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■ ■ ■ Systems Theory and the Symbolically Generalized Communication Media
Jin Subrt
Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic.
Abstract. This article is devoted to essential aspects of the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, especially with regard to his conception of symbolically generalized communication media. Luhmann's conception shows contemporary society as a functionally differentiated society in which a number of partial social systems (subsystems) operate, each of which is made up of communications that take place in their own distinctive communication medium. Luhmann presents a picture of a society that does not represent an integrated whole. It is a pluralist entity that operates without a top and without a centre, lacking the means of meta-communication.
Keywords: systems theory, society, evolution, functional differentiation, subsystems, communication, media, codes, symbolically generalized communicative media, resonance, integration, supervision
For citation: Subrt J. Systems Theory and the Symbolically Generalized Communication Media. Communicology(Russia). 2019. Vol. 7. No.1. DOI 10.21453/2311-3065-2019-71-21-31.
Inf. about the authors: Subrt Jin, Dr. Sc. (Philos.), professor, Head of the Dept. of historical sociology, faculty of humanities, Charles University in Prague. Address: 8158 00, Czech Republic, Prague, University Area Jinonice, U Krize, 5 Room 6009. E-mail: jiri.subrt@fhs. cuni.cz.
Received: 14.01.2019. Accepted: 20.02.2019.
After the World War II the leading theoretical sociologist was Talcott Parsons, who worked out the concept of the social system on the basis of structural functionalism. The main concepts of the theory are system, structure, and function [Parsons], where society may be seen as a system representing a dynamic entity structured in a certain way, whose structural components perform certain functions ('functions' meaning contributions to maintaining the system as a whole). The whole Parsonian model assumes that the ideal condition of a social system is a state of dynamic equilibrium and integrity, with the main issue being how to maintain the cohesion of the system with the help of value consensus and other social mechanisms, including socialization, education, conformity, social control, norms and sanctions. For Parsons, and for later approaches, society is understood as a unity, as a integrated whole organized on the basis of unifying principles.
One of the first to question this idea was Daniel Bell [1978] in the book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, where he expressed the view that contemporary society cannot be understood properly in this way. Bell opposes the holistic approach with his
own conception established on the idea of a split into societal spheres, where society is more divided than united. It is described - in Bell's own words - as an unstable "alloy" of three different "elements", three different spheres: techno-economical structure (or the economy), political system and culture. The relations among these three spheres are - according to Bell - complicated and vary with time. Individual spheres are mutually incompatible; they lie under different axial principles, with different rhythms of change. Bell claims that disharmony among these three spheres is a source of societal contradictions connected with many latent conflicts. In a similar vein, and indeed more radical in his thinking about society, is Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann does not foreground the question of systems integration, but the question of differentiation.
Innovator in theory
For the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998), modern society is a society functionally differentiated. This means besides other things that it is made up of non-homogeneous but equivalent parts with relatively separate characters, referred to as societal subsystems (Teilsysteme, sub-systems, systems within systems). Luhmann nowhere gave any comprehensive list of these subsystems, although it is clear that their number exceeds at least a dozen. These include, in particular, economy, politics, law, army, science, art, religion, mass media, education, health, sports, family and intimate relationships. Societal systems are self-referential, which means that while consisting s elements, operations and structures they refer to themselves. A prerequisite for this "self-reference" is the ability of the system to observe and describe itself, to provide self-evidence. In contradiction to Parsons' concept of systems, which are open (in the form of Input / Output) to their surroundings, Luhmann [1984: 25; 1997: 92] emphasizes the self-reference of social systems, their self-referentiality and operative closure (selbstreferentiele Geschlossenheit, operative Geschlossenheit); he moves the focus of his reflections from open to operationally closed systems. Self-referential closure, however, cannot be considered a form of solipsism or autism. Even though systems in their construction and reproduction are closed, it does not mean that they cannot and do not create contact with their environment; on the contrary, without these contacts, the dynamics of operationally closed systems would come to an end. For instance, the university as a system can exist only against a background of a functioning economy, political and legal system, etc. The outside world then is certainly not an insignificant residual category, but on the contrary: for systems, the relation to their surroundings is constitutive and they can continue in their existence only in distinction from it.
