Luhmann and Discoursive Political Science

I pose two questions in my writing: at first, what the common features are of Niklas Luhmann’s social theory and Marton Szabo’s discursive political science; secondly, what the latter can learn from the former. Since, as I see, Luhmann’s thoughts on politics as a social system are not so relevant from the viewpoint of the discursive political science, I deal hear only with what he claimed about modern society; as a consequence, in the center of my writing are Luhmann’s and Marton Szabo’s following statements: the society as communication / the politics as discourse is a self-constructing reality. After all, I attempt to answer the question of what the discursive political science can learn from Luhmann with the interpretation of these two spookily similar statements, and so I claim: the most what it can learn comes from the failures of Luhmann’s theory. The conclusion of my interpretation is the following: similarly how Luhmann’s social theory excludes from the social reality the silence caused by torture as something non-social, the discursive political science excludes from political reality the silence engendered by terror as non-political factors. Torture and terror, or, in other words, the social/political practices and experiences that penetrate our body and determine us, highlight the limitations of Luhmann’s social theory as a communication theory and of the discursive political science as political hermeneutics. These limitations that, for certain reasons have remained un-exceeded by Luhmann can be exceeded by the discursive political science, if it is able to connect with each other the sign/signification and the body, the text and the flesh, the reading and the elementary experience.

Released: Replika 87, 95–107.
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