The
temporal
modes are: past, present, and future.
The-future-cannot-begin-Niklas-Luhmann
Reinhart Koselleck, "Historia Magistra Vitae," in Manfred Riedel, ed.
, Natur und Geschichte (Stuttgart, 1967), pp.
196-220: and Reinhart KoseIleck, "Vergangene Zukunft der frUhen Neuzeit," in Festgabe lilr Carl Schmitt (Berlin, 1968), pp.
551- 566.
T Cf. Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City 01 the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven: Y ale University Press, 1982).
8 So Hend Gregoire, Sur les moyens de perlectionner les sciences politiques, M~moires de l'lnstitut National (Classe des sciences morales et politiques), Vol. I (Paris, 1798), pp. 552-556. Future is perceived, in this political context at least,
as dose at hand (prochainementl). Actually, neither the word avenir nor the phrase Le temps present est gros d'avenir had been invented during the French Revolution. The phrase serves as motto in Louis ~bastien Mercier's book rAn deux mille quatre cent quarante: Rive s'il en lut jama;s (London, 1772). Mercier refers to Leibnlz. Checking Lelbnlz, we find a characteristic difference. He does not speak about "the present time" but only about the present as such and uses the phrase only to show that monads have a temporal dimension. For example: Essais de Theodict! e ? 860 (In C. J. Gerhardt, ed. , Die philosophischen Schrilten von Gottlried Wilhelm Leibniz [Hfldesheim: Olms, 1961],6: 829): "C'est une des regles de mon systl! me de l'harmonle que le present est gros de l'avenlr. " Or Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondt! es en raison ? 18 (Gerhardt 6: 604): "Le present est gros de l'avenir, le future se pouvoit lire dans le pas~, l'~loign~ est exprim~ dans le prochain. " Or Letter to Bayle, without date (Gerhardl 8: 66): "Le present est toujours gros de l'avenir ou chaque substance doit exprimer dl! s ~present tous ses eslats futurs"-thus: no open futurel Or Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement (Gerhardt 5: 48): "Le present esl gros de l'avenlr el charg~ du pa~. "
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 133
the notion of the present, compensates for a loss of meaning and duration in the present itself. 9 In fact, if we have an almost in- finite historical past, structured and limited only by our actual in- terests, and if we have an open future, the present becomes the turning point which switches the process of time from past into
future. The French Revolution symbolizes and proves the possi- bility of this understanding by its practice. The Germans, on the other hand, join by writing Zeitgedichte-time poems-in the sense of poems of political actuality. IO
However, the punctualization of the present preceded the open future by more than a hundred years; it was not its consequence. Already in the early seventeenth century the unity of existence and preservation was split and the present was conceived as discontinu- ous, depending on secondary causes for its endurance. Hence- forth, actuality has to be thought of as instantaneous change. The
transformation of time perspectives began by reconceptualizing the present. It led, then, to a series of relief measures: to the con- cept of system, to increasing interest in mechanisms and in security, and, during the eighteenth century, to the interpretation of exis- tence as sentiment. But only the economic and political break- through of the bourgeois society provided the background for solving time problems by temporal means: by extending the time horizons of past and future and by orienting the present toward their difference. To put it in the romantic way of Lamennais: "I fly from the present by two routes, that of the past and that of the future. uu
If this is enough evidence-and it would be easy to produce more-that with the rise of bourgeois society the structure of time
9 On the psychological level we have some evidence for this dual understanding of the present: either as a very short or as a rather long duration. See Thomas J. Cottle and Stephen L. Klineberg, The Present Of Things Future: Explorations of
Time in Human Experience (New York: Free Press, 1974), p. 108.
10 Cf. JUrgen Wilke, Das "Zeitgedicht": Seine Herkunft und frilhe Ausbildung
(Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1974).
11 I take this quotation from Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time, translated
by Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), p. 26.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
184 SOCIAL RESEARCH
has changed drastically in the direction of higher temporal com- plexity. then we must expect that this change will have its impact on every social structure and on every concept. Nothing will re- tain its old meaning. If there is formal continuity in institutions or terminologies. this only will conceal the fact that every single form has gained higher contingency and higher selectivity. 12
We have been reacting to the consequences of this change for a long time. W e observe the "loss of the stable state. " 18 and we know that a faster rate of change requires more anticipatory be-, havior-Iiterally, more acting before the event, more future-ori- ented planning. 14 However, we still do not have a satisfactory concept of time. The prevailing "solution" to this problem is the distinction of several different notions of time. l~ Still, we lack a satisfactory theory that would be able to correlate variations in social structure and variations in temporal structure. This de- ficiency is not only a problem of functionalist theory; it has older and deeper roots. IO
Toward a Concept of Time
It is now a very common view that time is an aspect of the social construction of reality. This view suggests that there are several
12 In fact. a new Wiirterbuch Gescllichtliche GrundbegriDe which began to appear in Germany in 1972 tries to make this point.
18 So the formula of Donald A. Sehon. Beyond the Stable State (New York: Norton. 1978).
14 See only F. E. Emery and E. L. Trist. Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Ap- preciation ot the Future in the Present (London and New York: Plenum Press. 1978).
p. 88.
lIS See. for example. the much discussed distinction of the linear dimension and
the modalitles of time by J. Ellis McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time. " Mind 17 (1908): 457-474. reprinted in his Philosophical Stu. dies (New York and London: Longmans. 1984). pp. 110-181. For the German historisch-geisteswissenschattliche tradition. cf. Martin Heidegger. "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschic:htswissenschaft,"
Zeitscllritt tilr Philosophie und philosophische Kf'itik 160 (1916): 178-188.
