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Order at the Edge of Chaos: Meanings from Netdom Switchings across Functional Systems*
Jorge Fontdevila, M. Pilar Opazo and Harrison C. White Sociological Theory 2011 29: 178 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9558.2011.01393.x The online version of this article can be found at: http://stx.sagepub.com/content/29/3/178

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Order at the Edge of Chaos: Meanings from Netdom Switchings Across Functional Systems*
JORGE FONTDEVILA California State University Fullerton M. PILAR OPAZO AND HARRISON C. WHITE Columbia University
The great German theorist Niklas Luhmann argued long ago that meaning is the central construct of sociology. We agree, but our scheme of stochastic processesevolved over many years as identity and controlargues for switchings of intercalated bits of social network and interpretive domain (i.e., netdom switchings) as the core of meaning processes. We thus challenge Luhmanns central claim that modern societys subsystems are based on communicative self-closure. We assert that there is refuting evidence from sociolinguistics, from how languages are put together and how languages indexical and reflexive devices (e.g., metapragmatics, heteroglossia, genres) are used in social action. Communication is about managing indexicalities, which entail great ambiguity and openness as they are anchored in myriad netdom switchings across social times and spreads. In contrast, Luhmanns concept of communication revolves around binary codes governed recursively and algorithmically within systems in efforts to reduce complexity from the environment. We conclude that systems closure does not solve the problem of uncertainty in social life. In fact, lack of uncertainty is itself a problem. Order is necessary, but order at the edge of chaos.

INTRODUCTION In this article, we venture some bold, drastic claims that may open fresh construals of our reality. In particular, we argue that the social and the cultural emerge interwoven in stochastic processes that constitute meanings. The great German theorist Niklas Luhmann (1995) argued trenchantly long ago that meaning is the central construct of sociology. We agree, but our scheme for stochastic processesevolved over many years as identity and control (White 2008)argues for switchings of intercalated bits of social network and cultural domain as the core of these meaning processes. Hereafter, we call these switchings of netdoms. 1 We reject Luhmanns central empirical argument that modern society is built through walled-off, separate, functional subsystems (e.g., economy, science, law, even art). Luhmann supplies little in the way of explicit infrastructure and mechanisms,
Address correspondence to: Jorge Fontdevila, Department of Sociology, California State University Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton, CA 92834, USA. Tel.: 657-278-2755; E-mail: jfontdevila@fullerton.edu. Authors are listed alphabetically. We are grateful to Larissa Buchholz, Corinne Kirchner, Jan Fuhse, Ron Breiger, Dario Rodriguez, and four anonymous reviewers for their incisive critique and valuable suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. 1 Netdoms bridge the separate abstractions of social network and cultural domain. Networks and domains merge in a type of tie delivering stories and a characteristic sense of temporality (Fontdevila and White 2010; Godart and White 2010; White 1995a, 2008).

