have not yet been totally blighted by aggressivernfeminism, it is still regarded asrnquite normal for an enterprising youngrnman to be a dragueur and to honor thernpassage of a lovely demoiselle with arnshower of flattering compliments.rnThe attentions lavished by photographicrnpaparazzi on their chosen victimrnare obviously of quite a different order.rnThey are a radically new and offensivernspecies generated by what Daniel Boorstin,rnanticipating Marshall McLuhan,rncalled the “graphic revolution” —thernamplification, not to say the replacement,rnof the printed word by the printedrnimage.rnIt was, if ever there was one, the triumphrnof the smutty image over thernsmutty word, one more shameless indulgencernin vicarious sin, in fin-de-sieclernvoyeurisme, for which the popular appetiterntoday seems to be unlimited. AsrnAlbert Camus noted decades ago in hisrnlast novel, La Chute, a modern parablernbased on Dante’s Inferno, the two dominantrntypes of contemporary “sinners” arernthe “fornicators and newspaper-readers.”rnThere was indeed a cruel irony in therntitle conferred by semiliterate newsmenrnand newswomen on Princess Dianarnimmediately after her death. She hadrnceased to be merely human; she hadrnbeen raised to the level of myth; she hadrnquite simply become an “icon” (morerncorrectly spelled “ikon”) —the Greekrnword for “image.”rnIt has been glaringly apparent forrnsome time that if any semblance of decencyrnis to be preserved in the West,rnsomething will have to be done to curbrnthe invasive excesses of the “Fourth Estate.”rnSome 20 years ago, English criticrnGeorge Steiner wrote a brilliant article inrnKncounter in which he declared that thernprotection of individual privacy againstrnthe increasingly arrogant invasions of thernpress was going to be one of the majorrnproblems of the final years of this century.rnHe was right, but his prophedc admonitionrnseems to have fallen on deafrnears.rnThis stubborn deafness—or perhaps,rnin this age of imager)- and mass idolatry,rnone should call it blindness —is by nornmeans limited to journalists and newspaperrneditors who find it quite normal tornpander shamelessl}’ to the sick curiosityrnof the public. For the intellectual rot hasrnspread so far that in the United States todayrnit has thoroughly corrupted membersrnof the “Third Power”—that of thernjudiciary—who now openly confess thatrnthey can no longer define the nature ofrn”obscenity” and who can regard a crucifixrnin a pool of urine as a “work of art”rnand a perfectly valid expression of thern”freedom of speech” guaranteed by thernFirst Amendment.rnAll of the great minds who over therncenturies formulated the basic principlesrnupon which our civic (but now increasinglyrnuncivic) life depends understoodrnone thing insdnctively, simply becausernthey had been brought up on a study ofrnthe Greek and Roman classics: an excessrnof liberty (potentially a virtue) leads inexorablyrnto license (unquestionably a vice).rnSo it was with John Milton, the first greatrndefender of freedom of expression; withrnJohn Locke, the first to propound thernheretical notion (contradicting the divinernright of kings to rule) of majorityrnrule —one radically different, I mightrnadd, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s totalitarianrnnotion of la souverainete du peuple;rnwith Montesquieu, the farsighted advocaternof the principle of the separationrnof powers, on which the United StatesrnConstitution is based; with Alexis dernTocqueville, with his prophetic warningsrnagainst the tyranny of public opinionrnin American democracy; and withrnJohn Stuart Mill, whose brilliant essayrnOn Libert}’ is something that every politicianrnin every modern democracy shouldrnbe required to read, and to reread once arnyear. Because all these men were familiarrnwith the history of ancient Greecernand Rome, they knew that democracy secretesrna deadly toxin the ancient Greeksrncalled “demagogy,” and that liberty, if allowedrnto run wild, degenerates into anarchyrnand license, and from there just asrnnaturally into tyranny.rnLast August, Claude Imbert, the editorrnof the weekly Le Point, had the luminousrnidea of devoting part of a midsummerrnholiday issue to the distinctlyrnuncontemporary figure of Plato, hailedrnon the cover as the “inventor of philosophy.”rnIt is typical of the eyecatching “necessities”rnof our mass-circulafion age thatrnsuch a well-inspired initiative shouldrnhave been marred by such an inaccuraternaffirmation. Plato, far from being thern”inventor” of philosophy, was a relativernlatecomer to the intellectual scene whornhad been preceded by a number of genuinernpioneers —Thales, Anaxagoras,rnXenophanes, Pythagoras, Heraclitus,rnParmenides, Empedocles, etc. —whornwanted to recreate some kind of rationalrnorder from the collapsing debris ofrnOlympian mythology. But what mostrnsurprised me about this otherwise admirablernattempt to educate the readingrnpublic was that none of the highly competentrncontributors to Le Point stressedrnthe fact that it is to Plato that we owe thernvery notion of “value” and “values.”rnIt is highly significant that Plato, whornspent most of his life trying to distinguishrnwhat is valuable and imperishable fromrnwhat is transient and deceptive, shouldrnhave devoted his various dialogues tornthings like beauty, goodness, friendship,rnjustice, wisdom, love, God, the nature ofrnthe afterlife, etc., but that it never occurredrnto him to devote an entire dialoguernto liberty. The reason was simplyrnthat, whereas wisdom, beauty, goodness,rnor justice can be regarded as absolute valuesrnor ideals, liberty is only a relative valuernor ideal. Liberty is not something thatrnhas any substantial existence; it is simplyrna possibility. It is freedom to do this orrnthat, freedom to be this or that: generousrnor miserly, courageous or cowardly, honestrnor dishonest, kindhearted or cruel,rnselfish or unselfish, hardworking or lazy,rnresponsible or irresponsible, truthful orrnmendacious, polite or rude, discreet orrnindiscreet.rnUltimately, it is not the mere fact ofrnbeing free that matters; what matters isrnwhat one chooses to do with freedom. Itrnis one of the great merits of 20th-centuryrnphilosophy, whether “resistantialist” (likernOrtega y Gasset’s) or “existentialist” (likernJean-Paul Sartre’s), to have recognizedrnthat the constricting nature of freedomrn—which is always a freedom ofrnchoice—is the very basis of the humanrncondition. As Sartre put it: man, whetherrnhe likes it or not, is condemned to bernfree.rnThis is a truth, however, that our contemporaryrnworld seems bent on ignoring.rnLike the French revolutionaries, whornraised “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” tornthe level of absolute ideals (not realizingrnthat they were inherently contradictory,rnnot to say incompatible), the contemporaryrnWestern world has made freedomrnan end in itself, an absolute, sacrosanctrnvalue to which ever^-thing else—dignity,rndecency, privacy—must be subordinated.rnBoth “freedom of expression” and arnnew, cynically exploited absolute—thern”right to be informed”—are now beingrninvoked to justify’ every outrage, no matterrnhow despicable and pernicious.rnThey are inviolable “principles” thatrncannot be tampered with; they have becomerna “law” unto itself, and one thatrnthus takes precedence over all others.rnDECEMBER 1997/39rnrnrn