DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20448333
System, Polyarchy, Subject. Luhmann and the Ecological Transformation of Modern Society
by Paolo Missiroli
The task of this essay is to make an initial assessment of what, within Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory, can be used to think about the question of a historical rupture capable of undermining a mode of global social wealth production that has generated the ecological catastrophe. This task will be accomplished in three steps. First, we will show how the Luhmannian System-Environment distinction makes it possible to think about the ecological crisis in a different way than the dualisms that still characterise the public debate on the Anthropocene. Secondly, we will analyse how the Luhmannian thesis of functional differentiation translates into a polyarchical vision of contemporary society, which the contemporary debate on political ecology seems to take up, still unconsciously, but which also generates a number of problems. Thirdly, we will use Luhmann’s theoretical anti-humanism to reflect on a long-standing problem in political ecology, namely the question of the possible subject of an ecological revolution.
INTERNO POI - 2-2024_finale rivisto-94-120