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Luhmann, N. What Is Communication
Luhmann, N. What Is Communication
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is recursiveness, reinforced by the com- This means that one must take into ac-
municative disadvantage of contradic- count the fact that effects can arise
tion. only through the co-operation of the
Whatever else consciousness thinks system experiencing them. And one
is an entirely different mater. In due must also remember that the systems
time it will come to recognize that are opaque to each another and there-
value consensus is as unavoidable as it fore cannot reciprocally steer each
is innocuous. For there is no self- other.
execution of values. And everything A consequence of this account is
that they seem to require can be al- that consciousness contributes only
lowed to slip by in the execution, of noise, disturbance, or perturbation to
course in the name of values. communication and vice versa. In
fact, if you observe a communication
VI process you have to be familiar with
Such a profound revision of the con- the preceding communication, ulti-
ceptual framework of communication mately with its themes and what can
systems will surely have consequences be said meaningfully about them. As
for the diagnosis and therapy of the such, you d o not have to have a knowl-
states of systems that are viewed as edge of the conscious structures of the
pathological. The author does not individuals.
claim any kind of competence in this But, of course, this point of depar-
area, above all that kind of automatic ture needs refinement since communi-
self-correction that arises from a famil- cation systems very often thematize
iarity with the milieu. Nevertheless, in persons and since consciousness has
a kind of summary fashion, I would become accustomed to prefer certain
like to illuminate several points that words, to tell certain stories and to
might serve as an occasion for recon- identify itself, in part, with communi-
structing well-known phenomena. cation. Thus an observer can recog-
First of all, this account emphasizes nize highly structured interdependen-
the difference between psychical and cies between psychical and social
social systems. The former operate on systems. Nevertheless, the psychical
the basis of consciousness, the latter selectivity of communicative events in
on the basis of communication. Both the experience of the participants is
are self-referentially closed systems something completely different from
that are limited to their own mode of the social selectivity. A mere consider-
autopoietic reproduction. A social sys- ation of what we ourselves say suffices
tem cannot think and a psychical sys- to make us aware of how carefully we
tem cannot communicate. There are, must select in order to be able to say
however, immense and highly com- what can be said, how much an emit-
plex causal interdependencies. Closure ted word is no longer what was
does not mean that no reciprocity ex- thought and intended, how much
ists or that such interconnections can- one’s own consciousness dances about
not be observed and described by an the words like a will-o’-the-wisp, us-
observer. It does require, however, ing and mocking them, meaning and
that the initial situation of autopoietic not meaning them at the same time,
closure enters into the description. letting them rise and fall, how it has
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them on the tip of its tongue and des- course, this does not mean that com-
perately wants to say them and then munication carries consciousness
without any good reason does not do along piece by piece. Instead, con-
so. Were we to try to observe our own sciousness-whatever else it may be
consciousness moving from thought to thinking-is maneuvered by communi-
thought we would indeed be fasci- cation into a situation of forced
nated by language. But we would also choice. Or at least that is how it ap-
experience the noncommunicative, pears from the point of view of com-
purely internal use of linguistic sym- munication. Communication can be
bols and a genuine depth of conscious accepted or rejected in a way that is
actuality in the background, one on communicatively understandable. And
which the words sail like little ships naturally the range of themes can be
connected one to another but without factored so that a decision is broken
itself being consciousness. down into several decisions. The auto-
This superiority of consciousness poietic autonomy of consciousness, so
to communication (to which, of to say, is represented and compen-
course, a superiority of communica- sated in communication by binariza-
tion to consciousness corresponds in tion. A decision that can be handled in
the converse system reference) be- communication takes the place of a
comes completely clear when one real- meaninglessly noisy environment of a
izes that consciousness is not only con- decision, for example, yes or no, fur-
cerned with words and vague word ther inquiry, perhaps hesitation, de-
and propositional ideas but also and lay, doubt. In other words, communi-
preeminently with perception and cation can be disturbed by
with the imaginative depiction and ef- consciousness and even foresees this;
facement of images. Even during but this always happens in ways that
speaking, consciousness is incessantly can be connected with further cornmu-
concerned with perceptions. In my nication and thus can be handled com-
own case it often happens that in the municatively. In this way a confusion
act of formulating I see the pictures of of the autopoiesis of the systems is
the written words (a state of affairs avoided despite a high degree of coevo-
that has never, as far as I can see, been lution and reciprocal interaction.
noted by research into culture’s trans- I am well aware that this analysis
position into the written form [ Ver- still does not suffice to describe what
schriftlichtrng]).And the extent to we experience as a pathological state
which one can be diverted from the ob- of the system. In terms of this theory,
servation of others by one’s own talk- reciprocal noise, disturbance, pertur-
ing, or still be able to process sense im- bation, and so on, are the normal case
pressions while attending to the train for which a normal interception and
of conversation, varies from person to absorption capacity exists, psychically
person. as well as socially. Supposedly a sense
All this makes it necessary to adapt of the pathological occurs only when
communication to this will-o’-the-wisp certain thresholds of tolerance are
of consciousness when we change the transcended. Or one could possibly
system reference again to that of the say, when the memory of the system is
social system of communication. Of brought into play and experiences of
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