Sociological Theory 29:3 September 2011 C 2011 American Sociological Association. 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005
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and we argue that there is refuting evidence from linguistics, from how languages are put together. By establishing a marked difference between action (e.g., netdom switching) and communication to justify the semiotic self-closure of a subsystem, Luhmann, we believe, fell back into nonindexical understandings of meaning. Meaning becomes, for him, binary, rule-driven, and self-referential (e.g., legality/illegality for law; legitimacy/illegitimacy for politics; truth/falsity for science). We argue instead that meaning is ultimately pragmatic and therefore problem-solving driven. Meaning is generated through identities struggling for control. More specifically, whereas Luhmann distinguishes social action (i.e., interaction, organizations, institutions) from communication, we instead argue that semiotic communication is always indexically pragmatic, and not just self-referential. We agree with Luhmanns centrality of meaning in social life, but we disagree with his quasistructuralist logic of opposition and difference within system self-closure. As we explain below, switching netdoms across sociocultural formations brings multiple voicings (heteroglossias) and contextualizing cues (meta-pragmatics) that radically change the rules of the communicative game of any specific subsystem, which thus are not impermeable to indexicalities 2 from elsewhere. These are big issues, and both the linguistic and the social formations literatures are vast, so space limitations prevent us from offering detailed tracings of all constructs. We hope that the reader understands the need to open up new perspectives for exploration as justifying a tight focus on what we regard as key processes. In the first section, we explain the main arguments of Luhmanns theory of social differentiation and then proceed to examine its contrasts with our theoretical proposal. The second section develops our scheme of netdom switchings around ambiguity control, and the third section turns to the linguistic side, laying out our main focus, indexical meta-pragmatics. We insist that the two sidesnetdom switching and indexical meta-pragmaticsmust be seen as co-constituted, around reflexivity. The fourth section further explores reflexivity, invoking other aspects of grammar. The fifth section focuses on meta-communication and rhetorics. It also explores two genres that seem to derail Luhmanns systems theory: journalism and fashion. Then, as denouement, the sixth section applies our scheme to dynamics of domination, which we go on to tie in with voicings on broader scales. The final section presents concluding reflections. ALTERNATIVE FRAMINGS: LUHMANNS SYSTEMS THEORY White and co-authors have elsewhere (White, Fuhse, et al. 2007) sketched how Luhmanns theory around meaning through functional subsystems could be interwoven with identity and control theory (White 2008). In this article, we show how sociolinguistics can further operationalize identity and control. We cross these two efforts to argue that indeed sociolinguistics offers mechanisms (e.g., indexicality, meta-pragmatics, heteroglossia) to refine Luhmanns approach. Before exploring these linguistic mechanisms, we first introduce Luhmanns theory of system differentiation, and then challenge Luhmanns ontological distinction between communication and action.

2 As we will explain below, indexicality refers to the interpretation of meaning as a function of its context. In other words, the meanings of communication derives from its context of use and not just from communication itself (Garfinkel 1967; Peirce 1978).

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Luhmanns systems theory is based on a historical claim: the evolution of society consists of processes of increased complexity in which four main types of differentiation can be recognized: segmentation, center/periphery, stratification, and functional. 3 Segmentation differentiates society according to equal subsystems. In primitive or tribal societies this form of differentiation is present either by descent or settlement (Luhmann 1977). Center/periphery differentiation admits one type of spatial inequality that leads to the formation of a center as a superior stratum. Stratification, by contrast, differentiates society into unequal subsystems. In the historical period when it emerges, society can no longer be described as having a common kinship origin, but is instead organized according to rank orders. In stratified societies, systems define their identity by establishing their difference from the rest of the strata. For instance, noblemen can only belong to a given social stratum because they are excluded from all the rest. Inequality in communication potential becomes the norm in a stratified society because the ordering of ranks rests on unequal distributions of wealth and power, both considered media of communication in Luhmanns theory (Luhmann 1977, 2007) Finally, functional differentiation is the last form of sociocultural evolution identified by Luhmann, and the focus of our analysis. He derives his theory around a change in historical epoch: The chief differentiation of society has been totally restructured in the modern age . . . specialized achievements no longer have to fit in with the primary orders of segmentary part systems, such as households or tribes, but the remaining or newly emerging forms of segmentary differentiation have now to justify themselves in relation to the particular achievement conditions of a functionally specified part system of society . . . Functional differentiation specifies and abstracts the perspectives of societys part systems and allocates to them unequal horizons of possibilities by means of unequal functions. We characterized this process as structurally determined overproduction of possibilities . . . capable of absorbing them with selective procedures. (1985:110, 157) Modern society, Luhmann proposes, achieves coordination by the operation of diverse subsystems, each fulfilling a specific function. The asymmetry equality/inequality is here manifested in a paradoxical way, namely, differentiated subsystems that support coordination of modern society are simultaneously equal and unequal: they fulfill different functions, yet provide uniform accessibility of their functions to all individuals. Functional differentiationas the form of differentiation of societyemphasizes the inequality of function of systems. But in this inequality they are equal (Luhmann 2007:590, authors translation). Thus, in contrast to stratified societies that could be ruled by leading groups (elites), the functionally differentiated society does not give primacy to any of the subsystems that compose it. Although each may try to impose its own operation and functional code over others, none is capable of total domination. This highlights a distinctive characteristic of modern societyit lacks a unique center of coordination. In Luhmanns words:

3 This theory is thoroughly developed in Luhmanns book Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (1997), which has not yet been translated into English.