18 Cf. Hermlnio Martins. "Time and Theory in Sociology:' in John Rex, cd. , AP- proaches to Sociology: An Intf'oduction to Major Tf'ends in British Sociology (Lon-
don and Boston: Routledge Bc Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246-294.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 135
times, a plurality of Temporalgestalten or of social times. IT This conception disconnects time and chronology. Accordingly, we may have several times and one integrating chronology. But there remain questions to be asked: Are we allowed to reduce the unity of time to the unity of chronology? Don't we fall back, by as- suming a plurality of times, upon the pre-Aristotelian notion of time as movement or process? Is there any progress beyond the classical definition of time as measure of movement?
To avoid an uncontrolled fusion of the notions of time and of movement. _ I propose to define time as the interpretation of reality with regard to the difference between past and future. This defini- tion presupposes, of course, that daily life gives the experience of change and contains in itself the point of departure for its own "timing. " I could prove this presupposition by phenomenological analyses. This experience of change, however, is not yet really time, as Husserl himself came to see in his later years. It is per- vasive and unavoidable. If you do not see or hear any change, you will feel it in yourself. It is the dowry of organic life for its mar- riage with culture. And it predetermines the universality of time on the cultural level. But it remains by and large open for cultural elaboration and variation, precisely because it is a uni- versal predisposition for temporalizing experience.
This conceptual approach offers several important advantages:
? It begins by making a clear distinction between movement, process, or experience of change on the one hand, and the cultural constitution of time as a generalized dimension of meaningful
reality on the other.
? Thus, chronology can be conceived as a standardized scheme
of movement and of time. It fulfills several functions at once: first, comparing and integrating movements that are not simul-
1'1 Cf. Pitirim A. Sorokin and Robert K. Merton, "Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis," American Journal of Sociology 42 (1937): 615-629; Pitirim A: Sorokin, Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time (New York: Russell Bc Russell, 1964), pp. 171 ff. ; Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated by Myrtle
Korenbaum (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Rcidel, 1964), esp. pp. 20 ff on multiple times.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
186 SOCIAL RESEARCH
taneously present; 18 second, establishing relations between past and future in the double sense of fixed and unchangeable distances and movement of chronological units (dates, not eventsl) from future to past; and third, linking the experience of change in daily life to the relational structure of time. These multiple functions are interconnected by the use of one standardized movement for
creating distance between dates. Not time, as Aristotle would have it, but chronology makes distance. It serves as an evolution- ary universal which combines very simple rules for its use with highly complex functions-like money.
? W e should avoid, then, any confusion of chronology and time. The approach that I would like to propose articulates the temporal dimension as the relation between past and future. Thereby, the current conceptions of past and future come to be regarded as the decisive factors in the constitution of time. Complexity-in-time, for example, correlates with the possible divergence of past states and future states. Increasing complexity-in-time will, then, have its impact on the prevailing interpretations of past and of fu- ture. The history of the future, outlined in the beginning of this paper, illustrates this point.
. . The relation of past and future will not have the same form in every society. W e can suppose that there are correlations be- tween this relation and other variables of the societal system. W e may formulate the hypothesis that increasing system differentiation correlates with increasing dissociation of past and future. High discontinuity may, on the other hand, shorten the time perspective in the sense that a more distant past and a more distant future become irrelevant. There is some empirical evidence to support this proposition 1? -much to the surprise of students to whom the
18 The primary functiQn of primitive time-reckoning seems to be the integration of recurrent ecological changes and social norms regulating behavior. Cf. Daniel M. Maltz, "Primitive Time? Reckoning as a Symbolic System," Cornell Journal 01 Social Relations 8 (1968): 85-112.
19 Cf. Lucien Bernot and Ren~ Blancard, Notlville: Un village franrais (Paris: Institut d'ethnologie, 1953), pp. 321-332: Johan Galtung, "Images of the World in the Year 2000: A Synthesis of the Marginals of the Ten Nations Study," 7th World
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 137
growing importance of time in modern society means simply an extension of time in the chronological sense.
? This brings us back to my central thesis and suggests the formulation that the relevance of time (in fact, I would maintain: relevance as such) depends upon the capacity to mediate relations between past and future in a present. 20 All temporal structures relate to a present. The endurance of the present had to be shaken, as we have seen, before modern society could reconstruct its own temporality.
The Future as Temporal Horizon
Time itself and its conceptualization are changed by the mech- anisms of sociocultural evolution. This fact has consequences for the way we see and conceptualize our future~ Sociological analy- sis, therefore, finds itself facing a problem that has two sides: Its concept of future should be reasonably adequate for scientific
procedures and it should be adequate in respect to its own his- torical situation. Both conditions of adequacy define diverging requirements, particularly for our own very late and highly com- plex society.
T o work out the complexities of this problem it will be useful to distinguish three different ways of conceptualizing the future: the chronological conception, the theory of modalities, and phenom- enological analysis.
The chronological conception presupposes identity and con- tinuity of time and knows of only one principle of differentiation:
Congress of Sociology. Varna. 1970 (Ms. ); Margaret J. Zube. "Changing Concepts of Morality 1948-1969. " Social Forces 50 (1972): 385-393.
20 This does not mean that the present can be explained by its function. There is always the primordial fact of a specious present mediating time and reality. We have. therefore. following George Herbert Mead. The Philosophy of the Present (Chicago: Open Court. 1932). p. 88. to distinguish functional presents and the specious present. A present without function (i. e. ? without context) is by that fact reduced to a specious present.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
138 SOCIAL RESEARCH
dates. The future is the series of dates which will come after the present. This chronological conception suggests that the future will begin where the present ends. A thorough analysis shows, however, that we cannot think of two immediately connected in? stants of time without thinking an interval separating them. 21 Al- ready medieval authors concluded that beginning and ending can- not be, except as a property of the instantaneous present. 22 We know, furthermore, from cultural comparison as well as from em- pirical investigations that in daily life we experience time as rather
discontinuous, that future is disconnected from the present and that only a few societies and in those societies only a fraction of their members feel obliged to gloss over these discontinuities and to level them out by a kind of mathematical calculation. 23
The theory of modalities has been used since the Middle Ages to formulate a two-level conception of reality, reflecting different modes in which being and nonbeing can present themselves.
