Speaking Hatefully: Culture, Communication, and Political Action in Hungary (Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation)

By: David Boromisza-Habashi

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Synopsis: In Speaking Hatefully, David Boromisza-Habashi focuses on the use of the term “hate speech” as a window on the cultural logic of political and moral struggle in public deliberation. This empirical study of gyűlöletbeszéd, or "hate speech," in Hungary documents competing meanings of the term, the interpretive strategies used to generate those competing meanings, and the parallel moral systems that inspire political actors to question their opponents’ interpretations. In contrast to most existing treatments of the subject, Boromisza-Habashi’s argument does not rely on pre-existing definitions of "hate speech." Instead, he uses a combination of ethnographic and discourse analytic methods to map existing meanings and provide insight into the sociocultural life of those meanings in a troubled political environment.