No More Learning

3), 1981, pp. 274-85. On the recursivity of communicative op- erations specifically, see also id. , 'Fiir Niklas Luhmann: Wie rekursiv ist Kommunikation? ', Teoria Sociologica, 1/2 (1993), pp. 66-85. Von Foerster's answer to the question is: communication is recursivity - with mathematical consequences, of course.
13 On this comparison cf. Michel Serres, Genesis (Ann Arbor, Mich. , 1995), pp. 87ff, with the severely restrictive concept of 'quasi-objects'.
14 See Spencer Brown, Laws of Form, pp. 54ff.
15 This issue is already to be found in perceptive formulations from the
early Romantic period. See e. g. Novalis, 'Bliitenstaub 109' ('Pollen'):
? 'The normal present links the past and the future by way of limita- tion. Contiguity arises through paralysis, crystallization. But there is a spiritual present which identifies both through dissolution. ' Quoted from Werke, Tagebiicher und Briefe Friedrich von Hardenbergs (Darmstadt, 1987), vol. 2, p. 283. However, one would hardly want to apply this hope based on 'spirit' to the mass media.
16 As in Heinz Forster, Das Gedachtnis: Fine quantenphysikalische Untersucbung (Vienna, 1948). Cf. also Heinz von Foerster, 'What is Memory that it May Have Hindsight and Foresight as well', in Samuel Bogoch, ed. , The Future of the Brain Sciences (New York, 1969), pp. 19-64.
17 Cf. Dirk Baecker, 'Das Gedachtnis der Wirtschaft', in Baecker et al. , eds, Theorie als Passion (Frankfurt, 1987), pp. 519-46. However, it should be added here that the system of law can be used in certain cases to correct this forgetfulness that is both typical of and neces- sary to the economy.
Chapter 14 The Public
1 Dirk Baecker, 'Oszillierende Offentlichkeit', in Rudolf Maresch, ed. , Mediatisierte Offentlichkeiten (forthcoming).
2 Cf. Niklas Luhmann, Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1988), pp. 9Iff.
3 Cf. Niklas Luhmann, 'Die Beobachtung der Beobachter im politischen System: Zur Theorie der offentlichen Meinung', in Jiirgen Wilke, ed. , Offentliche Meinung: Theorie, Methoden, Befunde. Beitrage zu Ehren von Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann (Freiburg, 1992), pp. 77-86.
4 Cf. e. g. Francis Bacon, 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation', Bacon's Essays (London, 1895), pp. 12-15; Juan Pablo Matir Rizo, Norte de Principes (1626; Madrid, 1945), ch. 21, pp. 119-22. Torquato Acetto, 'Delia dissimulazione onesta' (1641), in Benedetto Croce and Santino Caramella, eds, Politici e moralisti del seicento (Bari, 1930), pp. 143- 73; Madeleine de Scuderi, Conversations sur divers sujets, vol. I (Lyons, 1680), pp. 300ff. For secondary literature see e. g. Ulrich Schulz-Buschhaus, 'Uber die Verstellung und die ersten 'primores' des Heroe von Gracian', Romanische Forschungen, 91 (1979), pp. 411-30; August Buck, 'Die Kunst der Verstellung im Zeitalter des B a r o c k ' , Festschrift der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main (Wiesbaden, 1981), pp. 85-113; Margot Kruse, 'Justification et critique du concept de la dissimulation dans l'ceuvre des moralistes du XVIIe siecle', in Manfred
? 5 6
1 2
Tietz and Volker Kapp, eds, La pensee religieuse dans la litterature et la civilisation du XVIIe siecle en France (Paris, 1984), pp. 147-68. What this literature clearly brings to light is that the political prob- lem of secrecy is rooted in the general moral rules of the upper classes. To this extent, the critique of arcane politics and the demand for openness is at the same time an indication of the differentiation of the political system, because of course it cannot be applied to the behaviour of those who are now deemed to be 'private persons'.
