### Luhmann’s Idea: Agency as Structural Coupling Building on the work of the German sociologist **Niklas Luhmann**, we can describe the relationship between **communication** and **individual thought** in a new way. This process happens in two steps: 1. A communication and a thought arise simultaneously, allowing a person to interpret and reflect on what is being said. 2. The mind then produces its own meaning in response, shaped by its unique inner structures. **communication** is one element of a triadic structure that constitutes the basic operation of social systems. The other two components are: 1. **Information** – the _content_ or meaning being selected and communicated. It represents what the communication is about. 2. **Utterance (or Expression)** – the _act_ or _form_ of communicating, referring to how and by whom the information is conveyed. Together, **information**, **utterance**, and **understanding** form a single event of **communication**—which, in Luhmann’s view, is the smallest unit of social reality. So, briefly: - **Information** = what is said - **Utterance** = that it is said (by someone) - **Understanding** = how it is interpreted Through this dynamic, every mind remains autonomous yet connected to the broader social world. Meaning is never transmitted directly; it is _created_ anew within each psychic system. #### CMM Theory The **[[Coordinated Management of Meaning]] (CMM)** theory expands on this idea by exploring how these structural couplings affect lived experience. CMM shows how individuals and societies co-create meaning through ongoing patterns of communication—how each person’s private world of thought remains linked to the shared world of conversation. In this light, **individual autonomy** does not stand in opposition to social influence. Instead, it _emerges_ through communication itself—a balance that moves beyond the old debate between individualism and collectivism. ##### · A Protest (Boehm’s “Reverse Dominance” in action) The anger, the moral outrage, the collective planning—this all happens in the realm of the psychic and the social, in the Boehmian sense. But for it to become an event for the political system, it must be communicated. The political system will then process it through its own code: _Does this affect the government/opposition balance? Does it require a new law? Does it change voting constituencies?_ ##### · A Scientific Discovery A scientist has a brilliant insight (psychic system). But for it to change science, it must be published, peer-reviewed, and accepted or rejected through scientific communication. The science system doesn’t care about the “Eureka!” moment; it cares about whether the communication fits into its network of theories and facts. As [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]] once observed, “To truth only a brief celebration of victory is allowed between the two long periods during which it is condemned as paradoxical, or disparaged as trivial.” So it is with protest and discovery alike—each must first be absorbed, translated, and often resisted by the systems through which truth must pass. In this view, "agency" is the capacity of psychic systems to produce disturbance that social systems are forced to process. We are not puppet masters; we are a chaotic, creative environment that the system must constantly respond to in order to maintain its own stability. --- ### Structural Coupling and the Evolution of the Moral Code 1. From Commune to Code: The Evolution of Systems. Boehm’s "reverse dominance hierarchy" is not just a behaviour; it is a primordial, highly effective form of communication. The gossip, ridicule, and boycotts are communications that create a specific social order. From this repeated, patterned communication, society begins to differentiate. We can see Luhmann’s impersonal systems as the evolutionary descendants of these early political communications. · The need to formalise sanctions crystallises into a legal system (code: legal/illegal). · The management of collective resources and sanctions evolves into an economic system (code: payment/non-payment). · The process of deliberating "who gets to decide" formalises into a political system (code: government/opposition). The system's logic is a frozen, automated, in a larger [[scale]] of decision-making processes. It's a way to handle the problem of social order without constant commune meetings, but its DNA is in those very meetings. 2. The Persistence of the Commune: Agency as disturbance. Luhmann’s systems are operationally closed, but they are not isolated. They are structurally coupled to human beings. Boehm’s "reverse dominance hierarchy" does not disappear; its energy is now channeled through the specific logics of differentiated systems. · The board firing a CEO is the economic system processing a perturbation (falling profits) by executing a "sanction" against a failed "dominator," using the communication medium of money and contract. · A vote of no confidence is the political system performing its own version of "leveling," using the code of government/opposition. · A scientific paradigm shift is the scientific system collectively "ostracizing" a dominant theory, using the code of true/false. The human agency Boehm champions—the moral judgment, the collective action—is the engine of perturbation. But its social effects are determined by how the systems translate it. A million people thinking a law is unjust is, for the legal system, irrelevant noise. But a single communication from a supreme court (a legal decision) can change the entire system. The court's decision, in turn, was a perturbation caused by the communications of lawyers, which were perturbations caused by the actions of citizens. 3. A Unified View: The Dance of the System and its Environment Ultimately, Luhmann and Boehm describe two sides of the same coin, but from radically different vantage points: · Luhmann describes the Dance Floor: The stable, self-referential system of communication with its own rules (the "music" of the law, the economy, etc.). The dance floor operates by its own logic. · Boehm describes the Dancers: The conscious, moral, political human agents who are constantly moving, creating new steps, bumping into each other, and sometimes trying to change the music. The dancers are on the dance floor but are not part of the dance floor's architecture. Their movements (agency) constantly perturb the system, which must adjust to maintain the dance. Sometimes, a new dance move becomes so popular it changes the music itself (a new law, a new economic model). We do not live in either the "view from the dance floor's blueprint" (Luhmann) or the "view from the dancer's sore feet" (Boehm). We live in the perpetual, dynamic interaction between the two. Conclusion: A Single Reality, Observed from Within and Without Your conclusion is perfect and can stand as is. It beautifully captures the refined synthesis: They are describing the same reality, just from the perspective of the element (Boehm's human agent) and the perspective of the system (Luhmann's communication). The "eternal political struggle" is the lived experience inside the system; the "impersonal machine of communication" is the pattern that struggle creates when observed from a distance. To fully grasp society, we must see it as a dynamic whole: a Luhmannian system of communication that is perpetually generated, contested, and reshaped by Boehm's political, moral humans. By incorporating the concept of structural coupling, you directly answer your own penetrating question and provide a more robust mechanism for how Boehm's agents can "get a grip" on Luhmann's seemingly impenetrable systems. They don't operate the machine from the outside; they are the unpredictable environment to which the machine must constantly adapt. `Concepts:` `Knowledge Base:`