For Niklas Luhmann, sociology was the description of reality, not of what is right. His early lectures are the perfect introduction to a way of thinking that still helps us see many things more clearly.
Reading Luhmann is a bit like listening to techno: you have to stay with it for a while to follow how the mastermind of systems theory, one of the most important sociologists of the second half of the twentieth century, develops his theory modules. The sound sounds strange at first, but after the first 400 to 500 pages, Luhmann’s terms come across like good friends that reliably sort out thinking: complexity reduction! Functional equivalence! Structure as a generalized behavioral expectation! In the “Archipelago Luhmann” (Peter Sloterdijk), everything is always there; in the self-supporting construction of this theoretical cathedral, every definition of a term refers to all the others. This naturally increases curiosity about the beginnings of this major project of sociological enlightenment with the universal claim formulated from the outset to “deal with all social issues with a limited treasure trove of conceptual tools.”