On this specifically, see Keith Michael Baker, 'Politics and Public Opinion under the Old Regime: Some Reflections', in Jack R. Censer and Jeremy D. Popkin, eds, Press and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France (Berkeley, Calif. , 1987), pp. 204-46.
As in Mary Hesse, Models and Analogies in Science (Notre Dame, Ind. , 1966), pp. 157ff.
Chapter 15 Schema Formation
See ch. 10 on this.
For much quoted starting points of this debate, cf. Frederic C. Bartlett, Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology (Cam- bridge, 1932); Eduard C. Tolman, 'Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men', Psychological Review, 55 (1948), pp. 189-208; Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York, 1974). Cf. also Roger C. Shank and Robert P. Abelson, Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding (Hillsdale NJ, 1977), or Robert P. Abelson, 'Psychological Status of the Script Concept', American Psychologist, 36 (1981), pp. 715-29. The terminology could be simplified. We opt for schema and, in the special case of temporal order, for script.
See e. g. Dennis A. Gioia and Charles C. Manz, 'Linking Cognition and Behavior: A Script Processing Interpretation of Vicarious Learn- ing', Academy of Management Review, 10 (1985), pp. 527-39; Henry P. Sims, Jr, Dennis A. Gioia et al. , The Thinking Organization (San Francisco, 1986).
See Arthur C. Graesser et al. , 'Memory for Typical and Atypical Ac- tions in Scripted Activities', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6 (1980), pp. 503-15; Joseph W. Alba and Lynn Hasher, 'Is Memory Schematic? ', Psychological Bul- letin, 93 (1983), pp. 203-31.
In 'The Schematism of the Pure Concepts of Understanding', Cri- tique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith (London,
3
4
5
1982), pp. 180ff.
? 6 See e. g. Gerald R. Salancik and Joseph F. Porac, 'Distilled Ideologies: Values Derived from Causal Reasoning in Complex Environment', in: Sims, Gioia et al. , Thinking Organization, pp. 75-101.
7 'Anchoring' here in the sense of a psychological theory which empha- sizes the heuristic value of anchoring, availability, topical account etc. See Amos Tversky and Danial Kahneman: 'Availability: A Heuristics forjudging Frequency and Probability', Cognitive Psychology, 5 (1973), pp. 207-32; Danial Kahneman and Amos Tversky, 'Choices, Values, and Frames', American Psychologist, 39 (1984), pp. 341-50. Cf. also Robert E. Nisbett and Lee Ross, Human Inference: Strategies and Short- comings of Social judgment (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1980).
8 For a more recent publication see e. g. Gerhard de Haan, ed. ,
Umweltbewufitsein und Massenmedien: Perspektiven okologischer Kommunikation (Berlin, 1995).
9 Salancik and Porac, 'Distilled Ideologies'.
10 Cf. e. g. Hazel Markus, 'Self-Schemata and Processing Information
about the Self', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35
(1977), pp. 63-78.
11 On the status of research, see 'Intersubjective Communication and
Ontogeny: Between Nature, Nurture and Culture. Theory Forum Sym- posium Pre-Proceedings', Oslo, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, 25-30 August 1994.
12 See Stein Braten, 'Between Dialogic Mind and Monologic Reason, Postulating the Virtual Other', in M. Campanella, ed. , Between Ra- tionality and Cognition (Turin, 1988), pp. 205-35; id. , 'The Virtual Other in Infants' Minds and Social Feelings', in A. H. Wold, ed. , The Dialogical Alternative (Oslo, 1992), pp. 77-97.
13 For this, see Raymond Williams, Sociology of Culture (ch. 9 n. 3), pp. 137ff, 145ff.
14 See Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, 'Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author' (1710), quoted from Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (2nd edn, London, 1714, repr. Farnborough, Hants, 1968), vol. 1, pp. 151ff. On the divided self after Shaftesbury, cf. Jan Hendrick van den Berg, Divided Existence and Complex Society (Pittsburgh, 1974).