The temporal modes are: past, present, and future. They are distinct modes, of course, but there is again a kind of idealizing and equal- izing at work. It is presupposed that these three modes of time, at least as modes,? are on an equal footing. This may be due to
linguistic requirements. We have the choice between these three tenses. Whereas chronology depends on mathematical calculation, the theory of modalities depends on language. Its prototype seems to be: speaking about something. However, in our historical sit- uation-at the "present time"f-it may be required not only to question the u gali1ean" idealizations 24 but also the linguistic schemes which we use and on which we continue to depend. The theory of temporal modalities leaves as open and undecidable the
21 Aristotle, Physics, Book VI, 236a.
22 See the chapter De incipit et desinit of thc Regule Solvendi Sophismata of WflIiam Heytesbury (14th century) as presented by Curtis Wilson, William Heytes- bury: Medieval Logic and the Rise 01 Mathematical Physics (Madison: Univcrsity of Wisconsin Press, 1956), pp. 29 ff.
28 Cf. Sorokin and Mcrton. "Social Timc"; Cottlc and Klineberg. The Present 01 Things Future, pp. 108 ff.
? ? Cf. Edmund Husserl. Die Krisis der europliischen Wissensclzalten und die trans- %endentale Philosophie, in Hus. rerliana, Vol. IV (Dcn Haag: Nijhoff, 1954).
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 189
question whether the beginning should be conceived of as remotio of the past and positio of the present or as remotio of the present and positio of the future. 25 And the main question would be whether the treatment of the present as one of the modes of time is adequate. 26
The theory of modalities seems to offer a rational model for the fact that meaning is always something which preserves its identity by referring into horizons of further exploration and modifica- tion. 2~ If this is true, we shall have to use phenomenological analy- sis to find our way back to the origins of time. This means to con- ceive of future as well as of past as time horizons of the present. The present, then, gets a special status by its function of inte- grating time and reality and of representing a set of constraints for
temporal integration of future and past.
Now, this conceptual redisposition makes it necessary to state
more clearly what it means to conceive of the future as a temporal horizon of the present. The most important consequence is sig-
III See again William Heytesbury in Wilson. William Heytesbury.
28 There are close parallels to the difficulties Kant ran into by equalizing the three <I> modalities of necessity. possibility. and actuality (substituting this for the tradi- tional pairs of necessarium/contingens and possibile/impossibile) as different modes of cognition. The problem consists in the differentiation of completely conditioned possibility and actuality. Cf. Ingetrud Pape. Tradition und Transformation der Modalit6t (Hamburg: Meiner. 1966). I: 224 ff. See also Nfcolai Hartmann. Moglicll-
heit und Wirklichkeit, 2nd ed. (Meisenheim am Glan: Westkulturverlag A. Hain. 1949). esp. pp. 228 ff. Kant felt unable to think of the possible as becoming actual by the addition of something. because the addition would then be something which is not possible (Kritih der reinen "'ernunft B. pp. 283 ff). For the same reasons we feel unable to think of the future as beginning to become a present.
27 For the notion of horizon. see Edmund Husserl. Ideen %u einer reinen Phlinom- enologie und Phiinomenologiscllen Philosophia, Vol. I. in Husserliana Vol. III (Den Haag: Nijhoff. 1950). pp. 48 ff. lOO ff. 199 ff; Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersucllungen %ur Genealogie der Logik (Hamburg: Claassen Bc Goverts. 1948); Erste Philosophie, Vol. 11. in Husserliana, Vol. VIII (Den Haag: Nijhoff. 1959). pp. 146 If; Analysen %ur passiven Synthesis, in Husserliana, Vol. XI (Den Haag: Nijhoff. 1966), pp. 3 ft. George Herbert Mead hits upon this metaphor without mentioning Husserl; cf. Mead, The Philosophy of the Present, p. 26: "There is nothing transcendent about
this powerlessness of our minds to exhaust any situation. Any advance which makes toward greater knQwledge simply extends the horizon of experience, but all remains within conceivable experience. "
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
140 SOCIAL RESEARCH
naled by the title of this paper :The future cannot begin. Indeed, the essential characteristic of an horizon is that we can never touch it, never get at it, never surpass it, but that in spite of that, it con- tributes to the definition of the situation. Any movement and any operation of thought only shifts the guiding horizon but never at-
tains it.
If we characterize processes or activities as beginning or end-
ing, we use a terminology which belongs to the present. If we use these expressions to refer to distant dates-for example: the Roman Empire began to fall-we refer to a past present or to a future present. This iterative use of temporal modalities which goes back at least to Augustine is necessary for a theory of time that differ- entiates time and chronology. But this is not enough. . We can, in addition, formulate a distinction between future presents and the present future; and we can speak, if necessary, about the future of future presents, the future of past presents (modo fttturi exacti), and so on. 28 This iterative use of modal forms has always been a problem for the theory of modalities; 20 for example: why not "the future of futures" like "the heaven of heavens" (coelum coeli)? Only phenomenological analysis can justify the selection of mean- ingful combinations of modal forms. It shows that all iteration of temporal forms has to have its base in a present. 80
If we accept this distinction of the present future and future presents, we can define an open future as present future which has room for several mutually exclusive future presents. Open future
is, of course, only a vague metaphor. In a sense, the openness of the future was a topic of logical and theological discussions since Aristotle's famous chapter IX peri hermeneias. 81 But it has been
118 For further elaboration. see Niklas Luhmann. "Weltzcit und Systemgeschichte. " in his Soziologische AutkUirung (Opladen. 1975). 2: 150-169.