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The world society has reached a higher level of complexity with higher structural contingencies, more unexpected and unpredictable changes (some people call this chaos) and, above all, more interlinked dependencies and interdependencies. This means that causal constructions (calculations, plannings) are no longer possible from a central and therefore objective point of view. They differ, depending upon observing systems, that attribute effects to causes and causes to effects, and this destroys the ontological and the logical assumptions of central guidance. We have to live with a polycentric, policontextural society. (Luhmann 1997:75) According to Luhmann, the functionally differentiated society is an improbable event. It emerges when the reflexive reproduction of subsystems achieves an operative closure that allows them to refer only to themselves in their communicative processes. This operative closure is attained once a binary code becomes stabilized, thus encouraging the emergence of an autonomous, self-reproducing subsystem, an autopoietic system. 4 Luhmanns preferred examples of subsystems of modern society are the economy, politics, law, science, art, and intimate relationships. The emergence of each subsystem occurs on the basis of a symbolically generalized medium of communication money, power, law, truth, art, and lovewhich functions to increase the probability of acceptance of communication. Moreover, Luhmann argues that the operation of each subsystem is associated with a particular binary code that orients communications, e.g., pay/no pay in the economic system, legitimacy/illegitimacy in the political system, and so on, as mentioned above. 5 How do the differentiated subsystems support the coordination of modern society? Let us consider the subsystem of the economy as an example: the economy fulfills a specific function in modern society (securing want for material satisfaction). This subsystem attained operative closure once money began to be generally conceived as a symbolic medium of communication in economic transactions. Furthermore, accessibility to the economic system is determined only on the basis of having money or notanyone with it can access the economy, irrespective of their social class, gender, race, etc. In this sense, unlike in stratified societies, in modern society the binary code of pay/no pay is decoupled from structural and demographic asymmetries. This does not mean that stratification or segmentation are eliminated. It just means that these are no longer the primary schemes of differentiation of society. To be precise, Luhmann explains that the transition to a differentiated society took place in the eighteenth century with the reformulation of the normative ideal of equality. In contrast to previous forms of differentiation, a functionally differentiated society,
4 Autopoiesis describes systems that in their operation make up the network of components that produce them. What is distinctive about autopoietic systems is that their organization is such that their only product is themselves, with no separation between producer and product (Maturana and Varela 2002:48 49). The concept of autopoiesis was originally developed by Maturana and Varela (1992) for the study of biological systems. Luhmann introduced it into his theory to examine the operation of social systems, i.e., interactions, organizations, and society. 5 Luhmann acknowledges that we cannot close the list of possible types of differentiation on ontological or logical grounds, but we cannot conceive other of another type either (Luhmann 1997:76). Furthermore, Luhmann suggests that existent subsystems are amenable to transformations, fusions, or disintegration, and that new subsystems of autonomy are likely to arise. Thus in contrast to Parsonss AGIL model, Luhmann does not limit the number of subsystems to just four. In fact, for Luhmann, societys systems are not primarily analytical but empirical entities. Any social sphere can become a subsystem, and thus the number of subsystems in society is a historical or empirical question (Schmidt 2007).

