Book Review: General Politics: The Harm in Hate Speech
| Date | 01 January 2014 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1478-9302.12041_78 |
| Author | Selen Ayirtman Ercan |
| Published date | 01 January 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
good in and of itself, acknowledging the ways in which
music is constituted by and simultaneously constitutes
political contexts.At their worst, they reinforce simplis-
tic narratives and fail to reveal ideological sleights of
hand such as Robert Putnam’s claim that musical par-
ticipation leads to social democracy (pp. 70–1). Such
oversights also mean that the analysis frequently veers
towards political readings of music rather than showing
how music is always already political.
This imbalance is corrected in the latter half of the
book, which becomes increasingly concerned with
theoretical issues. Here, there arechapter s on the role of
music in creating ‘imagined communities’, the politics
of aesthetic judgement, ideology and the way in which
music embodies political convictions. These chapters
skilfully advance the debate beyond an institutional
framework, successfully showing how music ‘is politics’
(p. 173), and how it may point beyond – rather than
merely play into – the status quo.
A key problem, however, is Street’s assertion of a
division between the public and private spheres (p. 8),
particularly as a number of the issues considered strad-
dle this divide.Thus, Street can consider music’s role in
forming national communities – but there is little on
music’s power to (de)construct gender, sexual or racial
identities. This may also explain the strikingly
Eurocentric, masculine and heteronormative bias of the
book:‘formal’ politics has long been the terrain of these
subjects and this carries across to the musical realm –
only three of the 30 artists mentioned in the index are
female.
These shortcomings notwithstanding, there is much
to recommend Music and Politics. It is perhaps a book to
dip into a chapter or two at a time rather than read
cover to cover, but those who do will be rewarded with
an accessible account of the centrality of music to
political organisation.
David Bell
(University of Nottingham)
The Harm in Hate Speech by Jeremy Waldron.
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.
292pp., £19.95, ISBN 978 0 674 06589
In The Harm in Hate Speech, Jeremy Waldron offers a
convincing argument in favour of laws prohibiting hate
speech. The central premise of the book is that hate
speech undermines the equal dignity of individual
members of vulnerable minorities. Contrary to the
First Amendment absolutists, who view hate speech as
a private act of expression that a liberal government
should protect, Waldron understands hate speech and
defamation as ‘actions performed in public, with a
public orientation, aimed at undermining public goods’
(p. 100). Hate speech under mines, most importantly,
inclusiveness, which according to Waldron is a central
public good that every democratic society should
sponsor and sustain.
Waldron explores the concept of ‘harm’ associated
with ‘hate speech’in ter ms of the damage it does to its
targets and to the public good of inclusiveness. The
main issue, he argues,is not what people think but the
damage that what they say does to their direct targets,
that is, to the members of vulnerable communities.
Waldron brings the targets of hate speech into sharp
focus and asks:‘Can their lives be led, can their children
be brought up,can their hopes be maintained and their
worst fears dispelled in a social environment polluted
[by hate speech]?’ (p. 33).These are the main concerns
Waldron urges the defenders of ‘free speech’ to take
into account while opposing the criminalisation of hate
speech. While establishing his arguments, Waldron
engages with a wide variety of legal and political theo-
rists and offers a convincing response to objections to
the regulation of hate speech as articulated by promi-
nent legal theorists such as Ronald Dworkin and C.
Edwin Baker.
The Harm in Hate Speech is a highly engaging and
readable book. It presents various key concepts in
political theory (such as dignity, harm, group defama-
tion and the concept of well-ordered society) in a
comprehensive and concise manner. Besides its theo-
retical focus, this book also offers a rich variety of ‘real
life’ examples such as the public controversies over
pornography, the ‘Osborne’ case, the Salman Rushdie
case and the burka debates in contemporary multicul-
tural societies. The concluding chapter examines early
modern views of toleration as they bear on the regu-
lation of hate speech. Although illuminating, this
chapter does not make much contribution to the core
arguments of the book. Having said that,this book is an
essential read for students and scholars of political
and/or legal theory at all levels.
Selen Ayirtman Ercan
(University of Canberra)
BOOK REVIEWS 137
© 2014 TheAuthors. Political Studies Review © 2014 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2014, 12(1)
To continue reading
Request your trial