29 See only Alexis Meinong. Ober Moglichke;t und Wahrsche;nlichkeit: Beitriige zur Gegenslandstheor;e und Erkenntn;stheor;e (Leipzig: Barth. 19I! S).
80 This is. of course. the main idea of George Herbert Mead. Mead himself uses the formulation "past pasts" in the sense of pasts of past presents. Cf. Mead. The
PhilosoPhy 01 the Present, p. 7.
81 For the medieval discussion de futuris cont;ngePltibus and its importance for
church policy. see Thomas Aquinas. In I. Per; Hermeneias lect. XIII, XIV: Qua-
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 141
discussed with respect to the limits of logic and human cognition in its application to future events-and not as the technique of defuturizing the future by the binary code of logic.
Whereas the ancients started with generalizations of their every- day world by means of cosmological and theological assumptions and thought not of "the" future but of coming events and the possi-
bility of their privative negation. s2 we experience our future as a generalized horizon of surplus possibilities that have to be reduced as we approach them. We can think of degrees of openness and call /utur;zat;on increasing and de/uturizat;on decreasing the openness of a present future. Defuturization may lead to the limiting condition where the present future merges with the fu- ture presents and only one future is possible. Actually. the struc- ture of our society prevents defuturization from going this far. But there are techniques of deflIturization which react exactly to
this condition. Leon Brunschvicg has drawn our attention to the fact that the statistic calculus defuturizes the future without identifying it with only one chain of events. ss And indeed. the new interest in chance. games of hazard. and statistics coming up
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries corresponds closely to an emerging interest in the future and to the idea that it may be a rational and even a secure strategy to prefer the insecure over the secure. S4 There are ways to make use of the future without beginning it and without reducing it to one chain of datable future presents.
estiones disputatae de Veritate q. 11, art. 12; Summa Theologiae I q. 14 art. 15; William Ockham, Tractatus de praedestinatione et de praescientia Dei et de futurls contingentibus, edited by Philotheus Boehner (St. Bonaventure, N. Y. : Francisc:an Institute, St. Bonaventure College, 1945); Leon Baudry, ed. , La Querelle des futurs contingents (Louvain 1465-1475) (Paris: J. Vrin, 1950).
a8 Cf. Paulu8 Engelhardt, "Der Mensch und seine Zukunft: Zur Frage nach dem Menschen bei Thomas von Aquin," in Festchrift fur Max Muller (Freiburg- Munchen, 1966), pp. 852-874.
aa Leon Brunschvicg, L'experience humaine et la causalite physique (Paris: Alcan, 1949), p. 855?
. . Cf. Ernest Coumet, "La Th~orie du Hasard est-eUe nee par Hasard? ," Annales: Economies, Sodetes, Civilisations 25 (1970): 574-598.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
142 SOCIAL RESEARCH
Temporal Integration Redefined: Technology and Utopian Schemes
By nowl we are advanced far enough to redefine the problem of temporal integration. One possible interpretation would be that te~poral integration is achieved by changing wishful thinking and fanciful perspectives into more realistic ones, adapting to the out- come of the past so far as it has structured the present. 81S This view evaluates realism as maturity. But why so? If lower-class children abandon certain educational and occupational aspirations, this may be so much the better for them. It would be rational, how- ever, only insofar as reality itself is rational. T o identify temporal integration with realistic orientation presupposes a perfect world -realitas sive perfectio. This is a well known traditional premise, but it does not differentiate time and reality far enough to use temporal integration as a means to control-not necessarily to change-reality.
There have been societies which had to use reality as rationality control. Our society, however, has to use rationality as reality control. Its structure and its environment are too complex for adaptive procedures,86 and there is not enough time available for adjustment. Under the condition of high complexity, time be- comes scarce. Time has to be substituted for reality as the pre- dominant dimension while future obtrudes itself as the predom- inant horizon. Such a society will need forms and procedures of
temporal integration which, above all, combine the present future and future presents and consider the past only as th. e set of facts which we are no longer able to prevent from existing or becoming.
The prevailing conception of the present future seems to be a utopian one 8T with an optimistic or a pessimistic overtone. The
1111 See, for example, Cottle andKlineberg, The Present of Things Future, pp. 70 If.
lie Russel L. Ackolf and Fred E. Emery, On Purposeful Systems (London and Chi? cago: Aldine, 1972), esp. pp. 80 If, pursue a similar intention by distinguishing goal. seeking and purposeful systems.
liT In one important sense the reference to "utopias" is misleading here because originally the literary device of a utopia was invented Just because critics were 9101
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 143
future serves as a projection screen for hopes and fears. Its uto- pian formulation warrants rational behavior toward different (predictable and unpredictable) future presents, at least in the form of coherent negation. The future is expected to bring about the communist society or the ecological disaster, emancipation from domination or l'homme integrale discussed by Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. 38 This is the future that cannot begin. It re- mains a present future and at least an infallible sign of the pres- ence of critics. It moves away if we try to approach it. It does not
vanish, however, as long as the structural conditions of the present society endure, but it may resettle with new symbols and meanings, if the old ones are worn out by disappointments and new experi- ences. Our recent experiences seem to show that these utopian futures speed up their change and may change so quickly that they never will have a chance to be tested and to get confirmation in a
present.
Technologies, on the other hand, orient themselves to future
presents. They transform them into a string of anticipated pres- ents. They postulate and anticipate causal or stochastic links be- tween future events in order to incorporate them into the present present. This implies two important reductions of complexity. The first transforms the character of events which are emerging recombinations of independent contingencies into a carrier func- tion of the process of determination. The second brings into re- lief a sequential pattern, a chain of interconnected events; it se- quentializes complexity by abstracting more or less from inter- fering processes.
T Cf. Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City 01 the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven: Y ale University Press, 1982).
