As graddol and swan observe when compared with larger

generated real change. As Graddol and Swan observe, " when compared with larger social and
ideological struggles, linguistic reform may seem quite a trivial concern ," further noting "there
is also the danger that effective change at this level is mistaken for real social change" (Graddol &
Swan 195). The second reason is that the language we find objectionable can serve as a signal or
an indicator of the corresponding objectionable reality. The third reason is that restricting
language only limits the overt expressions of any objectionable reality, while leaving subtle and
hence more dangerous expressions unregulated . Once we drive the objectionable idea
underground it will be more difficult to identify, more difficult to root out, more difficult to
counteract, and more likely to have its undesirable effect . The fourth reason is that
objectionable speech can create a "backlash" effect that raises the consciousness of people
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475

exposed to the speech. Strossen observes that "ugly and abominable as these expressions are, they
undoubtably have had the beneficial result of raising social consciousness about the underlying
societal problem..." (560).
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476

Offensive Language
Censorship reduces political analysis to justifications for prosecution
Judith Butler , Professor of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley, Performativity and
Performance, Ed. Parker and Sedgwick, 1995 , p. 204
That words wound seems incontestably true, and that hateful, racist, misogynist, homophobic
speech should be vehemently countered seems incontrovertibly right. But does understanding
from where speech derives its power to wound alter our conception of what it might mean to
counter that wounding power ? Do we accept the notion that injurious speech is attributable to a
singular subject and act? If we accept such a juridical constraint on thought - the
grammatical requirements of accountability - as a point of departure, what is lost from the
political analysis of injury when the discourse of politics becomes fully reduced to juridical
requirements ? ? Indeed, when political discourse is collapsed into juridical discourse, the
meaning of political opposition runs the risk of being reduced to the act of prosecution. How is
the analysis of the discursive historicity of power unwittingly restricted when the subject is
presumed as the point of departure for such an analysis? A clearly theological construction, the
postulation of the subject as the causal origin of the performative act is understood to generate that
which it names; indeed, this divinely empowered subject is one for whom the name itself is
generative.
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477

Academic Discourse Good (1/2)
Their rejection of ‘academic theory’ is disastrous for the oppressed – it encourages a form of politics
where we all already have our minds made up that policymaking can’t help us. This forecloses
connections with potential allies and essentializes the experience of the oppressed.