Hearing Hate Speech: Force, Violence and Institutional Frameworks
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Hearing Hate Speech: force, violence and institutional frameworks Ms Charlotte Louise Armstrong Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies April 2019 2 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2019 The University of Leeds and Charlotte Louise Armstrong The right of Charlotte Louise Armstrong to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 3 Acknowledgements To Dr Diane Morgan and Professor Salman Sayyid for their incredible support and wise guidance without which, this would not have been completed. 4 Abstract Hate speech is on the rise. Its threat grows daily. Increasingly, reports of hate speech enter our daily news, researchers make it a focus of study, legislators create laws to protect us from it, and people fall victim to it. The sites of conflict which hate speech creates are difficult and confused; deliberately so. Such language does not languish on the extremes of accepted discourse occasionally breaking through at accidental points of destructive horror. Instead, it stalks the foundations of discourse, relentlessly seeks power, and infiltrates institutional frameworks, in order to continually promote violence and division. Hate speech is condemned and yet, it thrives, casting what seems like a growing shadow over spaces of communication. This thesis journeys from the historical conditions from which the current concept of hate speech has evolved, to the established and conventional structures that ensure the continued ability of these utterances to inflict appalling harms. The language of hate respects no boundaries, arbitrary or otherwise. And so, engagement with thinkers across disciplines is necessary to draw together the elusive and disingenuous character of this language. The combined might of philosophers, linguists, legal scholars, gender theorists, sociologists, and race theorists is needed to illuminate the dark spaces of hate speech. These often complex and diverse academic theories - that are shown to be relevant to the hate speech debate - are drawn together through examples of the utterances themselves observed in areas such as; politics, literature, theatre, social media, news reports, and legal cases. Ultimately, the argument is made that the violence of hate speech is not accidental. It is intentionally reinforced by state institutional frameworks. 5 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 6 Defining a contested term ................................................................................................. 17 A term gathering force ...................................................................................................... 27 Violent acts ...................................................................................................................... 36 Acting normal ................................................................................................................... 37 What’s in a word? ............................................................................................................. 40 Chapter Two: Constructing a concept of hate speech.............................................................. 49 Freedom of expression...................................................................................................... 50 Hate speech or hate crime? ............................................................................................... 57 Foundational ‘fighting words’ ............................................................................................ 69 Performing hate speech .................................................................................................... 74 Hiding in plain speech: the face of ‘reasonable racism’........................................................ 78 Extreme dangers of hate speech ........................................................................................ 85 Evaluating a concept ......................................................................................................... 91 Chapter Three: Violence, hate speech and institutional frameworks ........................................ 96 Violence as a foundational cornerstone.............................................................................100 Legitimising violence. .......................................................................................................109 Statements of Exception ..................................................................................................123 Responding to regulation. ................................................................................................128 Reinforcing violence through state institutional frameworks. .............................................133 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................138 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................145 Introduction The aim of the thesis is to illuminate the dark shadow that hate speech casts through force, violence and institutional frameworks. A persistent tension is revealed between the need for the state to control hate speech through its institutional frameworks and, the role those frameworks play in perpetuating the violence of hate speech. Considering hate speech through theories of performative language allows the paradox to be explained. A mutually exploitative relationship between hate speech and institutional frameworks is exposed and used to demonstrate how, state institutional frameworks can work to reinforce the violence of hate speech. Chapter One, ‘Unnamed’, provides the foundations for understanding hate speech in its modern context. Considering four different definitions of hate speech provides the opportunity to uncover common characteristics shared between these forms of expression regardless of academic discipline, context, or event. Seven shared characteristics of hate speech are emphasised with the first showing that hate speech is not limited to verbal utterances, but can damage and harm through any form of expression. Secondly, there is a propensity for the definitions of hate speech to treat the concept of hate speech as presupposed. This leads to a third element that shows attempts to describe hate speech always give primacy to the effects of these forms of expression. A fourth characteristic which follows from this is to recognise that hate speech is not random but instead is intended to cause harm. The argument is made that hate speech is perpetrated both consciously and unconsciously because of the way hate speech becomes authorised by an external authority. Fifthly, and perhaps not surprisingly, I argue that the groups most at risk from hate speech are invariably constituted as ‘Other’ in some way. A sixth characteristic, which is more unusual, is 7 that absence and uncertainty are shown to be an essential part of hate speech and facilitate part of its force. The final characteristic that is argued to be consistently visible is that hate speech acts in a deliberately divisive way, which is in itself, violent. Opening with this chapter serves to illuminate, but not resolve, a range of problems that are investigated throughout. Collectively the characteristics of hate speech that are identified can risk generating confusion and so seven key themes are employed to navigate a path. The first theme demonstrates that the naming of ‘hate speech’ creates an autonomous space in discourse that serves to normalize the appearance of this language. Following from this it is argued that, hate speech does not require an originator and because of this, hate speech can increase its scope for harm. A third theme unveils the violence that is present in both instances of hate speech and within definitions of the term. Fourthly, traditional investigations of hate speech are argued to limit how the concept is viewed and potentially contribute to the ability of this language to harm. The fifth theme emphasises that particular histories compound the force hate speech is able to exert. A sixth theme identifies that violence, inflicted through creating social divisions and coupled with the stigma of ‘Otherness’, influences the constitution of linguistic subjects and creates a greater risk of vulnerability to the harm hate speech inflicts. Finally, hate speech is argued to be both performative and political which in later chapters, will demonstrate how the violence of hate speech is reinforced by state institutional frameworks. Chapter Two, ‘Constructing a concept of hate speech’, explores six significant influences that have come to shape the modern concept associated with these forms of expression. It is argued that critical moments, drawn from different historical periods, heavily influence current work in areas of hate speech and shape how the 8 concept has come to be understood. To manage complexity and maintain a focus on violence, force