15 See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions, esp. the start of book I: 'I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. ' And what is also remarkable is that Rousseau applies this self-schematization of being different to his text as well: 'I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without pre- cedent, and which will never find an imitator' (Confessions (London
? 16
and Toronto, 1931), p. 1). When Rousseau infers the uniqueness of his text from the uniqueness of his self, is then he himself his text? Or is this confusion necessary in order to dispel the suspicion that this is a schema? On the contemporaneous critique of this point see also the note in (Euvres completes (Pleiade edn; Paris, 1951), p. 1231.
Under the motto of how one comes by an education, see also: The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography (1907; New York, 1918). Incidentally, Henry Adams plays three roles in this text: as author, as narrator and as the one whose futile search for an educa- tion is being recounted. This, therefore, is also a report about an identity which is lost and cannot be found again, one that in any event is no longer determined through origins and family and the Boston of the eighteenth century.
Chapter 16 Second-order Cybernetics as Paradox
See the essay collection Observing Systems (Seaside, Calif. , 1981). On this, with reference to organizations, cf. Frederick Steier and Kenwyn K. Smith, 'Organizations and Second Order Cybernetics',
Journal of Strategic and Systemic Therapies, 44 (1985), pp. 53-65. Heinz von Foerster, 'Objects: Tokens for (Eigen-) Behaviours' (ch. 5 n. 21).
Cf. e. g. John I. Kitsuse, 'Societal Reactions to Deviant Behavior: Prob- lems of Theory and Method', Social Problems 9 (1962), pp. 247-56; Edwin M. Lemert, Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social Control (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1967).
Following Wittgenstein, Heinz von Foerster says, for example, that such an ethics must remain implicit. But does that not mean that it must remain unobservable? See Heinz von Foerster, 'Implizite Ethik', in id. , Wissen und Gewissen (ch. 5 n. 22), pp. 347-49. See also id. , 'Ethics and Second-order Cybernetics', Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 1 (1992), pp. 9-25.
Cf. Gregory Bateson, Don. D. Jackson, Jay Haley and John Weakland, 'Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia', Behavioral Science, 1 (1956), pp. 251-64 and, especially influential, Mara Selvini Palazzoli et al. , Paradox and Counterparadox: A New Model in the Therapy of the Family Schizophrenic Transaction (New York, 1990). For an over- view, see also Kurt Ludewig, Systemische Therapie: Grundlagen klinischer Theorie und Praxis (Stuttgart, 1992).
On this, see also Niklas Luhmann, 'The Paradoxy of Observing Sys- tems', Cultural Critique, 31 (1995), pp. 37-55.
1 2
3 4
5
6
7
?
advertising 4 4 - 5 0 ; camouflaged
cycle with the economy 66; description of reality 80-1; economics 49-50, 72; financial independence for media 63; individuals 72; manipulation 44-6; providing taste and fashion 4 6 - 9 ; repetition 20; structural coupling with other strands 67-70; unity of information with news and entertainment 6 3 - 7 ; uses factual information 63-4
Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research 90
autonomy: relative 106 autopoiesis 91, 97, 107-8, 122
Baecker, Dirk 104 Bateson, Gregory: defines
information
18, 19
bias: monopoly 24
Braten, Stein 113
Brazil: Ricupero interview Brown, Spencer 10, 19, 101, 114
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 42-3 cause and effect: observation of causal
relationship 110; selection 77 censorship: Gulf War 8 - 9
4 2 - 3
Index
4 6 ;
class: advertising 8 0 - 1 ; inclusion/ exclusion 62; structure and media 69-70
coding: information and non- information 17-18; internal/ external boundaries 16-17
cognition 9 2 - 3 ; adaptive capabilities 95-6; operational closure of system 117, 118; social communication 99
