Greeks lived in a world that included Titans, Olympians, and assorted heroes. Their natural and social world was constituted, made intelligible and coherent, and given a point by narratives that were passed on orally and in dramas or epic poems. Christians live in a world constituted by narratives about God, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, the disciples, Paul and many others. These stories are told in sacred texts, rituals, songs, and various traditional practices. These stories describe the creation of the world, the human condition, and the struggles of heroic figures. They extol certain values and virtues. Collectively they function to connect individual human lives with ultimate values and purposes. American law is also a normative world--a nomos --that is: constituted by, given coherence and intelligibility by, and infused with values by, a set of stories that have distinctive mythic themes, structure and elements.
In what follows, I will begin by briefly reviewing some of the basic structures and functions of myths. This will lead to a discussion of some of the fundamental mythic aspects of
American law. I will then describe how adopting what I call the "mythic stance" can play an important role in the life and career of an individual legal practitioner. The implication of this conclusion is that legal educators--both in law schools and in undergraduate institutions--should help their students to acquire the ability to adopt the mythic stance.
After the Enlightenment and under the influence of scientism, Western culture conditioned people to think that myths are a set of false stories once believed by primitive people. Although this perspective is still quite prevalent, there are other academic trends that
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2 enable us to adopt a somewhat different perspective--one that is more open to the wisdom and power of mythic thought and traditions. Many contemporary social theorists acknowledge the vital constitutive role that narratives play in creating and sustaining our social, conceptual and normative frameworks. For example, Amsterdam and Bruner point out that contemporary thinkers "now understand that stories are not just recipes for stringing together a set of "hard facts"; that, in some profound, often puzzling way, stories construct the facts that comprise them.
For this reason, much of human reality and its "facts" are not merely recounted by narrative but constituted by it."
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However, not all narratives are myths. Narratives typically have a structure that includes: a setting, a set of characters, an initiating event, an attempt, consequences, and a plot solution.
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Some, but not all, myths exhibit these structural features. Additionally, narratives can range from the mundane to the profound. Whereas myths are never mundane. They relate to the fundamental aspects of the creation of our world, the human condition, and the values and purposes that give meaning to our lives. Although there are many different cultures and many
1 Amsterdam, Anthony G. and Jerome Bruner Minding the Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P. 2000; p. 111. This point relates to the famous hermeneutical circle according to which, "we justify our choice of bitty facts by appealing to how well they fit into the whole [story], while supporting our interpretation of the whole [story] by celebrating how well it encompasses the parts. While not fatal, the hermeneutic circle should at least promote a certain modesty about the issue of factuality." Jerome Bruner "What is Narrative Fact?" Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 1998, 560, 17-27.
2 This list is paraphrased from McAdams The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self.
NewYork: Guilford Press, 1993: p. 25-6. Amserdam and Bruner offer the following "austere" definition:
A narrative can purport to be either a fiction or a real account of events; it does not have to specify which.
It needs a cast of human-like characters, beings capable of willing their own actions, forming intentions, holding beliefs, having feelings.
It also needs a plot with a beginning, a middle, and an end, in which particular characters are involved in particular events. The unfolding of the plot requires (implicitly or explicitly):
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an initial steady state grounded in the legitimate ordinariness of things
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that gets disrupted by a Trouble consisting of circumstances attributable to human agency or susceptible to change by human intervention,
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in turn evoking efforts at redress or transformation, which succeed or fail,
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so that the old steady state is restored or a new ( transformed) steady state is created,
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and the story concludes by drawing the then-and -there of the tale that has been told into the hereand-now of the telling through some coda --say, for example, Aesop's characteristic moral of the story .
Amsterdam & Bruner, p.113-4.