First of all, it is important that each system belongs only to its own functional specialization in a specific area of action; what take place in it (economic behaviour is something other than religion or intimate relations, etc.; to each of these types of behaviour a different significance is attributed and another goal is followed). Each subsystems contribute, due to its functional specialization, in a different way to the reproduction of society. Despite their heterogeneity, subsystems are equivalent in that respect that they are all necessary for this reproduction and it can be said even irreplaceable if society is to retain its character.
The mutual unity of these subsystems is formed by relationships based on a combination of their functional closure, and at the same time their openness towards the environment. This means that the modern society represents a differentiated unity, i.e. a whole consisting of functionally dependent (i.e. on functions of other dependent systems) and at the same time autonomous partial systems. Autonomy and dependence are here in a mutually potentiated, graduated ratio; even though partial systems have the relative independence, the collapse of one of them can have fatal consequences for the societal system as a whole.
Symbolically generalized communication media
The condition of the existence of social systems is communication. For this reason, systems create mechanisms to stabilize communication processes. Luhmann, in this context (inspired by Parsons), uses the concept of symbolically generalized communication media, which, however, cannot be narrowed down to commonly understood means of mass communication, as they concern such media such as power, money, law, faith, or knowledge. Luhmann considers the differentiation of individual communication areas, such as politics, economy, law, religion, science, but also education, art, or intimate relationships, as one of the main features of the social evolution, along with the appropriate communication media.
The communication mediated by these media within the individual subsystems always takes place in the framework of a certain binary code (e.g. in the political system: to have power - not to have power, in the economic system: payment - non-payment, in the legal system: law - injustice, in science: truth - untruth, in religion: immanence -transcendence). The sense that is communicated within the scope of the system is thus defined by two poles of binary code, which thus create boundaries and determine its horizon, i.e. they predetermine for actors what shall occur (the boxer knows that his job is to knock down the opponent and not to sign a contract for delivery with him).
Thanks to these binary codes, which express a certain type of leading difference, sub-system-specific semantics are created, in which the autonomy of individual subsystems is based on the application of its systematic leading difference. For example, the differentiation of the economy as an autonomous societal sub-system begins with the establishment of a symbolically generalized communication medium - money [Luhmann 1988: 230]. Unit acts are payments, the binary code is payment / nonpayment, language is represented by prices, which are conditioned and reconditioned by payments.
As a whole, the operational logic of individual systems is narrowed and onesided, based on the highly specialized binary code that controls the operations in the respective system. The problem lies in the fact that each sub-system, on the basis of its own observations, creates a picture of society itself (what the legal system observes, for example, is nothing other than society, but society seen through the application of the distinction law - lawlessness). As a result of accepted binary schematisations, therefore, individual systems can only see what their schematisations allow them to see.
The unified picture of society fragments into these partial observations and, instead of a centrally conceived world, a multi-centric world emerges [Luhmann 1984: 284].
Resonance and filtration
From the perspective of Luhmann's systems theory, nature can be viewed as physical, chemical and biological systems and connections, the existence of which is a precondition for the functioning of the social system. As is well known, this does not prevent society not only from interfering in nature but disrupting it. What is today described as an ecological problem is, from the systems theory point of view, examined as a problem of the relation of the societal system to its natural environment, for which it is characteristic that many societal sub-systems operate in the natural environment with indifference to the consequences of their activities. This leads to the endangering of the reproductive capabilities of modern society not just through accidents, but via fundamental structural flaws in system structures.
The ways individual social sub-systems are able to perceive ecological threats and risks are linked with the expression "resonance". He concludes that the problem of contemporary functional differentiation is too little resonance to what is taking place in the surrounding systems. If in the economic system the processing of information is bound to prices, everything is "filtered" by this language; the economy cannot react to breakdowns that cannot be expressed in its language. However, this limitation is not necessarily just a disadvantage, for it guarantees that if a problem is expressed in prices, then it will be processed [Luhmann 1986: 122]. Very much like the economic subsystem, other sub-systems perceive the world around them selectively, through their respective codes and programmes. As a result, there may be a variety of interacting effects between the individual subsystems that can soften the resonance, but they can also disproportionately increase it and thus cause a variety of social breakdowns. Within the societal system, therefore paradoxically not only too little resonance can be created, but even too much.
