Accelerating Luhmann - abstract
The article is an inquiry into ‘the other side’ of
Luhmann’s own concept of reduction of complexity. This inquiry
turns out to also be an inquiry into the other side of modernity. What
is found is the production of complexity as an inherent part of
postmodernity. In the same way that society is both modern and
‘post-’, systems operate in dialectic oscillation between
complexity reduction and complexity production. To facilitate the
observation of this oscillation, the notion of ambivalent complexity is
suggested. Ambivalent complexity may figure on either side of the
difference between system and environment, thus shifting the balance in
their relative degrees of complexity. Using the notion of ambivalent
complexity, we may analyse not only the possibility but also the
impossibility of society.