ABSTRACT
Stories of silencing and cultural separation succeed each other all the time, flowing like a dense tide between both countries. Complaints, insults, or critiques to the sovereign were deemed as detrimental interferences to the regime itself. The basic argument consisted in admitting that the sovereign had decision-making privileges over everyone else. In theory, every act of forced silencing has repressive components, for it is exercised as a frontal rupture, averse to social conventions. Even in Ancient Greece restrictions were applied to the expression of one’s opinions, imposed by the sitting monarch at the time. A discord which is legitimized from this vicious circle can already be seen since Hobbes assumes that, in the virtue of belonging to a governed community, the subjects have joint responsibility for the decisions taken by the sovereign. However, under certain circumstances, people also make an effort to “break silences” as an act of alternative power.
