When discussing organizations, which Luhmann argues consist entirely of decision-based communication, one might ask about buildings, desks, chairs, telephones, computers, electricity, as well as human beings. Aren’t these things essential to most organizations? Shut off the electricity or the Internet access and most organizations stop functioning. Thus, a common criticism of social systems theory relates to materialism or material agency.
Tag: symbolically generalized communication media
Art as the reactivation of eliminated possibilities
What art aspires to could . . . be described as the reactivation of eliminated possibilities. . . . Art points out that the scope of the possible is not exhausted and it therefore generates a liberating distance from reality. (Theory of Society, vol. 1. p. 210.)
