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

The Evasions of Neutrality
moustache on the Mona Lisa; Andres Serrano photographs a crucifix
submerged in his urine; Robert Mapplethorpe poses a man with a
broomstick up his anus; in a video shown after he had died of AIDS,
Freddie Mercury dressed in the royal crown and cape for a rendition
of "God Save the Queen." 31 Yet artistic pretensions do not necessarily
justify the harms of expression. Helmut Newton photographs
sexually provocative nudes, often in sadomasochistic positions. "I
love vulgarity. I am very attracted by bad taste— it's a lot more
exciting than supposed good taste, which is nothing more than a
standardised way of looking at things." 32 In his autobiography, John
Osborne boasted of his homophobic dislike of "poofs" and his
chauvinistic contempt for pretentious French, short Italians, provincial
Australians ("natives of a suspicious, benighted land"), and Jews
and Irish ("cold-hearted" races, whose abundant "sentimentality
... is the sugar-ornament of the hard of heart"). 33
Just as those without a presidential podium, religious pulpit,
media megaphone, or advertising budget must take to the streets and
shout in order to be heard, so political dissidents may have to use
guerrilla tactics to unsettle conventional beliefs or grab the attention
of listeners suffering from information overload. Anti-war activists
burn draft cards and flags, anti-abortion demonstrators display pickled
fetuses, neo-Nazis flaunt swastikas, graffiti artists deface walls
and advertisements. Hoping "to revive the 'zap action' tactics of the
early women's liberation days," a group of performance artists got
into Life magazine by appearing at a conference at New York's Plaza
Hotel barefoot, chained together, wearing voluminous black maternity
garments padded to make them look pregnant, and accompanied
by others in black jumpsuits and shocking pink headbands
carrying a huge pink banner reading "Forced childbearing is a form
of slavery." 34 Overshadowed by hundreds protesting the first California
execution in 25 years, two "good old boys" in a pickup truck
demonstrated for the death penalty with a poster showing the
condemned man and an "Alka-Cyanide" capsule being dropped
into a glass of sulfuric acid, above the caption: "Plop Plop Fizz Fizz,
Oh, What a relief it is!" 35
There is no escape from politics. Some messages should be
encouraged and others discouraged for what they say, not how they
say it. The task is made acutely painful by millenia of religious
intolerance, philistine censorship, and political and sexual repression.
My goal is to reduce subordination based on gender, race,
ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. But that amorphous ideal
leaves difficult questions unanswered. If feminists campaign against
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