Judith Butler’s Critique of Hate Speech: An Alternative Agency Beyond Sovereignty and Law

One of Judith Butler’s exceptional contributions to queer and feminist theories is her impressive line of thought on the possibilities of an alternative linguistic and political agency which could challenge the alleged powers and the attacks of hate speech. Within this framework she draws attention to the defects and dangers of politics of censorship which request the state and the law to act against hate speech and thus attribute agency mainly to the state and law. Instead of this Butler suggests a new linguistic and political agency. Our aim in this article is to explore and discuss her argument in its various aspects. Intially we look into her distance from the dominant approaches to hate speech. Later we examine her criticisim of ascribing absolute powers to hate speech and thus calling back the sovereign into the linguistic field and her warnings on the drawbacks of attributing discursive powers to the state. Finally her emphasis on the significance of an alternative linguistic and political agency will be discussed.