Pandemic Luhmann

Abstract

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, important transformations are taking place while a dense veil of uncertainty clouds the way out of the present predicaments. This short, impromptu comment, based on the theories of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, plays the game of “What would Luhmann have said”, without the ambition to predict actual outcomes, but just as an exercise of interrogating his theory. Of course, Luhmann’s own brilliance would have considerably helped.

Keywords: Autopoiesis, Covid-19, digitalization, nation state, politics, science, structural coupling, technology social systems theory, world society