8 So Hend Gregoire, Sur les moyens de perlectionner les sciences politiques, M~moires de l'lnstitut National (Classe des sciences morales et politiques), Vol. I (Paris, 1798), pp. 552-556. Future is perceived, in this political context at least,
as dose at hand (prochainementl). Actually, neither the word avenir nor the phrase Le temps present est gros d'avenir had been invented during the French Revolution. The phrase serves as motto in Louis ~bastien Mercier's book rAn deux mille quatre cent quarante: Rive s'il en lut jama;s (London, 1772). Mercier refers to Leibnlz. Checking Lelbnlz, we find a characteristic difference. He does not speak about "the present time" but only about the present as such and uses the phrase only to show that monads have a temporal dimension. For example: Essais de Theodict! e ? 860 (In C. J. Gerhardt, ed. , Die philosophischen Schrilten von Gottlried Wilhelm Leibniz [Hfldesheim: Olms, 1961],6: 829): "C'est une des regles de mon systl! me de l'harmonle que le present est gros de l'avenlr. " Or Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, fondt! es en raison ? 18 (Gerhardt 6: 604): "Le present est gros de l'avenir, le future se pouvoit lire dans le pas~, l'~loign~ est exprim~ dans le prochain. " Or Letter to Bayle, without date (Gerhardl 8: 66): "Le present est toujours gros de l'avenir ou chaque substance doit exprimer dl! s ~present tous ses eslats futurs"-thus: no open futurel Or Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement (Gerhardt 5: 48): "Le present esl gros de l'avenlr el charg~ du pa~. "
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 133
the notion of the present, compensates for a loss of meaning and duration in the present itself. 9 In fact, if we have an almost in- finite historical past, structured and limited only by our actual in- terests, and if we have an open future, the present becomes the turning point which switches the process of time from past into
future. The French Revolution symbolizes and proves the possi- bility of this understanding by its practice. The Germans, on the other hand, join by writing Zeitgedichte-time poems-in the sense of poems of political actuality. IO
However, the punctualization of the present preceded the open future by more than a hundred years; it was not its consequence. Already in the early seventeenth century the unity of existence and preservation was split and the present was conceived as discontinu- ous, depending on secondary causes for its endurance. Hence- forth, actuality has to be thought of as instantaneous change. The
transformation of time perspectives began by reconceptualizing the present. It led, then, to a series of relief measures: to the con- cept of system, to increasing interest in mechanisms and in security, and, during the eighteenth century, to the interpretation of exis- tence as sentiment. But only the economic and political break- through of the bourgeois society provided the background for solving time problems by temporal means: by extending the time horizons of past and future and by orienting the present toward their difference. To put it in the romantic way of Lamennais: "I fly from the present by two routes, that of the past and that of the future. uu
If this is enough evidence-and it would be easy to produce more-that with the rise of bourgeois society the structure of time
9 On the psychological level we have some evidence for this dual understanding of the present: either as a very short or as a rather long duration. See Thomas J. Cottle and Stephen L. Klineberg, The Present Of Things Future: Explorations of
Time in Human Experience (New York: Free Press, 1974), p. 108.
10 Cf. JUrgen Wilke, Das "Zeitgedicht": Seine Herkunft und frilhe Ausbildung
(Meisenheim am Glan: A. Hain, 1974).
11 I take this quotation from Georges Poulet, Studies in Human Time, translated
by Elliott Coleman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), p. 26.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
184 SOCIAL RESEARCH
has changed drastically in the direction of higher temporal com- plexity. then we must expect that this change will have its impact on every social structure and on every concept. Nothing will re- tain its old meaning. If there is formal continuity in institutions or terminologies. this only will conceal the fact that every single form has gained higher contingency and higher selectivity. 12
We have been reacting to the consequences of this change for a long time. W e observe the "loss of the stable state. " 18 and we know that a faster rate of change requires more anticipatory be-, havior-Iiterally, more acting before the event, more future-ori- ented planning. 14 However, we still do not have a satisfactory concept of time. The prevailing "solution" to this problem is the distinction of several different notions of time. l~ Still, we lack a satisfactory theory that would be able to correlate variations in social structure and variations in temporal structure. This de- ficiency is not only a problem of functionalist theory; it has older and deeper roots. IO
Toward a Concept of Time
It is now a very common view that time is an aspect of the social construction of reality. This view suggests that there are several
12 In fact. a new Wiirterbuch Gescllichtliche GrundbegriDe which began to appear in Germany in 1972 tries to make this point.
18 So the formula of Donald A. Sehon. Beyond the Stable State (New York: Norton. 1978).
14 See only F. E. Emery and E. L. Trist. Towards a Social Ecology: Contextual Ap- preciation ot the Future in the Present (London and New York: Plenum Press. 1978).
p. 88.
lIS See. for example. the much discussed distinction of the linear dimension and
the modalitles of time by J. Ellis McTaggart, "The Unreality of Time. " Mind 17 (1908): 457-474. reprinted in his Philosophical Stu. dies (New York and London: Longmans. 1984). pp. 110-181. For the German historisch-geisteswissenschattliche tradition. cf. Martin Heidegger. "Der Zeitbegriff in der Geschic:htswissenschaft,"
Zeitscllritt tilr Philosophie und philosophische Kf'itik 160 (1916): 178-188.
18 Cf. Hermlnio Martins. "Time and Theory in Sociology:' in John Rex, cd. , AP- proaches to Sociology: An Intf'oduction to Major Tf'ends in British Sociology (Lon-
don and Boston: Routledge Bc Kegan Paul, 1974), pp. 246-294.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 135
times, a plurality of Temporalgestalten or of social times. IT This conception disconnects time and chronology. Accordingly, we may have several times and one integrating chronology. But there remain questions to be asked: Are we allowed to reduce the unity of time to the unity of chronology? Don't we fall back, by as- suming a plurality of times, upon the pre-Aristotelian notion of time as movement or process? Is there any progress beyond the classical definition of time as measure of movement?
