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Monday, February 21, 2011

The Theory: Niklas Luhmann

Individuals are unique begins. They have skills, abilities and in most cases freedom of choice.  On the other hand, Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes; "Man is born free yet everywhere he is in chains" (Rousseau, 1970). As people, we seem to spend most of our time doing things that we may not want to do, behaving in ways that are "appropriate". It is these invisible communication of norms and controls that form the cornerstone of Luhmann's systems theory;  "Societies are neither a group of acting individuals nor a single corporative actor, but instead a social system that reinvents itself time and again as a result of communication" (Brandhoff, 2009).
This premise compels to probe; how we explain and chose to live our life's, how we interact with others, what assumptions we make about circumstances we find ourselves in, how we integrate and function in our milieu, what abilities we may or may not have to control our environment as an individual or group of individuals and what prompts succeed or failure for societies? Ultimately, all these questions lead to a humble yet a powerful inquiry; "how is society possible and how they function"? 
To edify these anonymities, following arguments attempt to construct a coherent sense of the world we live in today by exploring the systems thinking and the social theories movement through Luhmann’s lenses with a desire to alleviate  intuitions and prejudices that unconsciously thrive to justify our presence without rational reasoning.

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