Classical social theory neglected communication and motivation as second-order concepts.

Evidence

Societal theory is, according to the main elements it has inherited from the nineteenth century, on the one hand a theory of social differentiation into strata and into functional subsystems and, on the other hand, a theory of socio-cultural evolution. Both aspects are intertwined through the assumption that socio-cultural evolution leads to increasing differentiation. Within this frame of reference, issues of communication and questions of motivation for accepting and complying with communications remain incompletely illuminated. Partly they were seen as merely psychological actions and attributed to the individual, so that they could be passed over in a macro-sociological approach. Partly they were subsumed under such special concepts as consensus, legitimacy, informal organization, mass communication, and the like. Both ways of dealing with the problem led to concepts of a lesser order and of more limited range in comparison with the concepts of differentiation and evolution. Questions of communication and motivation were thus not entirely excluded from societal theory but they did not rank with the main concepts. Against this one could speak out in the name of a supposed humanism and deplore the loss of humanity without achieving any more than articulating protest at a quite inappropriate level. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 586

Categorization

• XREF: Explains why Luhmann must rebuild trust/power: the 19th-century frame (differentiation + evolution) left the motivational-selection questions that Giddens later picks up under-examined. — connects to: Sociology cannot address group self-understanding without historical interpretation and dialectical communication — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2428