To avoid an uncontrolled fusion of the notions of time and of movement. _ I propose to define time as the interpretation of reality with regard to the difference between past and future. This defini- tion presupposes, of course, that daily life gives the experience of change and contains in itself the point of departure for its own "timing. " I could prove this presupposition by phenomenological analyses. This experience of change, however, is not yet really time, as Husserl himself came to see in his later years. It is per- vasive and unavoidable. If you do not see or hear any change, you will feel it in yourself. It is the dowry of organic life for its mar- riage with culture. And it predetermines the universality of time on the cultural level. But it remains by and large open for cultural elaboration and variation, precisely because it is a uni- versal predisposition for temporalizing experience.
This conceptual approach offers several important advantages:
? It begins by making a clear distinction between movement, process, or experience of change on the one hand, and the cultural constitution of time as a generalized dimension of meaningful
reality on the other.
? Thus, chronology can be conceived as a standardized scheme
of movement and of time. It fulfills several functions at once: first, comparing and integrating movements that are not simul-
1'1 Cf. Pitirim A. Sorokin and Robert K. Merton, "Social Time: A Methodological and Functional Analysis," American Journal of Sociology 42 (1937): 615-629; Pitirim A: Sorokin, Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time (New York: Russell Bc Russell, 1964), pp. 171 ff. ; Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time, translated by Myrtle
Korenbaum (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Rcidel, 1964), esp. pp. 20 ff on multiple times.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
186 SOCIAL RESEARCH
taneously present; 18 second, establishing relations between past and future in the double sense of fixed and unchangeable distances and movement of chronological units (dates, not eventsl) from future to past; and third, linking the experience of change in daily life to the relational structure of time. These multiple functions are interconnected by the use of one standardized movement for
creating distance between dates. Not time, as Aristotle would have it, but chronology makes distance. It serves as an evolution- ary universal which combines very simple rules for its use with highly complex functions-like money.
? W e should avoid, then, any confusion of chronology and time. The approach that I would like to propose articulates the temporal dimension as the relation between past and future. Thereby, the current conceptions of past and future come to be regarded as the decisive factors in the constitution of time. Complexity-in-time, for example, correlates with the possible divergence of past states and future states. Increasing complexity-in-time will, then, have its impact on the prevailing interpretations of past and of fu- ture. The history of the future, outlined in the beginning of this paper, illustrates this point.
. . The relation of past and future will not have the same form in every society. W e can suppose that there are correlations be- tween this relation and other variables of the societal system. W e may formulate the hypothesis that increasing system differentiation correlates with increasing dissociation of past and future. High discontinuity may, on the other hand, shorten the time perspective in the sense that a more distant past and a more distant future become irrelevant. There is some empirical evidence to support this proposition 1? -much to the surprise of students to whom the
18 The primary functiQn of primitive time-reckoning seems to be the integration of recurrent ecological changes and social norms regulating behavior. Cf. Daniel M. Maltz, "Primitive Time? Reckoning as a Symbolic System," Cornell Journal 01 Social Relations 8 (1968): 85-112.
19 Cf. Lucien Bernot and Ren~ Blancard, Notlville: Un village franrais (Paris: Institut d'ethnologie, 1953), pp. 321-332: Johan Galtung, "Images of the World in the Year 2000: A Synthesis of the Marginals of the Ten Nations Study," 7th World
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 137
growing importance of time in modern society means simply an extension of time in the chronological sense.
? This brings us back to my central thesis and suggests the formulation that the relevance of time (in fact, I would maintain: relevance as such) depends upon the capacity to mediate relations between past and future in a present. 20 All temporal structures relate to a present. The endurance of the present had to be shaken, as we have seen, before modern society could reconstruct its own temporality.
The Future as Temporal Horizon
Time itself and its conceptualization are changed by the mech- anisms of sociocultural evolution. This fact has consequences for the way we see and conceptualize our future~ Sociological analy- sis, therefore, finds itself facing a problem that has two sides: Its concept of future should be reasonably adequate for scientific
procedures and it should be adequate in respect to its own his- torical situation. Both conditions of adequacy define diverging requirements, particularly for our own very late and highly com- plex society.
T o work out the complexities of this problem it will be useful to distinguish three different ways of conceptualizing the future: the chronological conception, the theory of modalities, and phenom- enological analysis.
The chronological conception presupposes identity and con- tinuity of time and knows of only one principle of differentiation:
Congress of Sociology. Varna. 1970 (Ms. ); Margaret J. Zube. "Changing Concepts of Morality 1948-1969. " Social Forces 50 (1972): 385-393.
20 This does not mean that the present can be explained by its function. There is always the primordial fact of a specious present mediating time and reality. We have. therefore. following George Herbert Mead. The Philosophy of the Present (Chicago: Open Court. 1932). p. 88. to distinguish functional presents and the specious present. A present without function (i. e. ? without context) is by that fact reduced to a specious present.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
138 SOCIAL RESEARCH
dates. The future is the series of dates which will come after the present. This chronological conception suggests that the future will begin where the present ends. A thorough analysis shows, however, that we cannot think of two immediately connected in? stants of time without thinking an interval separating them. 21 Al- ready medieval authors concluded that beginning and ending can- not be, except as a property of the instantaneous present. 22 We know, furthermore, from cultural comparison as well as from em- pirical investigations that in daily life we experience time as rather
discontinuous, that future is disconnected from the present and that only a few societies and in those societies only a fraction of their members feel obliged to gloss over these discontinuities and to level them out by a kind of mathematical calculation. 23
The theory of modalities has been used since the Middle Ages to formulate a two-level conception of reality, reflecting different modes in which being and nonbeing can present themselves.
