The three m's—mediation, postmodernism, and the new millennium

Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction to modernism. A modernist culture, built over the last few centuries around forms of rationality, self‐discipline, and scientific values, is succumbing to the effects of rapid and unprecedented technological and economic change. The weakness of modernist thinking was the search for unitary definitions and the reduction under one label of complex clusters of thought. This article investigates the strengths and weaknesses of postmodernist and poststructuralist ideas for mediation at the beginning of the new millennium and argues that some aspects of postmodernist thinking are important to mediation—in particular the recognition of the power of language, or discourse, to reflect and shape the world. Postmodernism rejects dualistic thinking, notions of “neutrality” and “objectivity,” and mega theories or overarching “truths,” and celebrates diversity and conflict. Postmodernism offers mediators a new way of thinking about thinking but has its drawbacks when considering issues of human rights.