CONCLUSION May We Dream New Worlds into Being: Transforming Status-Quo Stories

Abstract

Like Patricia Williams, I believe that we play a crucial role in shaping the worlds we inhabit. All too often, however, we do not recognize this creative power. Born into a reality filled with customs, stories, and myths that have already been recirculated countless times, we’re taught in ways both subtle and overt that these status-quo stories are permanent, unchanging reflections of “The Truth.” As I explained in chapter one, status-quo stories reaffirm and reinforce the existing social system, making reality monolithic and fixed.

[T]o a very great extent we dream our worlds into being. For better or worse, our customs and laws, our culture and society are sustained by the myths we embrace, the stories we recirculate to explain what we behold. I believe that racism’s hardy persistence and immense adaptability are sustained by a habit of human imagination, defective rhetoric, and hidden license. I believe no less that an optimistic course could be charted, if only we could imagine it.

Patricia Williams¹