The Society of Society and Critique: A Commentary

In The Society of Society, Luhmann develops a communication theory, offering a novel perspective on critique. Its observations on the relationship between politics and law are rich in critical potential. The legal medium is described as a product of the secondary coding of power, while the state of emergency reveals the boundaries and paradoxes of the legal and political systems. The implicit problem awareness in The Society of Society concerns the possibility of rendering social systems theory a non-normative critical theory. Social systems theory is functionally equivalent to Habermas's Critical Theory in that both presuppose the counterfactuality and interminability of communication in modern complex societies, and are thus functionally interchangeable. The tension between social systems theory and Critical Theory lies in the foundation of critique. Habermas grounds critique in an identity-based normative hierarchy, but such a foundation itself is arbitrary. In contrast, The Society of Society reveals that, on the basis of functional differentiation, society possesses a capacity for critique that does not require normative theory as its premise.