Events and constancies are mutually exclusive yet mutually defining

Evidence

These two perspectives are mutually exclusive, since the identity principle, by which one is defined as constant, is precisely what has to be treated as varying in defining the other. They cannot therefore be employed simultaneously. But precisely because of this mutual exclusiveness, both forms of identification reinforce each other as complementary negatives. In other words, variation, as such, is inconceivable, if one cannot assume identities with respect to which something is changing. Both forms of identification negate (and thus make it possible to understand) what varies in the other. In this way each elucidates the meaning of time for the other kind of identity. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 117

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets up the core mechanism: constancies (systems, institutions) become identifiable only as the negate/background against which events (trust-installments, changes) become meaningful — and vice versa.
• XREF: Directly scaffolds the reader’s thesis: Stevens’s institutional devotion (constancy of the butler role) becomes the identity against which individual human moments (Darlington’s ethical failures) register as events he cannot integrate. — connects to: What-is-not determines what-is in the human world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 352; A single phrase can hold contradictory temporal meanings simultaneously — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 54; The essence of necessity is contingency, grounded in an event — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 128 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: This is the paradigm-shifting core of Luhmann’s temporal ontology — that the two modes of identification are strictly incompatible yet only comprehensible as each other’s complement. It resists one-sentence summary.