WEEK 5: Transcend the Boundary

Luhmann’s Social System Theory simply gives us a new theoretical framework and vision to re-understanding society and individuals. Personally, it gives another opportunity to re-consider Chinese democratization progress. According to Luhmann, democracy is a product of social evolution process. When society evolved to a functional differentiation society, political system has become one of many systems, which means that it must operate within society itself. In my opinion, this kind of political operation could be named “Mechanical Democracy”.

If Luhmann was right, in the future, hopefully, the globalization of function system described by him could be able to re-shape China, not by human well (which is impossible at present), but by the power of rational system (if it is strong enough).

Well, go back to ubiquitous media sphere, from my point of view, Luhmann’s best contribution is introducing Socialism into different fields including computer science. In ubicomp area, the system or the environment becomes unprecedented important. The relationship between human and the rest could be reshaped. In this case, human won’t be dominated any more. Due to the functional differentiation, all individuals are just living in different subsystems. Therefore, human can no longer be understood as a specific integral unit. The stabled ubiquitous environment system could break through the traditional way of interface, and just being existence and operating Rational smoothly and constantly.