Un-ringing the bell

Dixon, Daisy 2024. Un-ringing the bell. Fennell, Christopher C., ed. Grappling with Monuments of Oppression, London: Routledge, (10.4324/9781003471936-3)

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Abstract

Like much Confederate art in the United States, Fame in North Carolina does not merely represent the Confederacy. It does something. It glorifies and venerates. These are what philosophers have called “illocutions”; actions we do normally with words. Just as linguistic speech can injure, so can monuments. Fame implicitly ranks Black people as inferior; monuments like these do not depict subordination, they literally subordinate. How should we respond? With linguistic hate speech, speakers can block its harm—“silence” it—by dismantling the conditions required for the act to be oppressive in the first place. But this faces obstacles. When someone says something racist or sexist, it can be difficult to unpack what has been done. Even if we can try to “block,” some doubt whether this fully disarms the act; the damage is done, and speaking back is like trying to un-ring a bell. This chapter argues that silencing hateful monuments is more effective than silencing linguistic hate speech. Engaging creatively with immoral public sculpture sidesteps the obstacles in conversational settings. While monuments are robust forms of speech, they differ in language in important ways. Their temporal and spatial permanence enables activists to perhaps, after all, un-ring the bell.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9781003471936
Last Modified:	04 Feb 2025 11:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/175188

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