3 different mythic traditions I think that we can usefully proceed with this project by using the following characterization of myths. Roughly, a myth is a communal or personal narrative that elucidates basic features of the human condition in a way that constitutes and sustains a conceptual and/or normative framework that gives intelligibility and purpose to our institutions, practices, or individual actions.
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Myths express the unspoken consensus, the habitual way of seeing things, the unquestioned assumptions, and the automatic stance. When they are most effective, they constitute and express the "truth"--"the way things really are". Accordingly, myths govern the way we see reality and the way we behave. Mythic narratives frequently include archetypal symbols.
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Archetypes are themes or symbols that frequently occur in various cultures across time. For example, many mythic traditions include creation myths, stories about the characteristics and exploits of the gods, stories of love and loss, and stories about heroic adventures. Some myths positively depict values and others celebrate the virtues personified by the pantheon of heroes.
Prior to the scientific revolution, myths provided people with a framework that explained and justified both the causal and the normative order. Today, we rely on science for our explanations of the causal order.
5 However, most people still rely on myths-- both religious and secular--to explain and justify the axiomatic values, norms, and aims of individual human lives
3 Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox write that myths are "an intricate set of interlocking stories, rituals, rites, and customs that inform and give the pivotal sense of meaning and direction to a person, family, community, or culture.
Keen, Sam and Anne Valley-Fox Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through Writing and
Storytelling. New York: Putnam Publ.: 1973, p. xi. Eric J. Sharpe defines a myth as "a type of narrative which seeks to express in imaginative form a belief about man, the world or deity which cannot adequately be expressed in simple proprositions." Fifty Key Words: Comparative Religion (London: Lutterworth Press, 1971), p. 43.
4 Jacques Waardenburg indicates that "symbols"--in contrast to "signs"--represent what they signify. Furthermore, unlike "metaphors" which bring together two dimensions of the same linguistic nature, symbols bring together a linguistic and a non-linguistic dimensions. "Symbolic Aspect of Myth" in Myth, Symbol, and Reality edited by
Alan M. Olson. Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press 1980: p.42.

4 and social institutions. Myths help us to manage the "big questions" in a way that is useful on a day to day basis. By representing these abstract and contentious matters in story form, myths provide "user-friendly" touchstones or guideposts for living a life of integrity and coherence.
Once it is recognized that mythic narratives constitute the social order in every culture in every era, it is easy to see the importance of adopting what I will call the "mythic stance". The mythic stance is an intellectual and emotional disposition that: (1) is alert to the narrative and mythic elements in our culture, and (2) expects to gain insights, empowerment or perspective by comparing our cultural and personal narratives with the mythic themes, structures, and symbols found in other cultures or at other times. It is worth noting at this point that the mythic stance enables a person to be more effective at either perpetuating the myths, institutions, and practices that they find positive or in resisting or undermining those that they feel are negative.
I want to conclude this section with a brief comment on the relationship between social and personal mythic narratives. Each individual dwells within a social context that is constituted by the full set of social myths. However, within that social context, there is a residual of creative space within which each individual can craft their own personal myths. Sam Keen and
Anne Valley-Fox point out that, "We gain the full dignity and power of our persons only when we create a narrative account of our lives, dramatize our existence, and forge a coherent personal myth that combines elements of our cultural myth and family myth with unique stories that come from our experience."
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David Feinstein and Stanley Krippner point out that "Your personal mythology is a lens that gives meaning to every situation you meet and determines what you will do in it. Personal myths speak to the broad concerns with identity (Who am I?), direction
5 I do not mean to imply here that science does not contain or rely upon myths or narratives. On the other hand, it is important to acknowledge that we have abandoned the teleological conception of the natural world.
6 Keen & Valley-Fox, p. xiv.