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thus, will become, or has to pretend to be, a society of equals as it is the aggregate set of environments of its functional subsystems (Luhmann 1977:36, emphasis in the original). The autonomy and self-reproducing character of differentiated subsystems can also be seen in other domains such as scientific research, law, or art. In modern society, the truth/falsity of a scientific proposition can only be assessed by considering its adequacy with respect to other scientific propositions. Similarly, if an individual wants to know how to fulfill some legal requirement, she has to turn to the legal system. And only the art system can determine what is considered a piece of art and what is not. There is no common scheme of differentiation in modern society; rather, each subsystem defines its own identity and discrimination criterion by the elaboration of a specific semantic that becomes crystallized through the reflexive operation of subsystems (Luhmann 2007). In sum, each subsystem functions according to its own logic and communication rules and none of the subsystems can directly interfere in each others operation. For instance, the economic system can participate in the political system by funding an election campaign, but it cannot decide who will be elected or how power will be organized. Similarly, money can help in the generation of scientific truths but cannot validate them. However, this does not imply that in a functionally differentiated society each system functions independently of all the rest. Quite the opposite, Luhmann claims that subsystems are constantly observing each other. Subsystems can maintain their identity and tolerate fluctuations of the environment precisely because other subsystems fulfill their respective functions (Luhmann 1977). Moreover, Luhmann states that communication among subsystems is essential for the coordination of society. Subsystems communicate through processes of structural coupling in which they trigger changes in each other and, as a consequence, transform one another. 6 A subsystem, however, does not encounter another subsystem as a passive or inert entity; it does so according to the systems own structure or previous states. As suggested above, the economy cannot directly transform the political system; yet these two systems can (and must) develop mechanisms for making their structural coupling possible. In Luhmanns words each form of differentiation requires the creation of synchronized forms of structural coupling; that is, forms of intensifying the contacts and, consequently, the mutual irritations among partial subsystemsat the same time as excluding or marginalizing other possibilities (Luhmann 2007:551, authors translation). To name another example, the coupling between the system of law and the economy is primarily attained through property rights and contracts. These boundarydevices enact changes in each of these systems as specific institutions, professions, technologies, etc. need to be developed. This suggests that if subsystems are not able to maintain their communication with their environment (other subsystems), their very existence will be at stake. It also suggests that the way in which a subsystem fulfills its function influences the operation and possibilities of other subsystems (Luhmann 1997, 2007, 2009). In fact, Luhmann argues that the absence of communication between any of the subsystems can have significant side-effects. An example
6 Structural coupling describes the history of mutual recurrent interactions leading to structural changes and congruence between two (or more) systems (Maturana and Varela 1992:75).

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of the lack of coordination among subsystems is ecological damage (Luhmann 2007; Rodriguez and Opazo 2007:340). It is worth noting that, for Luhmann, communication among subsystems is not assumed to be a straightforward or unproblematic process but instead a troubled and unpredictable one that requires the subsystems continual accommodation with their environment. As Luhmann puts it, We cannot expect natural harmony but, at best, stabilized and recognized tensions (Luhmann 1977:38). We agree with Luhmann that ongoing functional differentiation due to increasing complexity may be one of the hallmarks of contemporary societyat least as an unfolding project anchored in assumptions of democratic and meritocratic citizenship. However, we challenge his strong autopoietic view of subsystems as fundamentally impermeable to each other (Mingers 2002; Schmidt 2005; Viskovatoff 1999; Wolfe 1992). Contra Luhmann, we argue that structural couplings of subsystems through criss-crossing netdoms do not just irritate one another, but can fundamentally challenge and change their self-referential idioms. In this vein we propose to relax Luhmanns autopoietic assumption of meaning self-closure. 7 We assert that systems boundary maintenance is a much more ambiguous exercise of meaning making, including not only rule-driven, self-referential logicsperhaps loosely associated with identity and controls disciplines and control regimes (White 2008:241) 8 but also countless reflexive netdom switchings by identities that emerge, shape, and contextualize such logics in their struggle for control. Action and Communication Luhmann introduces language and its reflexivity while discussing functional differentiation. In his words, all this is not a necessary process, but a possible process which creates its own preconditions through system formation . . . Stabilization arises from the linguistic fixation of transmissible meaning (Luhmann 1985:109, emphasis in the original). And indeed meaning is central among abstract constructs for Luhmannmeaning is the selection mechanism that systems use in order to reduce complexitybut his theory does not weave it around social actors: The meaningful context that ties action to the system of society is a distinct one from the meaningfully guided, but organically based, context of real and possible human actions. (Luhmann 1985:105) In fact, a basic premise of Luhmanns theory is that social systems do not consist of social actors. Although actors are a condition of possibility for the existence of
