Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf
Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf
Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf
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Theo Hermansand made sense <strong>of</strong> selectively. In this way communication generates communication.The system continually recycles and modifies its own elements. It isself-reproducing or “autopoietic” in this sense.2. By doing this recursively and self-referentially over a period <strong>of</strong> time, and byselectively remembering and forgetting, a certain stabilization comes about inthat networks and structures are built up that make certain communicationsmore likely and therefore more predictable than others. The structures <strong>of</strong> asocial system are structures <strong>of</strong> expectation. We need expectations to counterthe double contingency that rules all things interpersonal and that consistsin our inability to read each other’s intentions or to fully predict each other’sbehaviour. As specific structures and expectations begin to cluster aroundcertain kinds <strong>of</strong> communication, individual systems differentiate themselvesfrom what is around them.3. Luhmann thinks <strong>of</strong> modern society as consisting <strong>of</strong> a large number <strong>of</strong> functionallydifferentiated social systems. Whereas in earlier periods <strong>of</strong> historythe dominant forms <strong>of</strong> social organisation were segmentation (as in clansystems) and hierarchical stratification (as in feudal societies), the form <strong>of</strong>society in the industrial and postindustrial world is characterized by systemswhich specialize, so to speak, in performing certain socially necessary functions,such as producing collectively binding decisions (politics), the management<strong>of</strong> scarce resources (the economy), or maintaining social order throughthe distinction between permissible legal and punishable illegal acts.4. The various function systems <strong>of</strong> modern society that Luhmann has describedin detail (the economy, politics, law, education, religion, art, the sciences,the mass media, organisations, but also social and protest movements) areperhaps best thought <strong>of</strong> as discourse networks. Each concentrates on certainkinds <strong>of</strong> communication and will process communications in its own way.There is however no superordinate system to keep the various function systemsin check. Society as a whole, as the conglomerate <strong>of</strong> these function systems,manages without a centre, without a common direction and without anoverarching purpose.5. Each function system is organized around an embedded matrix, a guidingdifference or schema – Luhmann speaks <strong>of</strong> a “code” – that provides a basicorientation for its operations. For instance, the system <strong>of</strong> science is guidedby a schema that distinguishes what it sees as “true”, and therefore tenable,from false, and therefore untenable. Everything that happens in the sciencesis meant ultimately to revolve around the pursuit <strong>of</strong> true rather than falsestatements about the world.6. Programmes flesh out a system’s code and render it operational. In the sciences,for example, they endow truth with a positive value and furnish cri-