The temporal modes are: past, present, and future. They are distinct modes, of course, but there is again a kind of idealizing and equal- izing at work. It is presupposed that these three modes of time, at least as modes,? are on an equal footing. This may be due to
linguistic requirements. We have the choice between these three tenses. Whereas chronology depends on mathematical calculation, the theory of modalities depends on language. Its prototype seems to be: speaking about something. However, in our historical sit- uation-at the "present time"f-it may be required not only to question the u gali1ean" idealizations 24 but also the linguistic schemes which we use and on which we continue to depend. The theory of temporal modalities leaves as open and undecidable the
21 Aristotle, Physics, Book VI, 236a.
22 See the chapter De incipit et desinit of thc Regule Solvendi Sophismata of WflIiam Heytesbury (14th century) as presented by Curtis Wilson, William Heytes- bury: Medieval Logic and the Rise 01 Mathematical Physics (Madison: Univcrsity of Wisconsin Press, 1956), pp. 29 ff.
28 Cf. Sorokin and Mcrton. "Social Timc"; Cottlc and Klineberg. The Present 01 Things Future, pp. 108 ff.
? ? Cf. Edmund Husserl. Die Krisis der europliischen Wissensclzalten und die trans- %endentale Philosophie, in Hus. rerliana, Vol. IV (Dcn Haag: Nijhoff, 1954).
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 189
question whether the beginning should be conceived of as remotio of the past and positio of the present or as remotio of the present and positio of the future. 25 And the main question would be whether the treatment of the present as one of the modes of time is adequate. 26
The theory of modalities seems to offer a rational model for the fact that meaning is always something which preserves its identity by referring into horizons of further exploration and modifica- tion. 2~ If this is true, we shall have to use phenomenological analy- sis to find our way back to the origins of time. This means to con- ceive of future as well as of past as time horizons of the present. The present, then, gets a special status by its function of inte- grating time and reality and of representing a set of constraints for
temporal integration of future and past.
Now, this conceptual redisposition makes it necessary to state
more clearly what it means to conceive of the future as a temporal horizon of the present. The most important consequence is sig-
III See again William Heytesbury in Wilson. William Heytesbury.
28 There are close parallels to the difficulties Kant ran into by equalizing the three <I> modalities of necessity. possibility. and actuality (substituting this for the tradi- tional pairs of necessarium/contingens and possibile/impossibile) as different modes of cognition. The problem consists in the differentiation of completely conditioned possibility and actuality. Cf. Ingetrud Pape. Tradition und Transformation der Modalit6t (Hamburg: Meiner. 1966). I: 224 ff. See also Nfcolai Hartmann. Moglicll-
heit und Wirklichkeit, 2nd ed. (Meisenheim am Glan: Westkulturverlag A. Hain. 1949). esp. pp. 228 ff. Kant felt unable to think of the possible as becoming actual by the addition of something. because the addition would then be something which is not possible (Kritih der reinen "'ernunft B. pp. 283 ff). For the same reasons we feel unable to think of the future as beginning to become a present.
27 For the notion of horizon. see Edmund Husserl. Ideen %u einer reinen Phlinom- enologie und Phiinomenologiscllen Philosophia, Vol. I. in Husserliana Vol. III (Den Haag: Nijhoff. 1950). pp. 48 ff. lOO ff. 199 ff; Erfahrung und Urteil: Untersucllungen %ur Genealogie der Logik (Hamburg: Claassen Bc Goverts. 1948); Erste Philosophie, Vol. 11. in Husserliana, Vol. VIII (Den Haag: Nijhoff. 1959). pp. 146 If; Analysen %ur passiven Synthesis, in Husserliana, Vol. XI (Den Haag: Nijhoff. 1966), pp. 3 ft. George Herbert Mead hits upon this metaphor without mentioning Husserl; cf. Mead, The Philosophy of the Present, p. 26: "There is nothing transcendent about
this powerlessness of our minds to exhaust any situation. Any advance which makes toward greater knQwledge simply extends the horizon of experience, but all remains within conceivable experience. "
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
140 SOCIAL RESEARCH
naled by the title of this paper :The future cannot begin. Indeed, the essential characteristic of an horizon is that we can never touch it, never get at it, never surpass it, but that in spite of that, it con- tributes to the definition of the situation. Any movement and any operation of thought only shifts the guiding horizon but never at-
tains it.
If we characterize processes or activities as beginning or end-
ing, we use a terminology which belongs to the present. If we use these expressions to refer to distant dates-for example: the Roman Empire began to fall-we refer to a past present or to a future present. This iterative use of temporal modalities which goes back at least to Augustine is necessary for a theory of time that differ- entiates time and chronology. But this is not enough. . We can, in addition, formulate a distinction between future presents and the present future; and we can speak, if necessary, about the future of future presents, the future of past presents (modo fttturi exacti), and so on. 28 This iterative use of modal forms has always been a problem for the theory of modalities; 20 for example: why not "the future of futures" like "the heaven of heavens" (coelum coeli)? Only phenomenological analysis can justify the selection of mean- ingful combinations of modal forms. It shows that all iteration of temporal forms has to have its base in a present. 80
If we accept this distinction of the present future and future presents, we can define an open future as present future which has room for several mutually exclusive future presents. Open future
is, of course, only a vague metaphor. In a sense, the openness of the future was a topic of logical and theological discussions since Aristotle's famous chapter IX peri hermeneias. 81 But it has been
118 For further elaboration. see Niklas Luhmann. "Weltzcit und Systemgeschichte. " in his Soziologische AutkUirung (Opladen. 1975). 2: 150-169.
29 See only Alexis Meinong. Ober Moglichke;t und Wahrsche;nlichkeit: Beitriige zur Gegenslandstheor;e und Erkenntn;stheor;e (Leipzig: Barth. 19I! S).