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(Where am I going?), and purpose (Why am I going there?)."
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"Personal myths explain the external world, guide personal development, provide social direction, and address spiritual questions in a manner that is analogous to the way that cultural myths carry out those functions for entire groups of people. . . . .It is the lens through which you perceive the world. Its values and assumptions color all you see."
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Your personal myths "result in your characteristic styles of perceiving, feeling, thinking, and acting." They are what unify your sense of self into a coherent focal point for the narrative of your life.
9 They are the "motif in the inner life of a single mortal."
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Robert Cover once said that, "No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning."
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American law is a normative world that is constituted, justified and sustained by an especially rich set of myths.
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For example, our legal system has its own creation myth. We tell a story describing how the "founding fathers" wrote the Declaration of Independence, conducted the Revolution, and participated in the
Constitutional Convention. The central characters in this myth are at least heroes and they are often given almost god-like qualities. This tendency is enhanced because they are, quite literally, the creators of our legal world. Just as God wrote laws to govern the functions of nature, the founding fathers wrote the basic set of rules that govern the functioning of our legal world. Their
7 Feinstein, David and Stanley Krippner The Mythic Path: Discovering the Guiding Stories of Your Past--Creating a
Vision for Your Future. New York: Putnam Books, 1997, p. 6.
8 Feinstein & Krippner, p. 6.
9 This comment is inspired by Alasdair MacIntyre's conception of the self. MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A
Study in Moral Theory 2 nd Edition. Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame U.P. 1984: pp. 216-220.
10 Feinstein & Krippner, p. 7.
11 Cover, Robert M. "Nomos and Narrative" 97 Harv. L. Rev. 4 (1983).
12 For example, as Cover points out, "The normative meaning that has inhered in the patterns of the past will be found in the history of ordinary legal doctrine at work in mundane affairs; in utopian and messianic yearnings,

6 values and virtues are also celebrated in stories. For example, we tell our children about how the founding fathers displayed courage and self-sacrifice as they risked "their lives and fortunes" to bring freedom to our community. The special creation of a republican form of government with three separate but equal branches is ample evidence of their wisdom.
Although formally we long ago abandoned the myth regarding the divine right of kings and thus we occasionally tell a story according to which the people are sovereign, it is clear from many of our narratives that we retain a quasi-religious attitude toward our government. For example, Sanford Levinson points out, we treat the Constitution as a "foundational scripture."
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Furthermore, our "faith" in the Constitution is a central aspect of what he refers to as America's
"civil religion."
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The quasi-religious nature of American law can also be seen in the fact that it is akin to "sacrilegious" to point out that the original Constitution endorsed slavery, lacked a Bill of Rights, and denied women the right to vote.
Like many other myths, our legal narrative is also a story about progress. Ours is not a static creation myth that ends in 1789. Rather, our story continues and includes episodes that describe the addition of the Bill of Rights, the Civil War Amendments, women's suffrage, the
Lochner era, Brown vs Board of Education , and the civil rights movement. We are united as a people, in part, because we are committed to this story's quest for equality, justice, and the rule of law. Like classical myths, our legal myths recapitulate our aspirational ideals while reinforcing and celebrating our on-going efforts to achieve our ultimate values.
The law is also mythic because its stories relate to its ultimate values--which, for our purposes, I will identify as truth, justice, and order. Now, as every law student and lawyer will imaginary shapes given to a less resistant reality; in apologies for power and privilege and in the critiques that may be leveled at the justificatory enterprise of law." Cover, p. 9.

7 quickly tell you, "Truth and Justice might be the ideal aim of law, but what matters on a day to day basis is the-law-in-practice." This separation of the practical and the ideal is precisely the kind of division that myths are designed to cope with. Myths function to link the mundane to the transcendent. As Robert Cover points out, narratives "relate our normative system to our social construction of reality and to our visions of what the world might be."
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Due to its abstract nature and its contestability, it is difficult to strive directly for an ultimate value like justice. We cope with this difficulty by telling ourselves a myth about "procedural due process". Like Adam
Smith's "invisible hand", justice is supposed to emerge from the clash of opposing advocates who are zealously striving to achieve their client's individual aims. Thus, trial lawyers dwell within a story according to which the best way to achieve truth and justice is through an adversarial system governed by fair procedures.
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I will conclude this section by describing an instance of the fertility of playing within the mythic stance. As I prepared this paper, I thought it would be useful to examine what Ancient
Greek mythology said about law and justice. I found out that Themis--who represents Order-had three daughters--Dike (Justice), Eirene (Peace) and Eunomia (Harmony). According to that mythic tradition, Justice, Peace and Harmony provide "the secure foundation of cities." This led me to ask myself, "What story do we tell ourselves about the "secure foundation of our cities?" I immediately thought of our social contract myth. According to this myth, autonomous, individuals--motivated out of fear, and self-interested prudence--agree to surrender some of their natural liberty so that the government can use force to protect everyone's life, liberty, and
13 Levinson, Sanford. "Pledging Faith in the Civil Religion, Or, Would You Sign the Constitution?" 29 Wm and
Mary L. Rev. 113, 125 (1987).
14 Levinson, p. 115.
15 Cover, p. 10.