7 In fact, the strict autopoietic assumption for biological systems theorized by Maturana and Varela (1980) has also been challenged by Viskovatoff (1999:490). Biological cells typically experience DNA ` information transfers amongst each other, which, far from simple structural couplings or perturbations a la Luhmann, change their fundamental metabolic pathways and mechanisms. Phenomena as ubiquitous as virus infections and horizontal gene transfer across species, but also bacterial conjugation and even eukaryotic genetic recombination during reproduction, are examples that challenge system closure at the biological level as well. 8 Disciplines result from recurring interactions that coordinate identities work (Corona and Godart 2009; White 2008; e.g., meetings or temporary organizations). Control regimes provide frameworks for the mobilization and coordination of identities across wider domains of action (Corona and Godart 2009; White 2008; e.g., emerging codes of corporate responsibility, sustainability). The term control regime has a critical association with Luhmanns subsystems by delimiting specific conduits of action. However, our term is broader than subsystems and can be extrapolated over communication, action and style constructs applied over ranges of historical paths and culture (White et al. 2007:552).

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social systems, they are not components of the communicative operation produced by social systems. Human beings or persons, instead, are conceived as part of the social systems environment. 9 Communications, not actors, provide for Luhmann the warp and weave of his social part systems (i.e., specialized realms or functional subsystems). Thus, the concepts of ego and alter (alter ego) do not stand for roles, persons or systems, but for special horizons that collect and bind together meaningful references (1995:8081). In this connection, Luhmann argues that communication is the constitutive element of society, and key to its basic operations. As a self-referential system, society reproduces itself based on its own products, that is, communications that are produced on the basis of other communications. 10 Accordingly, his theory of the differentiation of society refers to communication and not action. Order in society is then achieved on the grounds that communication, though improbable, is nonetheless possible and, in fact, becomes the normal situation (Luhmann 1990:91). Luhmann defines communication as the synthesis of three selections: information, utterance, and understanding. Information is a selection from a known or unknown repertoire of possibilities, utterance is a selection of a way to express the piece of information that has been chosen, and understanding is a selection derived from the distinction between the information and its utterance. This third selection is made by the addressee, who must choose an interpretation among other possible interpretations. Communication is never an event with two points of selection neither as a giving and receiving (as in the metaphor of transmission), nor as the difference between information and utterance. Communication emerges only if this last difference is observed, expected, understood, and used as the basis for connecting with further behaviors (Luhmann 1995:141). Thus, a key distinction between communication and action, Luhmann argues, is that communication involves the understanding of a receptor that agrees or disagrees with what has been communicated. Although communication can be attributed as action, for instance, by an external observer, communication is composed of more selective elements than just the act of communicating. However, Luhmann does not seem to specify the mechanisms that generate and bind patterns of communications within self-referential subsystems. To be sure, one communication may stimulate another but surely it does not produce or generate it (Mingers 2002:290). We contend that a theory of communicative understanding must incorporate action in the production of meaningful communications via linguistic and reflexive indexicality. Only social actors in their search to secure footing across netdoms can contextualize systems self-referential meanings, and thus understanding. Actors, then, cannot be conceived as merely part of the systems environment as they are very much part of the systems processes of meaning generation. We recognize that there are institutional and systemic logics and idiomsfor example, rhetoricsthat channel, enable, and constrain action. However, we also understand that such rule-driven logics, formal or informal, can be fundamentally changed by

9 From Luhmanns account, psychic systems (i.e., human beings) are structurally coupled with social systemswhat he describes as interpenetration (Luhmann 1995). 10 This is Luhmanns bold attempt to theorise an autopoietic unity in the non-physical domain. It defines the basic components of such a systemin this case communicationsand holds consistently to this without confusing domains by, for example, including people within the system. The nature of production is shifted to a production of events rather than of material components. Finally, the circular and self-defining nature of the production network is brought out well, as is the combination of organizational closure and interactive openness (Mingers 2002:289).