Luhmann shows that it can certainly not be taken for granted that conditions and changes in the environment find adequate resonance in society. On the contrary, socio-cultural evolution was clearly based on the fact that society as a relatively closed system did not react to its environment too much [Luhmann 1986: 42]. The threat or the destruction of nature, as Luhmann points out, is socially relevant only if communicated, which means if it is the subject of a communication event. Animals can die, people can suffer from illness, life conditions may get worse, but it does not have "any social effects" as long as it becomes the subject of communication [Luhmann 1986: 63]. It also follows from the nature of modern society that such communication is increasingly problematic due to the proliferation of media and codes.
Of course, it can be considered that the effects of negative environmental impacts may be latent, "behind the back" of the communication process, and that in certain cases they may even acquire the apocalyptic form of devastating environmental disasters. However, Luhmann insists that the social impacts of environmental problems
(externalities of social operation) can only be monitored and processed according to the relevant binary codes of individual societal sub-systems [Luhmann 1986: 218]. Appeals to morality and moral sentiments, which are often formulated in discussions about environmental problems, Luhmann considered to be pointless fraudulence. The widespread tendency to enforce moral responsibility for the situation was, from his point of view, merely a "gesture of despair" [Luhmann 1986: 133], usually ending with the limits what the economic system is capable of perceiving and safeguarding.
Problematic order
Despite the self-referential communication closure of individual social sub-systems, it cannot be said that these sub-systems operate only in their own world, independent of each other, but on the contrary, there are various structural links between them (strukturelle Kopplungen). At the same time, however, self-referential closure means that the modern society can no longer represent asubstantially graspable unity; it is no longer possible to consider sub-system functions from the perspective of the whole (as, for example, it was for f Parsons).
The structural links between individual systems are contingent products of subsystem co-evolution; for example, the connection of policy and economy is through the financing of policy from tax revenue; the link of the economy to scientific research is represented, for example, by the financing of certain research projects. In the second of these two examples it can be documented how such an evolutionary adaptation of two systems might look: The economic area realises that technology-based investment arising from the latest scientific knowledge is valuable, and therefore provides science with the resources for such targeted research programmes. In this way in the field of the scientific research certain themes are preferred and get a special chance for communication (coded in this area through the binary oppositions true - false). Finally linked economic interests have a short-term impact even on the choice of scientific areas studied, and both sub-systems come into permanent synchronization by means of scientific financing. This mode ensures that both areas of communication - no matter how self-referentially closed - mutually supply stimulus that aims at the longer-range rather than just episodic taking into consideration of the interests of the respective sub-systems [Schimank: 130].
According to Luhmann, the character of contemporary society is quite simply created by the existence next to each other of many different sub-systems, among which arise various structural links; however, to think of some (whole) system integration in in terms of the coordination or management of this complex network from a control centre is pointless and unjustified.
One problem seems especially that the operations of one system can land other systems with difficult-to-solve or even unsolvable problems. This is particularly true if one sub-system cannot produce results - in terms of quantity or quality - on which a second sub-system is dependent (e.g. the education system does not provide sufficient numbers of qualified individuals for the economy or science). A second case is where
one system creates externalities with a negative impact on others (for example, the military system can drain financial resources that are then lacking in education, culture, or health). Both types of problem are in principle chronic weaknesses of self-reference based on binary coding, and contemporary society can consider it a success if none of the two mentioned cases exceeds tolerable limits. However, a mechanism to prevent such things happening in the future, according to Luhmann, does not exist. While recent development may have been quite positive, no guarantees for the future can be made. Generally speaking then, systemic differentiation represents a successful strategy of modern life that has brought many communication benefits, but it has problematic consequences as well. These include not only very limited options for controlling the individual (mutually dependent) functional subsystems in their interaction with each other, or the question of the relation of these systems to their environment, but above all the absence of integration mechanisms. Society, in attempting to respond "as a society" to these problems, is hindered by the principles of functional differentiation; it can respond, but only in a partial, system-specific way. The logical consequence of this argumentation leads to the question: is the functionally differentiated system able to start solving its problems by itself? Luhmann himself does not explicitly formulate such a question, let alone look for a systematic answer. In his view the future remains in principle open to all sorts of possibilities, and there are no natural relations for evolutionary development to aim at.
