speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

Confused Consequentialism
when Judge I. Leo Glasser disqualified one of his father's lawyers:
"This is America; haven't they ever heard of the Bill of Rights? We
have a Bill of Rights in this country. It's right over there, on the wall.
Tell them to go over there and read it." One reporter was struck by
the resemblance to Rod Steiger playing Al Capone in the 1959
movie: "We have a constitution in this country. The Constitution—
ever heard of it? I suggest that when you go to your office you read
it." Joseph Colombo Sr., the capo di tutti capi, agreed to help film
"The Godfather" if some of his people were hired as extras and the
words "Cosa Nostra" never were mentioned. James Caan, who
played Sonny Corleone in the film, spent so much time hanging out
with Carmine (the Snake) Persico that undercover agents once
mistook him for the mobster. Henry Hill, a real gangster, whose
biography was the basis for Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas," said
"the dress, the manner, the cockiness—a lot of it comes from the
movies." When he was growing up, the older neighbourhood
"wiseguys" "walked round like actors—it was like being a movie
star." He described the first time he had seen Gotti, 30 years earlier.
"John was at the card table" and suddenly started beating up a man.
"I mean there was blood splashing over the walls." Asked if he was
not confusing memory with a scene in "Goodfellas," Hill replied no,
it was much closer to "The Untouchables." 73
Although there may be rare instances in which we can confidently
locate the genesis of action in expression, the relationship usually is
far more complex. An image may be stimulus, but it may also evoke
revulsion, represent fantasy, or offer catharsis. The attribution of
causality tends to disregard the speaker's moral tone. Life may
imitate art as often as art imitates life, but each is an improvisation, a
variation on the other. Were we to take consequentialism seriously,
we would have to accuse mainstream culture rather than scapegoating
vulnerable targets on its fringe.
IV. Perverse Penalties
Many of the legal system's generic problems are exacerbated when it
regulates speech. Because formal procedures are costly—to the state
as well as the parties—law is mobilised only against egregious
offences. 74 The British Attorney General refuses to prosecute most
complaints about race hatred, such as the Holocaust revisionist
pamphlet "Did Six Million Really Die?" or Wing Commander
Young's fulminations in "Deadlier than the H. Bomb": "Millions of
97