Even power requires a universalistic code to function in complex societies

Evidence

In the case of power – in comparison, for example, with the cases of money or of truth – this condition is particularly hard to fulfil. For where power is concerned, of course, the selections are attributed to the participants as decisions. Nevertheless, even power cannot be institutionalized in complex societies without a universalistic code. Universally applicable symbols, which can be deployed whatever the particular situation, are preconditions for the emergence of expectations concerning as yet unknown or not yet constituted situations and for the elaboration of related grounds for action. Without a primarily universalistic orientation, it is impossible to form chains, to have a sufficiently wide-ranging attitude to an open future and to have high social mobility with constantly changing participants. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 669

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies what Luhmann means by a ‘universalistic code’ — situation-independent symbols deployable in unknown circumstances.
• XREF: Connects to Giddens’s ‘faceless commitments’ — both describe how abstract codes let actors rely on institutions beyond face-to-face context. — connects to: Universal generalization is a totalitarian imposition on the world — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 162