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reflexive stories and indexicalities woven by identities as they switch netdoms in their struggle for control. Luhmann seems to touch on the action-based substrate of social systems in that he contends that communication and action may be distinguished but cannot be separated. Communication and action always appear together in the social systems operation. In Luhmanns own words, sociality is not a special case of action; instead, action is constituted in social systems by means of communication and attribution as a reduction of complexity, as an indispensable self-simplification of the system (Luhmann 1995:137). He further clarifies that: communication and action cannot be separated (though perhaps they can be distinguished) and that they form a relationship that can be understood as the reduction of its own complexity. The elementary process constituting the social domain as a special reality is a process of communication. In order to steer itself, however, this process must be reduced to action, decomposed into actions. Accordingly, social systems are not built up of actions . . . instead social systems are broken down into actions, and by this reduction acquire the basis for connections that serve to continue the course of communication. (Luhmann 1995:13839) And yet these two levelscommunications and actionsare ontologically separate in Luhmanns theory. They become components that never merge in a dualistic conceptual framework (Fuchs and Hofkirchner 2009) that is often inconsistent (Schmidt 2005). 11 In contrast, we argue that communications attain meaning through problemsolving actions, as identities struggle to control footing. AMBIGUITY AND CONTROL VIA NETDOM SWITCHINGS Identitiesfrom individuals to organizationsstruggle for reflexive control. Control is reflexive because it is not necessarily about domination over other identities. Before anything else, control is about finding footings among other identities. Such footing is a position that entails a stance, which brings orientation in relation to other identities (White 2008:1). In this sense, footing is a search for perduration, but what that entails variesfrom sheer survival to imposition of ones will; attempts at control thus are not limited to coercion or domination efforts (Godart and White 2010:570). Any identity comes out of continuous contrasts between blockage and getting action. In their lives, identities are shaped by other identities local and global patterns as well as stochastic processes that open opportunities for fresh action. Generating an identity, thus, requires decoupling contradictory demands through switchings across entangled social networks and interpretive domains, which we term netdoms (White 2008:16).
11 Schmidt (2005) distinguishes two Luhmanns: a more autopoietic, abstract one, and a more institutional, empirical one. He argues that throughout Luhmanns opus the concept of system appears to have two senses that must be distinguished: first, systems as communicational entities that produce differences in an autopoietic or self-referential manner, and second, systems as institutional orderings that fulfill a specific function in society, and that emerge and dissolve according to particular circumstances. In the second sense, systems can no longer be conceived as only communicational entities because they are composed by more elements than just communication (e.g., values, activities, rules, unities). According to Schmidt, these two different senses of the concept of system are mutually exclusive and lead to theoretical contradiction.

