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

Taking Sides
mus of gay men is half as large as that of heterosexuals has
established the West Hollywood Institute for Gay and Lesbian
Education (Whigle). A local gay activist who initiated the proposal
explained: "We need to unite and come together, developing our
culture. Once we've done that, we can integrate and become full
participants in a transformed society." 61 Defenders of separatism
point to the vital role of homogeneous fraternities, sororities, and
religious organisations in easing the entry of Jews and Catholics into
American higher education a generation earlier. 62 Yet all antisubordination
strategies must expect to be attacked as particularistic
and resented by those whose privilege they threaten.
///. Equalising Voices
Respect is the latest prize in the unending struggle against subordination.
The bourgeois revolution sought to free markets and equalise
access to political power. Workers demanded control over the
means of production but usually settled for token participation and a
larger slice of the pie. Resistance to patriarchy, racism, and homophobia
has had to repeat some of these contests, but it focuses on
new spheres: families, education, and culture. We might see this as
extending the social democratic project of material equality
(employment, housing, and health) to reproduction, the principal
battleground of post-industrial society. On this new field, antagonists
in the cultural wars deploy proactive and reactive strategies,
prescribing the future and judging the past. Texts and curricula,
advertising, mass entertainment, news reporting, public rituals,
religion and high culture all transmit collective messages about
status; insults and sexual harassment are particular instances of
status degradation. The former act extensively, the latter intensively;
each reinforces the other.
Because all cultural phenomena are associated with particular
status groups, expression is inescapably partisan. The creators of
symbolic goods may rationalise their behaviour as the response to
hypostatised market forces; but some consumers always are more
equal than others, and supply shapes consumer demand while
purporting to satisfy it. Those who produce or sponsor records,
concerts, plays, exhibitions, movies, television, radio, and printed
matter also have a moral responsibility for their content, if not the
same as the creative artist's. Audiences are accountable for what
they patronise, which makes the boycott of creators, producers, and
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