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Purpose: This study aims to review Luhmann's theory of moral communication while focusing on symmetry conditions, in light of Armin Nassehi's criticism, to clarify issues regarding this concept. Then, Luhmann's symmetry condition is reconstructed as a concept containing double meaning via a case study in Japan. Correspondingly, interesting situations and characteristics of moral communication, such as "inflation," the "polemogene" and ubiquity of moral communication, are interpreted more consistently. Design/methodology/approach: In today's society, moral communication may spiral out of control and even be fatal. By examining Niklas Luhmann's theory, in this paper, the author elaborates on why and how this mechanism occurs. Findings: The author emphasizes that the suspicion pertaining to the asymmetry of communication is stressed in the case of anonymity. When an individual communicates using a moral code, it is impossible to discern whether the implications of self-bindingness are undermined or not through observations or consequences of communication and can only be questioned or confirmed through communication. However, criticizing the outburst of the masses and exchanging blame by isolating only one aspect of such a phenomenon will only be superficial. Originality/value: This study reveals that the very condition that makes moral communication possible enables people to communicate respectfully or contemptuously with others without any special qualification. Such an analysis can serve as a theoretical underpinning for the analysis of today's phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the US society's insignificant mitigation of climate change using Niklas Luhmann's (1989) autopoietic social systems theory in ecological communication. Specifically, the author's analysis falls within the context of Luhmann re-moralized while focusing on particular function systems' binary codes and their repellence of substantive US climate change mitigation policy across systems. Design/methodology/approach: The author achieves this purpose by resituating Luhmann's conception of evolution to forgo systems teleology and better contextualize the spatial-temporal scale of climate change; reinforcing complexity reduction and differentiation by integrating communication and media scholar John D. Peters's (1999) "communication chasm" concept as one mechanism through which codes sustain over time; and applying these integrated concepts to prominent the US climate change mitigation attempts. Findings: The author concludes that climate change mitigation efforts are the amalgamation of the systems' moral communications. Mitigation efforts have relegated themselves to subsystems of the ten major systems given the polarizing nature of their predominant care/harm moral binary. Communication chasms persist because these moral communications cannot both adhere to the systems' binary codes and communicate the climate crisis's urgency. The more time that passes, the more codes force mitigation organizations, activist efforts and their moral communications to adapt and sacrifice their actions to align with the encircling systems' code. Social implications: In addition to the conceptual contribution, the social implication is that by identifying how and why climate change mitigation efforts are subsumed by the larger systems and their codes, climate change activists and practitioners can better tool their tactics to change the codes at the heart of the systems if serious and substantive climate change mitigation is to prevail. Originality/value: To the author's knowledge, there has not been an integration of a historical communication concept into, and sociological application of, ecological communication in the context of climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper combines the systems theoretical perspective on the evolution of societal differentiation and the emergence of codes in communication. By combining the approach by Niklas Luhmann with a historical theology on the development of Christian morality split between God and Devil, it recreates a sociological point of observation on contemporary moral forms by a temporary occupation of the retired Christian Devil. Design/methodology/approach: The article combines a Luhmannian systems theoretical perspective on the evolution of societal differentiation with a concept of emerging codes in communication. The latter is based on on the development of a Christian view of morality being split between God and Devil. It establishes a sociological point of observation on contemporary moral forms through the temporary invocation of the retired figure of the Christian Devil. Findings: The proposed perspective develops a healthy perspective on the exuberant distribution of a health(y) morality across the globe during the pandemic crisis of 2020–21. The temporary invocation of the retired Christian Devil as point of departure in this sociological analysis allows for a disturbing view on the unlimited growth of the morality of health and its inherent dangers of dedifferentiating the highly specialised forms of societal differentiation and organisation. Originality/value: By applying the diabolical perspective, the analytical framework creates a unique opportunity to observe the moral encodings of semantic forms in detail, while keeping the freedom of scientific enquiry to choose amongst available distinctions in the creation of sound empirical knowledge. This article adopts a neutral stance, for the good of sociological analysis. The applications of the term "evil" to observations of communication are indifferent to anything but itself and its qualities as scientific enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Cross tables are omnipresent in management, academia and popular culture. The Matrix has us, despite all criticism, opposition and desire for a way out. This paper draws on the works of three agents of the matrix. The paper shows that Niklas Luhmann criticised Talcott Parsons’ traditional matrix model of society and proceeded to update systems theory, the latest version of which is coded in the formal language of George Spencer Brown. As Luhmann failed to install his updates to all components of his theory platform, however, regular reoccurrences of Parsonian crosstabs are observed, particularly in the Luhmannian differentiation theory, which results in compatibility issues and produces error messages requesting updates. This paper aims to code the missing update translating the basic matrix structure from Parsonian into Spencer Brownian formal language.Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on work by Boris Hennig and Louis Kauffman and a yet unpublished manuscript by George Spencer Brown, to demonstrate that the latter introduced his cross as a mark to indicate NOR gates in circuit diagrams. The paper also shows that this NOR gate marker has been taken out of and may be observed to contain the tetralemma, an ancient matrix structure already present in traditional Indian logic. It then proceeds to translate the basic structure of traditional contingency tables into a Spencer Brownian NOR equation and to demonstrate the difference this translation makes in the modelling of social systems.Findings The translation of cross tables from Parsonian into Spencer Brownian formal language results in the design of a both matrix-shaped and compatible test routine that works as a virtual window for the observation of the actually unobservable medium in which a form is drawn, and can be used for consistency checks of expressions coded in Spencer Brownian formal language.Originality/value This paper quotes from and discusses a so far unpublished manuscript finalised by Spencer Brown in April 1961. The basic matrix structure is translated from Parsonian into Spencer Brownian formal language. A Spencer Brownian NOR matrix is coded that may be used to detect errors in expressions coded in Spencer Brownian formal language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]