The Deconstruction of the First Amendment

Abstract

The main questions which the paper sets out to answer is, “What kind of speech is protected by the First Amendment?”. The framework in which the question is answered develops a distinction between the experience of language in an oral culture in contrast to a textual culture that has alphabetic language as well as a print technology. In an oral culture the meaning of a word and the power of speech is its function within the system of social relationships. Speech in order to be meaningful must be related to action. In a society with advanced print technology on the other hand the meaning a word depends upon its role within a network of texts, not upon its performative function. Once this distinction is made the paper then examines a series of historically important Supreme Court decisions to show that the kind of speech that has been protected by the First Amendment has been speech that is divorced from action, what the paper calls inefficacious speech. The paper concludes by considering implications that arise from the proposition that we are entering into oral culture for a second time as a result of electronic technology which transmits information with audio and visual immediacy.