354 / Legislating Reality

The idea that we "legislate" reality (or morality, for that matter) is to propose a metaphor.

It is a metaphor that I find particularly congenial, having spent lots of time in the legislative process, either as a (local) legislator, myself, or as a lobbyist in Sacramento, where I participated in the legislative process from another angle.

Since I think that the world we most directly inhabit is, truly, "what we make it," I like the idea that we "make" the world by following the written-down instructions that we develop ourselves, in that collective process called "legislation." Once the debates and discussion are done, and the conflicts and controversies about what we should do are resolved, we "legislate," or enact a law that is the written prescription we follow, as we try to make the world we want.

It's a good metaphor.

In the image, it is Lincoln and Douglas in the "discussion and debate phase" of the process!