Multicentric World
Working with the idea of social differentiation formulated long before by Herbert Spencer, Luhmann regards system functional differentiation as key to modern society, which he argues is composed of heterogeneous but equal parts that are relatively independent in character and termed societal partial systems (Teilsysteme; subsystems, systems within systems). Nowhere in his work does offer a comprehensive list of these partial systems, but there must be at least ten, including the economy, politics, law, the army, science, the arts, religion, the mass media, education, the health system, sport, the family and intimate relations.
Essentially, each of these systems has its own peculiar functional specialism for a specific field of actions within it (economic behaviour differs from religion or intimate relations etc; a different meaning and purpose is attributed to each of these kinds of actions). Each of these partial systems contributes in a different way in its functional specialisation to the reproduction of society. Despite heterogeneity the subsystems are equal in that all are essential for this reproduction and one might say irreplaceable for society to maintain its character.
The mutual unity of these subsystems is based on the combination of their functional closure and nevertheless openness towards the environment. This means that modern society represents a differentiated unity, i.e. a whole composed of functionally dependent (i.e. dependent on the functions of other systems), and at the same time autonomous, partial systems. Autonomy and dependence exist in a mutually
potentiated, stepped relationship (partial systems have become independent but the collapse of one may have grave consequences for the societal system as a whole).
Societal systems are self-referential, so that in their elements, operations and structures they refer and relate to themselves. Although they are closed in terms of structure and reproduction, this does not mean that they do not create contacts with their surroundings. Indeed, without these the dynamic of operationally closed systems would cease to exist: a university system can exist only against the background of a functioning economy, political system, legal system etc. The outside world is no meaningless residual category. On the contrary, the relationship to surroundings is constitutive and systems can only endure in differentiation from that outside world.
The condition of the existence of social systems is communication. Systems create mechanisms to stabilise communication processes, which are termed media. Luhmann's concept of symbolically generalised communication media cannot be narrowed down to the mass media as generally understood, because it also relates to media such as power, money, laws, faith or knowledge. Luhmann considers one of the main marks of social evolution to be the differentiation of separate communication fields such as politics, the economy, law, religion, science, but also education, art and intimate relations, together with corresponding communication media.
The communication made possible by these media takes place in a certain binary code (e.g. in the political system: to have power - powerless, in the economic system: paid - unpaid, in the legal system: law - lawlessness, in science: truth - falsehood), in religion: immanence - transcendence). Thanks to these, expressing a particular type of single leading difference, specific subsystem semantics are created where the autonomy of different systems is based on application of its leading difference. For example, the differentiation of the economy as an autonomous societal subsystem starts with the establishment of a symbolically generalised communication medium -money [Luhmann 1988: 230]. The elements of economics (unit acts) are payments, the binary code of paid - unpaid, and prices, which condition and programme payments, represent the language.
Overall the functioning logic has the character of a narrowed one-sided view based on a highly specialised binary code through which system operations are controlled. On the basis of its own observations each partial system creates a picture of society (what the legal system observes, for example, is society but society seen through the application of the distinction: laws - lawlessness). As a result, individual systems can only see what these schematisations allow them to see. The unified picture of society fragments into partial observations, and a multicentric world emerges [Luhmann 1984: 284].
