Abstract:

This paper has two aims. The first is to show that state-sponsored political symbols, including statues, monuments, the naming of locations, etc., can do the objectionable things hate speech does, but more effectively. This happens through what I call “hateful pedestalling:” by paying tribute to individuals, groups, or ideologies that are extremely and unjustly hostile towards certain groups, the state subordinates, excludes, and assaults. The second is to argue that political vandalism—the unauthorized defacing, destroying, or removal of political symbols—is sometimes the appropriate response to hateful political symbols. I draw from a particular account of the responses to hate speech—counter-speech—and argue that political vandalism is at least sometimes the counter-speech fit for blocking and “undoing” the harms of hateful political symbols.