communication: ambivalence and misunderstanding 97; consensus and dissent 100-1; context for meaning 15; distinguishes utterance and information 96-7; example in ecology 110-11; Gestalt complexes 7 7 - 8 ; materialities and reception 4; psychiatry 93; recursivity 9 1 - 2 , 9 9 - 1 0 0 ; senders and receivers 2; similarities of experience 81; social theory 38-9, 99; technology of dissemination 2, 1 5 - 1 6
The Confidence-Mart (Melville) 57 consensus 111-12; Habermas 100 constructivism 120; cognitive systems
5-7; radical 92; second-order cybernetics 117; systemic operations 8 9 - 9 4 ; see also reality
? consumers: quantitative responses 16 crime: juveniles as news topic 30 culture: commodification 86; product
and alibi of the mass media 85 cybernetics, second-order:
constructivist theory 117; system of the mass media 118-22; who is the oberserver? 1 2 0 - 2
fashion: advertising 4 7 - 9
film: description of reality 8 1 - 2 ;
entertainment 5 8 - 9 Flaubert, Gustave: Sentimental
Education 5 7
Foerster, Heinz von 11, 117, 120 France: early printed public opinion
105
freedom: disbalanced attribution
86-7; public opinion and press
105
Freud, Sigmund 61
Girard, Rene 80
Gracian, Baltasar 39
Gulf War: censorship 8 - 9
Habermas, Jiirgen: lifeworld 100 Hartung, Uwe 33
Hegel, Georg W. F. : Phenomenology
of Spirit 88-9
historicism 119 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von: Der
JJnbestechliche 113 hypocrisy 104-5, 106
identity: fictional realities 6 1 - 2 ; form 37; schematization of
self 112-16; social memory 37-8
ideology: distilled 111; universal suspicion of 8 3 - 4
individuals: advertising 72; attribution in mass media 7 1 - 2 ; autopoiesis 91, 97; entertainment 72-3; news 71; newsworthy norms violations 3 1 - 3 ; observers and actors 71; private opinion 1 3 , 1 4 ; representations of inner dialogues 113-15; schematization of self and others 112-16; social construct by standardization or fictionalization 73-5; subjectivity or consensus 93-4; as topics 107
information: coding 17-18; defined 17; distinguished from utterance
Defoe, Daniel 55 Descartes, Rene 112 dialogic closure 113 Diderot, Denis 53 differentiation: defined 23
economics: advertising 72; advertising 66; distribution of wealth 81; the market 104
of
Eigenvalues 37, 89, 99, 107 England: early printed public opinion
105
entertainment: competition 58;
description of reality 80, 81-2; fictional reality 52-6, 60-2; films 58-9, 81-2; game model 51-2; individuals 7 2 - 3 ; information transfers 6 3 - 4 ; literature 5 5 - 6 , 59-60; narrative pattern 57-8, 59-60, 72; sports 59; structural coupling with other strands 67-70; theatrical inner dialogues of others 113; unity of information with news and advertising 6 3 - 7
environmental issues 112; example of
communication 110-11 epistemology: constructivism eroticism: entertainment 59
ethics and morality: information/non-
information 79; journalists' code of 106, 120; judgement on norm violations 31; mass media 119-20; reality and moral judgements
78-80; selection 79; transformation of values 111; who is the oberserver? 1 2 0 - 1
cycle
5 - 7
? 96-7; fictional entertainment 53-6; moral judgements 79; time and redundancy 1 9 - 2 2 ; transfers between strands 6 3 - 4 ; two components 22; unity of news, advertising and entertainment
63-7; used in advertising 63-4; see
also news and reporting intertextuality: advertising 4 4 - 5 irritation: communication 100; media
generate and process 22; in the system of mass media 98
James, William 114
Jean Paul (Richter) 56, 80
Jonson, Ben: news production 25 journalists: code of ethics 106, 120
Kant, Immanuel: schemata as rules for accomplishing operation 109
Kepplinger, Hans Mathias 33 King, Rodney 68
knowledge: common sense and
paradox 121; mass media as source 1-9; memory and familiarity 38; mistrust 83-5; transparency 103; understanding of news 35
language: advertising 4 5 - 6
law 99; function of system 69; in the
mass media 68
literature: describing reality 81;
entertainment 5 9 - 6 0 ; fictional reality 55-6; individuals and inner dialogues 113-15; narrative structure 110; secrecy and hypocrisy 104-5
manipulation: advertising 44-6; mass media suspected of 39-41; public suspicion 68; universal suspicion of ideology 8 3 - 4