From the perspective of Luhmann's systems theory we can look at nature, for example as physical, chemical and biological systems whose connection is a precondition for the functioning of the societal system. Luhmann links the way social subsystems are able to perceive ecological threat and risk with the expression "resonance", and concludes that the problem of contemporary functional differentiation is that what is taking place in surrounding systems has too little resonance. If in the economic system the processing
of information is bound to prices everything is "filtered" by this language and the economy cannot react to breakdowns nor expressed in this language. This limitation is not necessarily a disadvantage, as it guarantees that if a problem is expressed in prices it will be processed [Luhmann 1986: 122]. However, just as the economy sees its surrounding world selectively - through its own codes and programmes - so too do the other partial systems. As a result, all kinds of interactive effects may arise, which may dampen resonance but also disproportionately increase it, and so cause social breakdowns. Thus paradoxically there may be too much resonance as well as too little. Luhmann demonstrates that we cannot take for granted that changes in the environment will find adequate resonance in society.
Despite the self-referential communication closure of different societal subsystems, it is not true to say that these sub-systems operate only in their own worlds. On the contrary, all kinds of structural bonds (Koplungen) exist. At the same time, however, this self-referential closure means that for systems analysis modern polycontextual society no longer represents a substantially comprehensible unity (as was the case in Parsons' time). According to Luhmann, the character of contemporary society is shaped by the coexistence of a range of different subsystems between which all kinds of structural bonds form, but to look for some overall systems integration of the whole societal system in the sense of co-ordination or direction from some controlling centre is futile.
Supervision?
Luhmann's analysis presents contemporary society as a whole differentiated into functionally dependent but autonomous partial systems that represent surrounding worlds for each other. This raises the question of possible unifying forces or integrating mechanisms.
The concept of the division of labour dominated the history of the systems approach from Emil Durkheim to Talcott Parsons. According to this tradition different areas co-operate in a common whole, rather as different departments co-operate in a company. If a major deviation or breakdown occurs in one of the co-operating parts, central regulating mechanisms (consciously or instinctively) try to remove the fault and re-establish co-operation between the individual parts. Luhmann, however, sees this in a rather different light. His view is that "a functionally differentiated society operates without a top and without a centre" [Luhmann 1997: 802]. Each subsystem tends to self-realisation combined with a "indifference" to what is taking place in the surrounding systems (for example the economic system is orientated towards the economic view regardless of whether it is valuable to it, or beneficial from the point of view of art, health or family).
The fragmentation and pluralisation of society are considered among the results of the development of modernity. The comprehensive interpretation of the phenomenon of fragmentation brought about systems theory, whose key insight on contemporary modernity concerns advanced functional differentiation, i.e. the segmentation of the system of society into relatively autonomous partial societal systems with their own
internal closed communication (economy, politics, law, army, science, art, religion, mass media, education, health service, sport, etc.). Luhmann [1984] presents contemporary society as a complex differentiated into functionally dependent but autonomous, partial systems, which may be considered neighbouring (environmental) worlds.
Many writers have contributed to discussions around the system approach to problems of regulation and integration. One is system theorist Helmut Willke [1997], who tries to modify significantly ideas about the role of political system.
For Helmut Willke contemporary society is above all a society of knowledge and globalization processes. In accordance with the results of Luhmann's analysis, Willke claims that society has lost its customary unity and turned into a "polycentric" society, and does not need integration but "supervision". The prospects for supervision arise from opportunities within a "society of knowledge"; the point is to detect and cultivate these opportunities. Willke generates his own theory of supervision through a critical confrontation with how supervision is understood and used at present. He claims that supervision cannot be narrowed down to control, check ups, surveillance or consultancy, even if all these components are included in it. The conception of supervision should be defined "non-trivially", implying a self-referential, self-controlling process.
According to Willke, supervision relates to control processes and in principle it rests on a supervisor. But it is not only the plain repetition or intensification of these control processes, or even reflections on them. Willke identifies supervision with what he identifies as control of context. He concludes that supervision assumes a supervisor who disposes of "additional 2nd rank perspectives" [Ibid.: 19]. The supervisor must be able to take up the position of observer of the 2nd rank (observer of the observer), from which one can discover the criteria by which the observed systems watch themselves. At the same time they must be able to make visible even what the systems - as a consequence of how they select information - do not see, not because they do not want to but because they cannot. The presumption of supervision is the new approach to processing information.
