White Living Speech

Resisting the Empire of Force
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-2753-4
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

Language is our key to imagining the world, others, and ourselves. Yet sometimes our ways of talking dehumanize others and trivialize human experience. In war other people are imagined as enemies to be killed. The language of race objectifies those it touches, and propaganda disables democracy. Advertising reduces us to consumers, and clichés destroy the life of the imagination.

How are we to assert our humanity and that of others against the forces in the culture and in our own minds that would deny it? What kind of speech should the First Amendment protect? How should judges and justices themselves speak? These questions animate James Boyd White's Living Speech, a profound examination of the ethics of human expression--in the law and in the rest of life.

Drawing on examples from an unusual range of sources--judicial opinions, children's essays, literature, politics, and the speech-out-of-silence of Quaker worship--White offers a fascinating analysis of the force of our languages. Reminding us that every moment of speech is an occasion for gaining control of what we say and who we are, he shows us that we must practice the art of resisting the forces of inhumanity built into our habits of speech and thought if we are to become more capable of love and justice--in both law and life.

Autoren/Hrsg.

White, James Boyd

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Semiotik
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein
• Rechtswissenschaften Öffentliches Recht Staats- und Verfassungsrecht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface xi

Introduction: The Empire of Force and the World of Words 1

Chapter One: Speech in the Empire 13

Chapter Two: Living Speech and the Mind Behind It 50

Chapter Three: The Desire for Meaning 91

Chapter Four: Writing That Calls the Reader to Life--or Death 124

Chapter Five: Human Dignity and the Claim of Meaning 168

Chapter Six: Silence, Belief, and the Right to Speak 204

Index 227

Über Autor(innen)

James Boyd White is Hart Wright Professor of Law, Professor of English, and Adjunct Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan. His books include The Legal Imagination and The Edge of Meaning.