Institutionalized legitimate power outweighs brutality in social significance

Evidence

The real achievement of Parsons’ theory was to replace the prejudices of sociology as a science of crisis and opposition with a relatively non-issue-driven theoretical design (one thus open in its turn to criticism). However one judges the adequacy of this analytical apparatus, it is indisputable that the institutionalization of enforceable legitimate power is a phenomenon of greater social significance in comparison with brutality and selfishness. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 612

Categorization

• XREF: Turns the sociology-of-crisis lens upside down — a framing that matters for reading Stevens’s quiet devotion as socially significant rather than a pathology to critique. — connects to: The collective’s brutality masks manipulation rather than true human quality; Ordinary people’s refusal can topple even entrenched systems of power — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1661; Institutional human rights strength does not measure human welfare — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 444 (+1 more)