Actions carry special social controls that experiences do not

Evidence

One can have the same experience, while the action giving rise to that experience can differ. This difference precedes the question of whether the availability of a different type of action is again limited – for instance by moral or legal demands, or by power. … Mistaken interpretations of experience are treated as errors and are sanctioned differently, if at all. On the other hand, acts are subject to special social controls which are formulated at the same time as the action itself becomes possible. … It is revealed, inter alia, in the fact that where acting is concerned, it is easier to deny that it was intended than in the case of experiencing and hence the complications which arise over the problem of negation in a normative theory or even a logic of action. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 615

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Giddens framework: actions being socially controlled and deniable-of-intent is exactly what makes faceless commitment to institutional roles a liability — Stevens can be blamed for actions in a way mere experiences cannot. — connects to: Operational concepts terminate in improved methods of social control — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 431; Good intentions fail without social forms to express them — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 763; A social movement is defined by three-way interactions, not solo action. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 338