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88 Mich. L. Rev. 1142 (1989-1990)
Heritage Preservation as a Public Duty: The Abbe Gregoire and the Origins of an Idea

handle is hein.journals/mlr88 and id is 1164 raw text is: HERITAGE PRESERVATION AS A PUBLIC DUTY: THE ABBE GREGOIRE AND THE ORIGINS OF AN IDEAt Joseph L. Sax* Public responsibility for the conservation of artifacts of historic or aesthetic value is now acknowledged everywhere. One way or another the state will ensure preservation of a Stonehenge or a Grand Canyon as well as a great many lesser cultural icons. We have names for such things - heritage and cultural property are two of them; patri- mony is a European counterpart - but these words have no very specific meaning. Many, but by no means all, of the objects we feel constrained to protect are old. They include human artifacts as well as natural objects or places. Though it is customary to say that no one has a right to destroy those things comprising our heritage, many such items, especially works of art, are held and enjoyed as ordinary private goods without public access or regulation of any kind. This inconsistency illustrates the paradox of historical preserva- tion. As uncontroversial as heritage preservation may appear when one thinks of historic monuments and artistic masterworks, the idea of an officially designated culture seems greatly at odds with modern sen- sibilities. The very idea of government involving itself in cultural life raises the unwelcome specter of censorship on one side and official propaganda on the other. In addition, there is the more general ques- tion of cultural policy as a tool of a paternalistic state that aspires to make its citizens good, a notion that has lost all cachet in our time. In short, state cultural policies appear to be out of harmony with modern ideas about the role of government. Nonetheless they flourish. Obvi- ously there is some very strong attraction to the idea of a common heritage: a people and a community bound together in some shared enterprise with shared values. How did protection of cultural values come to be viewed as a proper public concern in a modern world centered on the liberty and autonomy of the individual? The pages that follow trace out one his- torical strand of the story in the hope of casting some light into this t © 1990 by Joseph L. Sax. * James H. House and Hiram H. Hurd Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley. A.B. 1957, Harvard; J.D. 1959, University of Chicago. - Ed. 1142

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