Melanie Zoltan reviews Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells Us about Hate Speech
What is the role of inflammatory rhetoric, sensationalistic television pundits, extreme talk radio, and divisive web communities on civil society and on violent behavior that may emerge from people who listen to, watch and read these forms of speech? What role does violent rhetoric that tips over into hate speech have on the developing brains of children and adolescents?
If, as Saunders argues in Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells Us About Hate Speech, certain forms of speech are designed to degrade and dehumanize, then at what point is that speech obscene under current law?
