Master of All Masters

-- By AmandaRichardson - 12 Feb 2008

Goes without saying

There is an axiom in anthropology: "That which comes without saying goes without saying" (Google is unilluminating on who originally uttered this). The false assumptions and the magical thinking of other cultures are clear; it takes work to find our own.

The mystique of the Constitution

Like any culture, America has many creation myths.
Some of these myths don't follow the anthropological model: we do learn them in school, and the very fact that we can remember learning them makes them relatively easy to unlearn, or at least to rethink. The Constitution, as the most essential symbol of our nation, is largely an unexamined bedrock. We all have vague ideas about what the document actually says; what is important is our collective belief not in the words but in the what we believe the work of the Constitution is.

Santa Claus isn't real?

The Constitution, however, is not a document handed down from on high, or from mythical "Founding Fathers." It is a set of compromises made by fallible men that has held together for over two centuries by nothing more than a collective willingness to believe.
The Constitution functions as a smokescreen behind which the doings of the government actually take place, and the contradictions between what we, as a nation, say we do (e.g. protect freedom) and what we actually do (e.g. wiretap) are resolved, then, by the magic box of a document no one reads.

Law school as demystifier

Lawyers know better. At least, they seem to think they do. They've read the Constitution. Not only that, they understand it; how it was molded, what the Framers intended, how it can evolve.
If logic and magic are both structural elements of human thinking, as Frank asserts, then how do we get from the myth of the Constitution (magic) to the myth of understanding the Constitution (magic masquerading as logic)?

ConLaw

A Columbia professor recently said that February is the most depressing month of 1L year. While the weather undoubtedly plays a part in this, it is no coincidence that February is when we begin to uncover and do away with the myth of the Constitution.
The anomie, the angst, the unwillingness to do the reading: there is a profound sense of loss that goes along with having one’s assumptions about the world challenged.
Law school, in other words, engenders a crisis of faith.
In Marbury v Madison, for example, we learn that the right of judicial review, rather than being a concept handed down from on high, is simply a fiction created by Marshall out of nothing more than gumption and good writing.
Similarly, Cherokee Nation v State of Georgia reveals, to paraphrase Andrew Jackson, that the Supreme Court can make its decisions but without popular, or at least executive, support there is very little it can do to enforce them.
The Supreme Court, it is revealed, has neither a solid mandate to make many of its decisions nor the power to enforce them. The work of ConLaw (and, similarly, other 1L classes) seems to be to break down our implicit assumptions about American government.

Hot Cockalorum

The most important work of law school is not in breaking us down but in remolding us in the image of "the lawyer."
There is, then, a two-fold purpose in rebuilding our faith in the Constitution and the law. It is difficult (if not impossible) to function in the world without a belief system, and law students are no exception to this rule. Becoming versed in the obscure rituals of the law community thus provides lawyers with an alternative to the rituals of American society-at-large; it also, more practically, serves to preserve the profession of the law, and thus the ability to obtain money from those who have yet to learn the code.

How do we rebuild our myths?

How these myths are rebuilt and reshaped is still a mystery to me. As law students we all acquire a language that sets us apart from those not in our particular culture. We also learn a reverence for actions that we were unaware of before law school; for artful opinions, for well-argued briefs, for, perhaps, one school of interpretation or another; and we relearn a belief in the ability of legal words to shape the doings of the world.
The shock of the tenuousness of the law and of the pervasiveness of legal constructions (lies) gives way to admiration and even adoration.

Is it possible to function in a magicless society?

Arnold starts from “the assumption that social creed, law, economics, and so on have no meaning whatever apart from the organization to which they are attached” (23), and expounds this theme quite convincingly.
The law should be about protection. The value of the Constitution, then, is as a symbol; we can’t exist as a society without a collective belief in the idea that we have definable rights which have their source in something external and knowable.
Our traditions, therefore, aren't just blind rituals. They have a purpose. Arnold goes on to say that “the art of government consists in the technique of achieving willing popular acceptance” (45); in other words, social change must come from both changing the law and changing societal beliefs about what the law should be.
Our work as law students lies not just in understanding and then rebuilding our core societal myths but in remembering that that is what they are. Things might be what they do, not what they’re called; that doesn’t mean that what they are called is unimportant. Words, like myths, can obscure, can manipulate, can create hope or dash it; words can become so disconnected from acts that they become more important than the work they are doing.
The search for truth, then, is just a distraction. Perhaps our most important work is recognizing the power that comes with mastering these obfuscations and remembering to use it (responsibly? but here we come to another question altogether).

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| MASTER OF ALL MASTERS
A Girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things. He said to her, "What will you call me?"
"Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.
He said, "You must call me 'master of all masters.' And what would you call this?" pointing to his bed.
"Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, that's my 'barnacle'. And what do you call these?" said he, pointing to his pantaloons.
"Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call them 'squibs and crackers.' And what would you call her?" pointing to the cat.
"Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call her 'white-faced simminy' And this now," showing the fire, "what would you call this?"
"Fire or flame, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it 'hot cockalorum'; and what this?" he went on, pointing to the water.
"Water or wet, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, 'pondalorum' is its name. And what do you call all this?" asked he, as he pointed to the house.
"House or cottage, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it 'high topper mountain.'"
That very night the servant woke her master up in a fright and said, "Master of all masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and unless you get some pondalorum high topper mountain will be all on hot cockalorum...."