Thinking about the Future and the Need for Action by Mediators (3/3)
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“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.”
–Marianne Williamson (often attributed to Nelson Mandela)
Mediators playing small do not serve the world. Shrinking to accommodate the insecurities or sensitivities or systems of others does not help us to address the real issues. Beyond local dispute resolution, there is no doubt in my mind that mediation provides the ideas, tools, attitudes and aptitudes that can help address many of the bigger issues – our justice systems, our politics, our environment, our species.
I would go further and say that the future of our human civilisation depends to a considerable extent on adopting the kind of approach to disagreement and difference which mediation represents and encourages. We can’t go on fighting over diminishing resources and relying on binary win/lose, black/white decisions to resolve difficult issues such as climate change, distribution of wealth, migration, over-population, water shortage, environmental degradation and territorial disputes.
We can’t secure our futures by traditional power-based bargaining, where hierarchies and force are often used to achieve self-interested ends. We need to cooperate better than we do now, get more bangs for less bucks, recognise a multiplicity of needs, and work really hard to find intersections of interests in order to live interdependently and sustainably, whether we like it or not. We need to enable people to face up to and take risks, and to rediscover autonomy and self help as they work out how to resolve their own issues. In other words, to do all the things we suggest to others in our role as mediators every day.
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