Hope Within Human Systems: Theological Reflection on Culture
I want to offer a way of thinking about the systems in which human beings participate. The attempt here will be to explore a systems theory regarding culture that will be descriptive, in contrast to the attempt to ascribe moral superiority to any existing system. [1] The core element of Niklas Luhmann's theory pivots around the problem of the contingency of meaning, and thereby it becomes a theory of communication. Social systems are systems of communication, and society is the most encompassing social system. Being the social system that comprises all (and only) communication, today's society is a world society. A system is defined by a boundary between itself and its environment, dividing it from an infinitely complex, or (colloquially) chaotic, exterior. The interior of the system is thus a zone of reduced complexity: communication within a system operates by selecting only a limited amount of all information available outside. Such a zone is an event. Society consists in