8 property. Like the Greek myth, the primary values achieved by the social contract are stability, predictability, and order. Collectively, we refer to these values as "the rule of law". According to this myth, the very possibility of social life requires the law. Law becomes the sine qua non -the without which not--of society.
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Furthermore, to the extent that lawyers carry out, maintain and advance this story, they can see themselves as archetypes or heroic agents of the gods.
In the preceding section, I was only able to provide a passing glimpse at a few of the social myths of American law. However, as I mentioned above, social myths provide the context within which individuals create the personal myths and narratives that guide them and constitute their individuality. This naturally leads to the question, "What personal myths or narratives inform or guide the lives of American lawyers?" Obviously, there are as many answers to this question as there are lawyers. In what follows, I will again offer a few examples and present some reflections that will illustrate the benefits of adopting the mythic stance with respect to law and the legal profession. My reflections are by no means exhaustive and thus I encourage everyone to explore this matter for themselves. I think you will be surprised by the insights that emerge.
Robert Cover points out that, "To inhabit a nomos is to know how to live in it."
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Another commentator points out that we find a model for learning how to live in stories about heroism.
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If this is the case, then we must ask: Who are the heroes in the Legal Story? What virtues do they exemplify? Who are the villains and what are their vices? One of the
16 The principles of due process are even given the accolade "natural". They include precepts like "no one should be a judge in their own case", "like cases should be treated alike", and "the judge should be neutral between the competing parties".
17 Law is the zaddikim or the sustainer of the world.
18 Cover, p. 5.

9 consequences of living in the modern era is the fact that our society does not provide us with a unitary conception of the good. This pluralism makes it difficult to identify heroes that everyone will acknowledge. It also means that there is a wide array of views about what counts as a virtue. Consider, for example, the difference between taking someone like Kenneth Star or
David Boies as your personal hero as compared--let's say--with someone like William Kunstler or Morris Dees. Some people take Justice Scalia to be an exemplar, while others prefer either
John or Thurgood Marshall. Personal growth and professional development can sometimes be advanced by taking the time to identify and analyze the features of your personal heroes.
One very common mythic theme or archetype is the coming of age story or the quest narrative. It involves a young person who leaves their community on a quest. On this journey, they encounter a challenge. If they have the proper virtues, they survive the trial and they acquire either wisdom or something of tangible value. They then return to enhance their community with the aide of this treasure or wisdom. This is exactly the point at which the mythic stance exhibits its special power. From the mythic stance we immediately find ourselves asking an incredibly rich set of questions. So, for example: "If the legal practitioner is analogous to the hero figure--How do they leave the community? What is their quest? What tests do they face? What virtues are required for success? What is gained in the process? And, how do they bring their gift back to the community?"
It is easy to imagine a young person developing a personal narrative that involves leaving home to go off to college and law school. Exams, difficult professors, and job interviews are the obstacles that must be vanquished. The student will need a wide array of both intellectual and practical virtues to succeed. The reward is knowledge of the law and a job. At this point, I
19 Pearson, Carol S. Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform

10 wondered about the culmination of the thematic pattern when the heroes return to share their new-found prize or wisdom with their community. How do American lawyers complete their heroic journey? As I focused on this question, it occurred to me that pro bono work might be one way that a lawyer gives back to his or her community.
Prior to doing this project, I had always considered pro bono work to be charity, plain and simple. Conceived of as charity, it had all of the features associated with that concept and moral framework. For example, it is easy to imagine a firm's business manager saying, " Pro bono work confers an economic benefit to those in need who cannot otherwise afford to purchase the service. As a member of this profession, you are expected to do some pro bono work. You will be praised for doing it, but you will not exactly be blamed if you don't." Such a statement clearly expresses the view that this kind of charity is a bothersome encumbrance on your primary responsibilities and objectives.
How different would your attitude toward pro bono work be if it were seen and felt from within the mythic as opposed to the economic narrative? Under the heroic narrative, it would be the culmination of your heroic quest. It would provide meaning and purpose to everything that your career is about. My point is not that one must think of pro bono work in this way. Rather, my point is that it is the ability to adopt the mythic stance that generated this rich and potentially valuable alternative way of thinking about one's life and one's career.
Let's consider another example of the power of the mythic stance. The mythic archetype for the typical trial lawyer would be Ares, the warrior. The world that Ares sees is dominated by images of battle and conflict. Everyone is seen either as an ally or a foe. The dominant concern is with strategic advantage. But suppose that rather than adopting that persona and framework of
Our World. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991: p. 1.

11 reference, a young lawyer was to intentionally adopt the persona or archetype of Athena (the goddess of "pragmatic wisdom that proves especially useful in peacemaking and adjudicating interpersonal conflicts"
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), Demeter (the Caregiver) or Hestia (the ritualists who preserves the domestic traditions that bring people together in family and community
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)? Adopting the persona of these gods suggests a commitment to building and sustaining community.
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Comparing Ares to Demeter or Hestia might help a lawyer to see that mediation or arbitration is often a better path than adjudication.
In conclusion, I'd like to explicitly describe a few of the advantages that can be gained by adopting the mythic stance. To begin with, as Devid Feinstein and Stanley Krippner point out,
"The ability to name your myths is the first step to changing those which are dysfunctional in your life."
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Benjamin Sells' book The Soul of the Law is an extended and wide ranging description of the various scripts that practicing lawyers inhabit which ultimately are destructive to their mental health. The mythic stance can help a person to recognizing the myths, narratives, symbols, and metaphors of one's social context and of one's personal vision. Furthermore, this recognition can empower change.
Second, throughout this paper, I have neglected to mention the fact that myths have an essentially conservative function. Historically myths have played an important role in passing on traditional ways to the younger generation. In this manner, myths serve to perpetuate the status quo. This function is so wide-spread and so deeply ingrained in our language and culture that it is often not even seen. But, of course, not every tradition is worth perpetuating. Critical
20 McAdams, p. 142.
21 McAdams, p. 158.
22 Some theorists would describe this as the difference between the "care perspective" and the "justice perspective".

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Feminists and Critical Race theorists constantly struggle against the prevailing myths that perpetuate what they take to be an unjust and oppressive social order. Theirs and other similar project can benefit greatly by adopting the mythic stance.
Third, one of the virtues that Alasdair MacIntyre identifies is the virtue of "having an adequate sense of the tradition to which one belongs."
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The mythic stance will help a lawyer gain a deeper set of insights into the most profound and noble aspects of the legal profession.
Furthermore, the mythic stance might help a lawyer to see their work as a calling rather than merely as a job.
Fourth, seeing the legal profession in mythical terms might provide the individual with the perspective that they need to deal effectively with disillusionment, frustration, or defeat. It provides a framework of reference that is larger that yourself and one that links the mundane with the transcendent. These insights can sustain motivation in difficult times.
I hope that my examples are sufficient to provide support my claim that adopting the mythic stance with respect to the law can engender a rich set of insights that might not be available in any other way. I am also confident that adopting the mythic stance will help individual practitioners gain a valuable perspective on their lives as lawyers. The implication that follows from all of the above is that legal educators--either in law school or in undergraduate institutions--should help their students gain the capacity to adopt the mythic stance regarding the law.
23 Feinstein & Krippner, p. 7.
24 MacIntyre, p. 223.