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Two Stones, One Idea.

Updated: Jun 19

Drawn on August 8, 2024 | Published from Miami

Perceptions of freedom
Two Stones One Idea

A particular principle has reached an interesting inflection point in recent years. This idea prestigiously appears on parchment paper, engravings, flags, and currency. In more humble cases, however, you’ll also find it on beer bottles, belt buckles, bumpers, and fries. This wide-ranging concept has the power to uplift crowds, curse individuals, and spice manifestos.

 

Having traveled the world over, inching its way across borders through bloody battles and bitter deals, ‘freedom’ and its sister-word ‘liberty’ are a concept that unevenly saturates the globe as a foundational tenet of modern democracies. Although its nuanced applications have been repudiated time and time again, its fundamental significance has rarely been underestimated.

“Free-thinker. Thinker would suffice." [1]

— Jules Renard, Journal, p.1192, June 26, 1905.

For two nations in the Western hemisphere, there is one shared origin of ‘freedom’ which has bizarrely diverged to such width that the split in definition feels as expansive as the vast Atlantic Ocean they hug. This is a special case where the humdrum is consequentially paradigmatic. Something we like to point out here on Waadl… 😉

 

France, bathed in historically tumultuous cycles of civil unrest, eventually came to accept chaos as a culturally protected syndrome of its existence. By the time of the Second Republic, upon penalty of yet another revolution, an informal social contract between the French people and their government was memorably chiseled in stone. Only on condition of abiding by the holy trinity of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” would the people democratically grant government the guardianship of freedom. You may want to read that again if you’re American. In a moment of irony, however, the formal iteration of these principles, listed in Article IV of the 1848 constitution, makes them contingent upon "l'Ordre public" — "public Order" [2]. Yet seeing as how the French were already in the business of centralizing protectorates through institutions like cardinal Richelieu's Académie Française — 1634's sheriff of the French language — such an agreement seems only natural for this republic of anarchists.

 

Born from its own 18th-century rebellion against a different branch of monarchy and approximately 110 marathons away (the distance between Brest in Brittany and Lubec, Maine), America fosters a separate attitude toward freedom. In the country’s short evolution, there has been a constant fixation on symbolically conflating any power dynamic with tyranny. This fear has led to a cultural gag reflex against being ruled, resulting in a strong desire to remain free from rule. As a consequence, Americans merely substitute King George III with whoever is in charge today. It seems that, in stark juxtaposition to France, America's more cowboy decentralized nature intrinsically conditions its people to view federal government as a hinderance to freedom rather than its protector. Indeed, many everyday Americans capriciously imagine themselves doomed to desperately chase the elusive gold standard of 'absolute freedom' while tragically bound to a government boulder.

 

“I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.”

— William Shatner as Commander Buck Murdock, Airplane II: The Sequel, 1982.

Today, one factor contributing to the American perception of freedom is a lack of trust in the elections. The electoral college, for instance, has undermined democratic representation when, in recent decades, popular votes did not align with electoral college outcomes. Given that Democrats have won the popular vote in every election since Bush’s 2004 victory [3], is it surprising that there is little appetite to grant the 'right to rule' to leaders who are—quite literally— ‘unpopular’?

 

In contrast, modern France’s view of freedom is likely shaped by its recent history of being thoroughly mauled by fascism. This experience has led the French to double down on their commitment to universal suffrage and two-round elections as institutional defenses against authoritarianism. Although not indissoluble, every vote is counted with a net effect. The first-round acts as an alarm bell, motivating protest votes in the second. Chaos enshrined!

 

“France, as it is, isn't any worse than if it were worse!” [4]

— Coluche, Me, I'm okay, 1977.

 

Bottom line, American freedom is characterized by freedom ‘from’ rule of any government, whereas in France, by entrusting the wardenship of freedom to the ruler, ‘liberté’ is protected by a government’s freedom ‘to’ rule in solidarity with its people. The crystallizing difference is that the American sentiment emphasizes minimal government interference, while the French approach sees a more active role for government in safeguarding democratic values. Though both systems have their strengths and weaknesses, this odd phenomenon underscores the subtlety in how different paths can reach the same mountaintop.

