He said that in the trade of which were the only aspirants, such fetishism found expression mainly in the legal code of dress and traditions. Judges wore horsehair wigs artificially greyed to fake wisdom even as, on occasion, there was more in the wig than beneath it.
They sat in exalted positions, perched high above everyone, lawyers and the public having to angle our gaze at them in the same way a fervent worshipper looks to heaven when in prayer. We called them “My Lords” and “Your Worship” in ardent flattery. Instead of applying for orders, we “prayed” for orders and petitioned them to grant our prayers. The Judge wore priestly robes in his “judgement seat”, like an imaginary Jesus Christ choosing which prayers to grant and which to refuse, often, tempering justice with mercy as God did with the sinful David. We even called ourselves “ministers in the temple of justice” and swore on the Bible or the Koran to assert the sanctity of the oath.
