2 - Antiquity, Modernity, and Historical Imaginaries on the Role of the Government

Summary

This chapter analyzes the terminology of negative and positive liberty used in the book. The difference in the approach to freedom of expression can be considered through the prism of the “quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns.” The understanding of the role of the government in France as defining the content and limits of freedom of expression is an amalgam of elements of antiquity and modernity. It is reminiscent of the conception of the Ancients that the state incarnates prudence. In the United States, the spirit of the law on freedom of expression is closer to modernity and to natural rights philosophy. The historical heritage of absolute monarchy defined, on the imaginary level, the terms of the substitution of the nation for the king following the French Revolution. The American Revolution led to a conception of distrust toward the government. The central place of the law in the clauses that concern rights of the French Declaration shows trust toward the legislator to define the content and limits of liberty. The American declarations of rights, on the other hand, aim at guaranteeing rules, and transcend and limit ordinary legislative power.