 

Nothing is truly stable, however. It appears the upcoming US November election is prompting a reevaluation of America’s conventional concept of liberty. Republicans have historically hogged the identity of American freedom for themselves, often effectively capitalizing on that legacy to trick consumers into blindly supporting total deregulation. The concern is that if Americans overlook the fascist dimension now frequently televised by the GOP, they may end up supporting the same unstable party at the polls. The Republican candidate would be advertised as the only voice offering, superficially at least, 'freedom from government' in its traditional form, all the while subversively backed by agents with socially retarding agendas [5].

Fortunately, this has not gone unnoticed by Democratic leadership in this election, indeed pressuring them to forcefully promote American freedom in distinctive ways, framing contentious positions like ‘freedom to choose’ abortion as ‘freedom from government interference’ in personal bodily autonomy [6]. A uniquely American example of a government campaigning for the voter’s right to be free from its own control. You may want to read that again if you’re French. In fact, many moderate Republicans have crossed over to the Democratic party, converting the ladder into a far more diverse coalition reminiscent of French systems and warping the former into a considerably more concentrated petri-dish of extremist theocrats. This positive imbalance may win the election for Democrats again [7].

These party shifts in domestic political discourse telegraph a broader trend where American notions of freedom influence cultural narratives abroad. Social media has amplified the dominance of Americanisms, abusively exporting its version of freedom to Europe, in many cases, as streams of nonsense. A plague of unhinged freedom-fighting smartphone reels has not only infected intellectualism domestically, but overseas as well; drowning out reasonable discourse, and disproportionately energizing a brand of emotionally toxic televangelistic demagoguery. A pivotal cultural plot point regarding the meaning of freedom in France may soon be reached as this American fashion becomes normalized.

This is not to say that the Franco-American transaction is a one-way streak. Indeed, an outsider’s observation of the recent history of French elections [more here], combined with a general exhaustion of the American system, has refueled movements like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact [8], which broadly seeks to eliminate the electoral college in favor of the popular vote. If successful, this transformative shift could not only affect future US elections, but also be a path to reshaping the American relationship between freedom and government as we know it.

In a twist of irony, from French-fry to freedom-fry, could we be witnessing a curly-fry transformation — a conspiracy where intertwining French and American philosophies of ‘freedom’ eventually swap places?



[1] Original French; « Libre-penseur. Penseur suffirait. »

Renard, J. (1925) Les oeuvres complètes de jules renard: (1864-1910) Vol 14, Bibliothèque nationale de France | Gallica. Paris, Ile de France: F. Bernouard. Available at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1065632d/f210.item# (Accessed: 2024).


[2] Constitution de 1848, IIe République (1848) Conseil Constitutionnel. Available at: https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/les-constitutions-dans-l-histoire/constitution-de-1848-iie-republique (Accessed: 12 August 2024).

"IV. - Elle a pour principe la Liberté, l'Egalité et la Fraternité. Elle a pour base la Famille, le Travail, la Propriété, l'Ordre public."


[3] O’Neill, A. (2024) Share of electoral and popular votes by US president 1789-2020, Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1034688/share-electoral-popular-votes-each-president-since-1789/ (Accessed: 08 August 2024).

 

[4] Original French; Moi, ça va, « La France, comme elle est, c'est pas plus mal que si c'était pire ! »

 

[5]  Conservative policy wish list:


[6] Walz, T. (2024) Gov. Walz on ‘Minding your own damn business’, C-SPAN.org. Available at: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5127569%2Fgov-walz-minding-damn-business (Accessed: 08 August 2024).

 

[7] Fabrizio, Lee & Associates (2020) Post election exit poll analysis 10 key target states, Politico.com. Available at: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000177-6046-de2d-a57f-7a6e8c950000 (Accessed: 08 August 2024).

 

[8] National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (2024) Ballotpedia. Available at: https://ballotpedia.org/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact (Accessed: 08 August 2024).

All audio is AI generated.

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