You'd think lawyers all write very formally, right? Well, maybe most do. But Patricia
Williams points out how subjective or less formal writing styles can be useful:
"I am trying to create a genre of legal writing to fill the gaps of traditional
legal scholarship" (319). She points out that "in attempting to fill
the gaps in the discourse of commercial exchange, I hope that the gaps in my own
writing will be self-consciously filled by the reader, as an act of forced mirroring
of meaning-invention" (319). For Williams, the idea of play in making meaning
doesn't stop with non-professional writing. Play enables Williams to really show
and elucidate her thesis.
"The Brass Ring and the Deep Blue Sea" has been used in many arenas.
It's an essay valued in educational and legal contexts. In a recent article
by a group called Indigenous Peoples and the Law, "Slaying the Leviathan:
Critical Jurisprudence and the Teaty," Williams' piece was used to point
out the value of subjective perspective in legal documents, including treaties
(http://www.kennett.co.nz/law/indigenous/1999/50.html).
The story is summarized very well on this website:
Once upon a time, there was a society of priests who built a Celestial City
whose gates were secured by Word-Combination locks. The priests were masters
of the Word, and, within the City, ascending levels of power and treasure
became accessible to those who could learn ascendingly intricate levels of
Word Magic. At the very top level, the priests became gods; and because they
then had nothing left to seek, they engaged in games with which to pass the
long hours of eternity. In particular, they liked to ride their strong, sure-footed
steeds, around and around the perimeter of heaven: now jumping word-hurdles,
now playing polo with the concepts of the moon and of the stars, now reaching
up to touch that pinnacle, that fragment, that splinter of Refined Understanding
which was called Superstanding, the brass ring of their merry-go-round.
In time, some of the priests-turned-gods tired of this sport, denounced it
as meaningless. They donned the garb of pilgrims, seekers once more, and passed
beyond the gates of the Celestial City. In this recursive passage, they acquired
the knowledge of Undoing Words.
Beyond the walls of the City lay a Deep Blue Sea. The priests built themselves
small boats and set sail, determined to explore the uncharted courses, the
open vistas of this new and undefined domain. They wandered for many years
in this manner, until at last they reached a place that was half a circumference
away from the Celestial City. From that point, the City appeared as a mere
shimmering illusion; and the priests knew that at last they had reached a
place which was Beyond the Power of Words. They let down their anchors, the
plumb lines of their reality, and experienced godhood once more.
Under the Celestial City, dying mortals call out their rage and suffering,
battered by a steady rain of sharp hooves whose thundering, sound-drowning
path described the wheel of their misfortune.
At the bottom of the Deep Blue Sea, drowning mortals reached silently and
desperately for drifting anchors dangling from short chains far, far overhead,
which they thought were life-lines meant for them.