80 This is. of course. the main idea of George Herbert Mead. Mead himself uses the formulation "past pasts" in the sense of pasts of past presents. Cf. Mead. The
PhilosoPhy 01 the Present, p. 7.
81 For the medieval discussion de futuris cont;ngePltibus and its importance for
church policy. see Thomas Aquinas. In I. Per; Hermeneias lect. XIII, XIV: Qua-
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 141
discussed with respect to the limits of logic and human cognition in its application to future events-and not as the technique of defuturizing the future by the binary code of logic.
Whereas the ancients started with generalizations of their every- day world by means of cosmological and theological assumptions and thought not of "the" future but of coming events and the possi-
bility of their privative negation. s2 we experience our future as a generalized horizon of surplus possibilities that have to be reduced as we approach them. We can think of degrees of openness and call /utur;zat;on increasing and de/uturizat;on decreasing the openness of a present future. Defuturization may lead to the limiting condition where the present future merges with the fu- ture presents and only one future is possible. Actually. the struc- ture of our society prevents defuturization from going this far. But there are techniques of deflIturization which react exactly to
this condition. Leon Brunschvicg has drawn our attention to the fact that the statistic calculus defuturizes the future without identifying it with only one chain of events. ss And indeed. the new interest in chance. games of hazard. and statistics coming up
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries corresponds closely to an emerging interest in the future and to the idea that it may be a rational and even a secure strategy to prefer the insecure over the secure. S4 There are ways to make use of the future without beginning it and without reducing it to one chain of datable future presents.
estiones disputatae de Veritate q. 11, art. 12; Summa Theologiae I q. 14 art. 15; William Ockham, Tractatus de praedestinatione et de praescientia Dei et de futurls contingentibus, edited by Philotheus Boehner (St. Bonaventure, N. Y. : Francisc:an Institute, St. Bonaventure College, 1945); Leon Baudry, ed. , La Querelle des futurs contingents (Louvain 1465-1475) (Paris: J. Vrin, 1950).
a8 Cf. Paulu8 Engelhardt, "Der Mensch und seine Zukunft: Zur Frage nach dem Menschen bei Thomas von Aquin," in Festchrift fur Max Muller (Freiburg- Munchen, 1966), pp. 852-874.
aa Leon Brunschvicg, L'experience humaine et la causalite physique (Paris: Alcan, 1949), p. 855?
. . Cf. Ernest Coumet, "La Th~orie du Hasard est-eUe nee par Hasard? ," Annales: Economies, Sodetes, Civilisations 25 (1970): 574-598.
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
142 SOCIAL RESEARCH
Temporal Integration Redefined: Technology and Utopian Schemes
By nowl we are advanced far enough to redefine the problem of temporal integration. One possible interpretation would be that te~poral integration is achieved by changing wishful thinking and fanciful perspectives into more realistic ones, adapting to the out- come of the past so far as it has structured the present. 81S This view evaluates realism as maturity. But why so? If lower-class children abandon certain educational and occupational aspirations, this may be so much the better for them. It would be rational, how- ever, only insofar as reality itself is rational. T o identify temporal integration with realistic orientation presupposes a perfect world -realitas sive perfectio. This is a well known traditional premise, but it does not differentiate time and reality far enough to use temporal integration as a means to control-not necessarily to change-reality.
There have been societies which had to use reality as rationality control. Our society, however, has to use rationality as reality control. Its structure and its environment are too complex for adaptive procedures,86 and there is not enough time available for adjustment. Under the condition of high complexity, time be- comes scarce. Time has to be substituted for reality as the pre- dominant dimension while future obtrudes itself as the predom- inant horizon. Such a society will need forms and procedures of
temporal integration which, above all, combine the present future and future presents and consider the past only as th. e set of facts which we are no longer able to prevent from existing or becoming.
The prevailing conception of the present future seems to be a utopian one 8T with an optimistic or a pessimistic overtone. The
1111 See, for example, Cottle andKlineberg, The Present of Things Future, pp. 70 If.
lie Russel L. Ackolf and Fred E. Emery, On Purposeful Systems (London and Chi? cago: Aldine, 1972), esp. pp. 80 If, pursue a similar intention by distinguishing goal. seeking and purposeful systems.
liT In one important sense the reference to "utopias" is misleading here because originally the literary device of a utopia was invented Just because critics were 9101
Copyright (c) 2000 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) New School of Social Research
? Luhmann, Niklas, The Future Cannot Begin: Temporal Structures in Modern Society , Social Research, 43:1 (1976:Spring) p. 130
TEMPORAL STRUCTURES 143
future serves as a projection screen for hopes and fears. Its uto- pian formulation warrants rational behavior toward different (predictable and unpredictable) future presents, at least in the form of coherent negation. The future is expected to bring about the communist society or the ecological disaster, emancipation from domination or l'homme integrale discussed by Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. 38 This is the future that cannot begin. It re- mains a present future and at least an infallible sign of the pres- ence of critics. It moves away if we try to approach it. It does not
vanish, however, as long as the structural conditions of the present society endure, but it may resettle with new symbols and meanings, if the old ones are worn out by disappointments and new experi- ences. Our recent experiences seem to show that these utopian futures speed up their change and may change so quickly that they never will have a chance to be tested and to get confirmation in a
present.
Technologies, on the other hand, orient themselves to future
presents. They transform them into a string of anticipated pres- ents. They postulate and anticipate causal or stochastic links be- tween future events in order to incorporate them into the present present. This implies two important reductions of complexity. The first transforms the character of events which are emerging recombinations of independent contingencies into a carrier func- tion of the process of determination. The second brings into re- lief a sequential pattern, a chain of interconnected events; it se- quentializes complexity by abstracting more or less from inter- fering processes.
