Saturday, July 12, 2008
more sources of normativity
I'd just finished Korsgaard's account of normativity (save for the responses by the likes of Williams, Nagel, Cohen etc, helpfully included as the book's final chapters), which was precise but uninspiring, when I came across another account: Niklas Luhmann's theory in his Sociology of Law. There couldn't very well be a sharper contrast between the two--Korsgaard's theory is designed as a series of lectures, terribly, almost laboriously clear. It is an accout of normativity viewed from the inside, for actors who experience normative pressures. Luhmann's is neither of these things. It is quite difficult to read, which, in this case, is an odd byproduct of precision: the man does not use synonyms, and so when he begins to write about expectations of expectations of expectations of action by various actors, one finds oneself longing for the sort of manic thesaurus use evidenced by, say, the NY Times column Modern Love. That said, the theory is extremely clever--it is, basically, that there are two kinds of strategies for dealing with disappointment in expectations: the cognitive strategy, where one decides to alter one's expectations, and the normative strategy, where one does not, even if they are repeatedly disappointed. Which strategies are best for which types of things is largely a cultural decision, based on what the society sees as most conducive to its own survival. With increasing complexity, Luhmann argues, these strategies become more sharply differentiated. I haven't actually gotten to law yet, though the approach already makes it clear that one of the major problems in analytic legal philosophy, the problem of law's normativity, will not be a problem here. In short, very interesting and, I think, very useful.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Very interesting indeed.
Also useful. As I continue to slog slowly through the 850 pages of Underworld, a novel that is so preoccupied with disappointed expectations, your post on Luhmann has particular relevance.
Most of the characters in the novel seem to be striving to adopt the cognitive strategy, but always failing. That is, they are disappointed, recognize that this will likely recur, proclaim that they will alter their expectations but then fail to do so. This makes me wonder if Luhmann has anything to say about the forces that might work against a culturally-motivated adoption of one strategy or the other.
He does have things to say about it, though I don't trust myself to summarize yet--more, no doubt, when I finish the book. Anyway, I like your analysis; I think it's quite acute of you to apply it to Delillo, since his interest in social systems is exactly the sort of thing that Luhmann's theories could be useful for. I'd love to apply them to Balzac, myself, if only I spoke French.
What I didn't mention in my post is that the ideas the society sees as most important to its own survival tend to be the ones it encourages people to use normative strategies to deal with, and as a society changes, some of these things will shift from normative to cognitive. Perhaps these characters live in a society whose expectations have not changed at a pace to match its development?
Hmm, I am thinking about your last point. In terms of the "Underworld" DeLillo's constructed, it's a world in which decay is happening at the same exponential speed as technological development, and humans are vastly under-equipped to deal with either type of change. But I think DeLillo imagines himself critiquing both the waste/ruin and the technological 'progress' narratives as normative-- or perhaps oppressive would be a more realistic word here. And in DeLillo's Cold-War America, "society" seems to survive best when individuals don't acknowledge these changes-- that is, they remain blind to the normativity that might ultimately wreak their own destruction (okay, I'm getting dramatic now, but it IS DeLillo). So what happens (thus far anyways, I still have 100 pages left) is that the characters maintain normative, expectations in the most conventional sense--hopes of marriages, children, suburban houses, fulfilling jobs, etc. These expectations are also normative in Luhmann's sense, because they are repeatedly frustrated and yet, rarely abandoned. But it is the pursuit of these ends that obscure, for most of the characters, the "macro" operations of the society-- the ones that are most important to its survival.
I think this is actually a failing of DeLillo, who so desperately wants to show how INTERTWINED the societal and the personal are in this book. But as soon as the desire to do so becomes so visible, we're painfully aware of his efforts and therefore end up setting the "characters" and the "history" at odds.
I haven't read Underworld but based on your comments & on White Noise I can imagine what you mean. I just got to a theory of law & violence in Luhmann that made me think of you, Sarah--and not only because it cites Benjamin's Critique of Violence. I can send you the relevant passage, if you're interested, but I understand that you probably don't need more reading.
No, do send! At least send along the citation so that I can look at it when I'm rereading Critique of Violence.
Plus, it is Bastille day here and I think it should be obligatory to read things about law and violence, right?
Post a Comment