A Few Notes About the Open Future (in Place of a Conclusion)

For a systems theorist like Niklas Luhmann, evolution constitutes the specific mechanism of structural change. In earlier conceptions of evolutionary theory, the majority view prevailed that evolution was an inevitable process of change, often associated with the concept of civilizational growth, social progress or growth of humanity. This notion was abandoned with the modern variant of evolutionary theory. For Luhmann, evolution is connected with the increase of societal complexity. In this context he showed that the earlier supposition connected with the idea that history should be a magistra vitae—a teacher of life—was no longer adequate. Indeed, before Luhmann, R. Koselleck had already pointed out that history could serve as a model for the future only if the past and the future are ultimately the same (Bergmann 1983: 475). Contemporary society, which is very dynamic and rapidly changing, is continually moving away from its past and differentiating itself from it. In such a situation, the simple application of the idea that we should learn from the past is becoming somewhat problematic. As a result of evolutionary changes, history has lost its model character; its orientation to its own systemic history has become insufficient, and the focus of attention has shifted to the future, to social planning, which is, according to Luhmann, the manifestation of efforts to the so-called “defuturizing of the future”. The fact that it is ever harder to guess the future arises not from some fundamental unpredictability, but from the complexity of a world following no plan and constantly accelerating.