should be mentioned for present purposes, reviewing the Law Commission for the Government in 2000.   Post-modernism and law reform 15 These  experiences  have  convinced  me  that  law  and  properly  structured  legal institutions  are  important.    I  have  the  old-fashioned  belief  that  things  can  be improved by good law-making; legislation is not everything, but it is something. As Justice Kirby put it in the article quoted earlier, “Law Reform is part of the stable machinery of modernity”.¹¹  I have spent now 40 years in the law, much of it  in  reform  activities.    I  am  beginning  to  feel  there  is  a  sense  of  unfulfilled expectations  about  law  reform  and  the  legal  climate  generally.    It  is  to  the philosophical  cause  of  that  unease  I  now  turn.    Legislative  reform  truly  does represent modernity, but we seem to be living in a post-modern age. 16 There seems to be an infection seeping into the legal system in the Western world.   It  is  the  infection  of  post-modernism.¹²    It  has  implications  for  law  reform.    It constitutes a serious challenge to law reform.  Post-modernism is marked by the break  up  of  the  nation  state  and  the  weakening  of  normative  social  institutions, particularly  the  law.    It  is  marked  by  scepticism  concerning  the  foundations  of knowledge.    It  advances  the  view  that  language  constructs  reality,  but  does  not mirror  it.    Post-modernism  points  out  the  insoluble  difficulties  in  postulating coherent unitary texts or sets of legal principles.                                                     11   Kirby  “Are we there Yet?” in Opeskin and Weisbrot above n 5, 445. 12   I am not an authority on post-modernism, but I seek to set out here what I take to be its chief  messages.  Some  useful  works  are:  Thomas  Bridges  The  Culture  of  Citizenship: Inventing Postmodern Civic Culture (State University of New York Press, Albany, 1991); Babette   Babich   (ed)   Continental   and   Postmodern   Perspectives   in   the   Philosophy   of Sciences  (Ipswich  Book  Co  Ltd,  Ipswich,  1995);  Michel  Foucault  The  Order  of  Things (Pantheon   Books,   New   York,   1970);   Raymond   Geuss   The   Idea   of   Critical   Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981; Garay Minda  Postmodern  Legal  Movements:  Law  and  Jurisprudence  at  Century’s  End  (New York  University  Press;  New  York;  1995);  Richard  Posner  Overcoming  Law  (Harvard University  Press,  Cambridge,  1995);  Dennis  Paterson  “Postmodernism,  Feminism  and Law” (1992) 77 Cornell L Rev 254; “Postmodernism and Law: A Symposium” (1991) 62 U Colo L Rev; and JM Balkin “What is a Postmodern Constitutionalism?” (1992) 90 Mich L Rev 1966. 7