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We argue that identities attain viable footing precisely because they are part of multiple netdoms at once. Switches in talk, of code and register, for example, between distinct domains are at the same time switches in which particular social ties and respective stories of different sorts are being activated and deactivated. Padgett and Ansells (1993) study of the rise of the Medici in medieval Florence represents a good example of this. According to the authors, Cosimo de Medici seized power through spanning his connections with distinct sociocultural domains (e.g., economic, marriage, and patronage networks). By activating and deactivating his diverse ties to other families, Cosimo de Medici was able to crystallize a robust identity and attain power and control. In their struggle to secure social footing identities thus reconfigure netdoms by establishing or breaking ties with other identities. In the process they spark meanings that coalesce into stories (Godart and White 2010:572). Stories relate meanings and events into reflexive and transposable patterns. They are the key in the generation of identities since social ties within participation frameworks are typically expressed and interpreted through stories. Stories deliver a characteristic sense of continuity and lived temporality to relationship ties, which otherwise would switch on and off in everyday disjointed snapshots. Uncertainty needs to be managed by identities in their struggle for control and, in this sense, it is crucial for their emergence and development. So uncertainty grounds both social and linguistic dynamics that give rise to storiesmeaning comes with induction and management of ambiguity through netdom switchings. Management need not mean ambiguity minimization, but ambiguity maintenance and exploitation. As Leifer (1991a, 1991b) has shown for expert chess playing, an actors ability to make sense of the game is not necessarily determined by his or her capacity to see many moves ahead and thus to decrease uncertainity, but to be able to sustain uncertainty in the relationship. Hence, from Leifers account, skill becomes what the actor needs to do to get in the same footing as an observer (Leifer 1991b:10). In line with Leifers characterization, we assert that reaching through and across netdoms to get robust action entails keeping the state of interaction hard to assess through making very many possible evolutions continue to seem possible . . . which prevents anyone from seeing clearly an outcome that would end the social tie (White 2008:288). Identities seeking reflexive footings across netdoms create stories embracing ambiguity and transposable polysemies that keep their ties flexible in anticipation of change. Ambiguity should not be removed methodologically as measurement error but should instead become fully integrated into an analytical model. Our central claim is that life cannot be lived straightforwardly, so that ambiguity is key. Stories can be organized in story-lines that provide identities with more or less coherent ex post accounts of lived turbulences and discontinuities. A story-line is like a r esum e, a post-rationalization of a necessarily chaotic social trajectory (Godart and White 2010:577). To name some examples, Vaughans (1986) investigation of failed intimate relationships describes how processes of retrospective sense-making (what we call story-lines) are critical for individuals in making the decision to desert a relationship as well as in the subsequent reconstruction of their identity. This holds at large scales too. A recent book (Forbes 2007) makes such a claim about how American history entwined with the institution of slavery via the bewildering switchings of the Missouri Compromise, 18191821. In daily interactions, too, the ability to manage and sustain pervasive ambiguity is crucial. M. A. K. Halliday (1985) vividly evokes this aspect of discourse in connection to the clause complex
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(i.e., simple clauses linked reflexively by prepositions and other discursive devices to produce storytelling coherence): The clause complex is of particular interest in spoken language, because it represents the dynamic potential of the systemthe ability to choreograph very long and intricate patterns of semantic movement while maintaining a continuous flow of discourse that is coherent without being constructional. (Halliday 1985:224) LANGUAGE WITH NETDOM SWITCHINGS: INDEXICALITY AND REFLEXIVITY Language is discursively animated by both social networks and cultural domains. Our view is consistent with Hallidays vision that speech registers and linguistic meanings originate from switchings among sets of alternative options inextricably linked to social activities and settings (Dejoia and Stenton 1980; Eggins 2004; Halliday 1973, 1976, 1978, 1985; Swales 1990). Language thus originates reflexively, in transitions between domains that are bound up necessarily with transitions among networks. The myriad switchings that contribute to this characteristic reflexivity offer opportunity as well as constraint. These are as indexical as they are localized in social space and power; they index aspects of context or narrative events. A significant turning point in understanding reflexivity, framing, and context in language came about when Peirce (1931a) foregrounded the indexical dimension of the linguistic sign. Linguistic indexes, in contrast to referential symbols, are signs or aspects of signs that do not represent but point pragmatically to the world through spatiotemporal contiguityin order to create or reproduce the social contexts in which they are uttered. Thus, counter to Saussures (1966) signifier/signified dichotomy, for Peirce semiotic mediation is basically trichotomous: a sign-vehicle (representamen), an object for which the sign stands, and a cognitive relation (interpretant) created by the sign-vehicle in its standing relationship to the object. A sign can relate to an object by similarity or analogy (icon), arbitrary rule (symbol), or spatiotemporal contiguity (index). The latter capacityindexicalityis crucial to understanding the communicative functions of language (Fontdevila 2010). Indexes can be classified according to the degree to which their pragmatic use presupposes (reflects) or performs (creates) the extra-linguistic context that is being singled out (Silverstein 1976). Thus when several co-workers explain to each other a job-related task using slang or informal language and then suddenly revert back to technical language because they realize their boss is within earshot, their switching registers, reflects, or presupposes institutionalized work-place relationships via the indexing of the appropriate technical register. However, note that if some co-workers were to continue using an informal register before their boss, new creative realignments and authority challenges could arise in need of further negotiation among all hierarchies involved (Fontdevila and White 2010). 12 Moreover, many languages, like Javanese, include complex deference and status indexes that can create status
12 An extreme example of presupposing indexicality that signals context without changing referential content can be found in some Australian aboriginal languages where a complete switch in vocabulary takes place when speakers are within earshot of their mother-in-law or equivalent affines. Such motherin-law language, which simply points to the presence of an affine audience in the surroundings, is semantically identical to the standard lexicon but serves as a kind of affinal taboo index within the speech situation (Dixon 1972).