Willke believes that supervision as a mode of control arises from the historical era of a society of knowledge. Supervision is not an imitation of control or surveillance, but an independent form of cooperative and congenerous searching for the solution of problems [Ibid.: 70]. The author ascribes the role of supervision to politics and the role of supervisor to the state as a political system. But this is nothing automatic and self-evident. The state should grow into the role of supervisor step by step and politics must learn how to function in contemporary polycentric and decentralised society. State supervision cannot be, as Willke envisages, anything "forced" on its environment, and must respect the internal structures of neighbouring systems.
Conclusion
Luhmann's multicentric theory of the world corresponds with the diagnosis of postmodern thinkers such as Jean-François Lyotard [1993], expanding Wittgenstein's
theory of language games (Schprachspiele). According to this theory communication has effect within various kinds of heterogeneous and mutually untranslatable discourses (religion, arts, science...),. There are no universal rules for which discourse should take priority. It is a situation of radical plurality unfathomable on the grounds of one model.
The affinity between Luhmann's theory and postmodernism is affirmed by Zygmunt Bauman [1995: 20], who points out the need to revise our understanding of how various elements of human community, diverse activities and life processes, or various regulative ideas, conceptions and perceptions, interlock, interact and cooperate. Bauman considers that "systemness" does not rest on the mutual balancing and adjustment, on the creation of formulas of such levelling and elimination of all departures from such formulas, but that it entails kaleidoscopic picture based on games of antagonism, strain and ambivalence, arguing and disputes, understanding and misunderstanding. Thus the indefiniteness and ambiguity of communicating elements is not a manifestation of system illness but of its vitality.
Some social scientists consider that society is controlled by a certain partial societal system, and that this system is the economy; or others, it is politics or religion. In the history of the systems approach from Emil Durkheim to Talcott Parsons a vision dominated where various societal areas cooperated in a common complex, For Luhmann, contemporary society does not represent a substantially attainable unity, since of its partial systems inclines to self-absolutization connected with a certain "indifference" to what happens in neighbouring (environmental) systems. This self-absolutization should not produce problems while single systems function quite independently of each other, but if not, it becomes a source of all sorts of tensions.
For orthodox followers of Luhmann's intellectual legacy, the ability to observe something like a unity of society is negated because in a contemporary functionally differentiated society the observation point is missing [Kneer, Nassehi 1993; Nassehi 1999] . There is no central authority with whole-society reach, which could evaluate all the differences of the system and environment, transcending and connecting them through superior senses. In addition, the means of "metacommunication" are missing. The complexity of the societal system arises though the development of specialised media and codes into individual partial systems, and does not throw up any metacommunication to enable self-observation and self-reference of the societal system as a whole. Thus contemporary society turns out to be rather unstable and vulnerable.
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■ ■ ■ Теория систем и символически генерализованные коммуникационные медиа
Иржи Шубрт
Карлов университет, Прага, Чешская Республика.
Аннотация. Статья посвящена ключевым аспектам теории систем Никласа Лума-на, главным образом его концепции символически генерализованных коммуникационных медиа. Через призму теории систем современное общество рассматривается как функционально дифференцированное общество, в котором действует ряд отдельных социальных систем (подсистем), каждая из которых состоит из коммуникаций, происходящих в ее собственной, отличной от других подсистем, коммуникационной среде. Луман представляет общество не как интегрированное целое, а как плюралистическую сущность, функционирующую без пика и центра и не имеющую средств мета-коммуникации.
Ключевые слова: теория систем, общество, эволюция, функциональная дифференциация, подсистемы, коммуникация, медиа, коды, символически генерализованные коммуникативные медиа, резонанс, интеграция, наблюдение
Для цитирования: Шубрт И. Теория систем и символически генерализованные коммуникационные медиа // Коммуникология. 2019. Том 7. №1. DOI 10.21453/2311-30652019-7-1-21-31.
Сведения об авторе: Шубрт Иржи, доктор философии, профессор, заведующий кафедрой исторической социологии, факультет гуманитарных наук, Карлов университет. Адрес: 8158 00, Чешская Республика, Прага, Университетский район Jinonice, U Krize, 5, комната 6009. E-mail: [email protected].
Статья поступила в редакцию: 14.01.2019. Принята к печати: 20.02.2019.
