"Making up Stories": Law and Imagination in Contemporary Canada‪.‬

"Adeimantus," I said, "you and i are not making up stories at the moment; we're founding a community." Plato, Republic, Book II IN PLATO'S CAVE, as we know, representation was already a problem and troping of representation--art--even more so. The "distortions" produced by written words occasioned "danger" and potential "harm" a particular concern in the establishment of a "well-regulated community" where "at least for the general rank and file, obedience to those in authority and establishing one's authority over the pleasures of drink, sex, and food" were paramount (Republic Book III). In Canada since R. v. Sharpe and R. v. Malmo-Levine we appear to be less concerned with drink and food and more with sex and drugs but the concern with representation remains and I suspect that Plato would feel right at home.