obscenity, Children, and Hate Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
10. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Keywords: Amendment; between; degradation; depiction; First; from; hate; hateful; Kevin; legal; moved; obscenity; original; relationship; Saunders; sexual; specialist; speech; study; this; traces; trajectory

eBook

Published: January 18, 2011
ISBN: 9780814708750