Marquard, Odo 79
mass media system: class structure
69-70; coding 16-22; construction
of reality 7 - 9 , 76; culture 85; dual structure of reproduction and information 98; ethics 106, 119-20; general systems theory 97; Gestalt complexes 7 7 - 8 ; informational unity 6 3 - 7 ; interchanges in freedom of communication 99; no interaction between senders and receivers 2; operational closure 89; politics 67-8; process of dissemination 2-4; professional ethics 106; representation of the public 1 0 5 - 6 ; second-order cybernetics 118-22; self- and other-reference 10-14; self-generated uncertainty 82-3; sequence of operations 11; source of knowledge 1-9; structural couplings 67-70, 110-16; suspected of manipulation 39-41; topics 12-13; transcendental illusion 4-5; transparency 103; universalism versus specification 23-4; world as is versus world observed 11
materialism: science and reality 76 Maturana, Humberto 120; structural
drift 108
meaning: context for communication
15; self-generated uncertainty 82-3 media: construction of the individual
7 3 - 5
Melville, Herman:
The Confidence-
Man 57
memory 98; advertising 45;
entertainment 58; forgetting 101, 108-9; function systems 101-2; identity 3 7 - 8 ; physiological operation of brain 89
military constituencies 24 modernity: structure of time 21
news and reporting: audience knowledge 35; conflict topics 28; context 36-7; describing reality
? 78; film tied to real time 39-40; individuals as observers and actors 71; institutional programming 34-5; local relevance 29; moral judgements 31; norm violations 29-33; opinion expression 33-4; presentation of past as new and entertaining 25-6; professionalism of journalists 26; quantity topics 28-9; recursivity and key events 33; selection criteria 27-35; structural coupling with other strands 67-70; surprise 28; suspected of manipulation 39--41; truth 36; unity of information with advertising and entertainment
6 3 - 7 ; see also information Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth 89 norms violation: moral judgements
31; as news topic 29-31; people 31-3
observation: boundaries of system 104; causal relationships 110; distinguished from operations 95-6; second-order 83-4, 85, 90, 117-18; self-reference 90, 97; who is the observer? 118-19, 120-2
ontology 84
operations: constructivism 89-94;
distinguished from observation 95-6
Parsons, Talcott 99; system of actions 77
psychiatry: communication 93 psychology: effects of entertainment
61; schematization of self and
others 112
public: distinguished from public
opinion 103-4; mass media as representation of 1 0 5 - 6 ; protection of a private sphere 105
public opinion: arises from politics in print 105; causal attribution and conflict 77; consensual construction of reality 6 8 - 9 ; distinguished from public 103-4; freedom 105; letters to the editor 34; as news 33-4; politicians' honesty 4 3 ; and private 1 3 , 1 4 ; suspicions of manipulation 3 9 - 4 1
reality: by consensus 68-9; consistency in system 6 - 7 ; construction by media 7 - 9 , 76; constructivist theory 8 8 - 9 4 ; dual nature of mass media 1 - 3 ; in entertainment media 52-6, 60-2,
8 1 - 2 ; Hegel's sense-certainty 8 8 - 9 ; moral judgements 78-80; news and reporting 78; politics 80; recursivity 91-2, 98; scientific verification 89-90; second-order observation 83-4, 85, 90; self- generated uncertainty 8 2 - 3 ; subjectivity or consensus 93-4; systems operation 102; world as is versus world observed 11
reception: communication 4 reference see self-reference relativism 76, 119
religion 24, 84, 119
Rete Globo: Ricupero interview 4 2 - 3 Richter, Johann Paul (Jean Paul) 56
Phenomenology
of Spirit (Hegel)
88-9
physicality: entertainment 59
Plato 1; conception of society 15 politics 24; benefits and irritations of
media 6 7 - 8 ; early printed public
opinion 105; reality 80 Porac, Joseph F. I l l postmodernity 21, 119 private opinion see individuals
Ricupero, Rubens 4 2 - 3 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
114,115 schemata 119; can refer to things or
Salancik, Gerald R. I l l
?