Every symbolic medium ultimately depends on organized support systems to function

Evidence

Symbiotic mechanisms will therefore receive a specialist communication function, on fixed organic bases, just through symbolically generalized codes. With increasing demand comes dependence on organization as an addition to this. Then specialized social systems reappear again behind the organic processes as a supposed last link. Money manages to satisfy needs only by means of organized trade. Scientifically meaningful observations can for the most part only be approached by means of organized preparation. If the superiority of physical force over any other possible form of force is to be guaranteed reliably in one geographical territory, it assumes that resources have been amassed and mobilized. At that point this superiority no longer provides ultimate security but requires organization of decisions about its deployment and that this organization is certain. Sexuality alone is no longer a secure basis for love, i.e. a proof of love, but itself demands a further guarantee – in the products of the pharmaceutical industry. Safety chains of this type offer greater certainty in the face of greater uncertainty, precisely because they are formed so heterogeneously that all the links do not break at the same time. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 707

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘safety chains’ idea — heterogeneous links so not all break at once — parallels Luhmann’s own reduction-of-complexity theme and Giddens’s expert systems; could connect to how Stevens’s institutionalized role buffers him against doubt. — connects to: All formal systems face internal limitations that cannot be escaped — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 323
• DEFINE: Defines ‘symbiotic mechanisms’ as media anchored in fixed organic bases that gain a communication function via symbolic codes.