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differences on the spot by stylistic switches of distinctive lexical and grammatical choices (Brown and Gilman 1960, for the pragmatic use of tu/vous pronouns of address; Geertz 1960; Irvine 1985; Uhlenbeck 1970). From spatial or temporal shifters (e.g., this, that, now), personal pronouns (e.g., I, you, they), and verb tenseson over to switchings of professional registers, or of humor styles or voice tones, etc.indexes anchor the linguistic code in real contexts of use. Indexes are more or less codified linguistic elements or strategies that lay out the contextual parameters in which extra-linguistic interactions take place, signaling or constituting the very nature of the social relationships involved. So indexes render language fully operational in communicative practice. Furthermore, language is unique in its reflexive capacity. It is used to talk about itself and describe its own structure and uses, to report either directly or indirectly earlier utterances of other speakers, to indicate shifting speakers roles, and to reflexively label the mutable existence of conventionalized entities by the use of so-called proper names. In all such instances, through its pervasive reflexivity, language itself provides guidance for speakers in interaction to meaningfully interpret and frame their own linguistic utterances. Language, in particular its reflexive and indexical devices, is key in how networks and domains merge together in type of tie, which delivers a set of stories and a characteristic sense of lived temporality. Language, far from being an abstract and self-contained medium, is thus typically embedded in an intricate social matrix where the production of any single utterance is already a juxtaposition of multiple voices or different points of view drawn from, and invoking, multiple networks and decouplings. This heterogeneous voicing or heteroglossia is expressed through a speakers utterance by the interpenetration of several social consciousnesses, none of which objectify the other but rather co-exist in a kind of rich heteroglossic dialogue (Bakhtin 1981, 1984). Most of the reflexive capacities of language are essentially meta-pragmatic, that is, most meta-linguistic activities are not about semantic understanding (e.g., glossing) but primarily about the pragmatic use of language in interaction (Silverstein 1976, 1993). Some explicit examples where the meta-pragmatic function of language becomes indexically articulated by speakers are: dont you dare use that tone with me!!, Oh, dont call me Sir, you can call me by my first name, I was careful to use polite language to avoid any extra tensions. Note that when language is used to talk about language it is typically used to negotiate or redefine the relative interactional footings of all speakers involved in a participation framework. With variable levels of conscious awareness we always use language meta-pragmatically, that is reflexively, to cultivate our social ties. In sum, speakers do not passively decode their ongoing utterances against a backdrop of culturally reified contexts but instead reflexively use their own verbal interactions as meta-pragmatic indexes to organize and create their shifting interpretive contexts. GRAMMAR AND STYLES Grammar is the product and process of routinization in framings for the wordings of meanings. Meaning, rather than residing in semantics, emerges reflexively between grammars and participants interactional hard work at framing speech situations. And grammar may come to seem, like indexicality, a monument to the ubiquity of netdom switching for meaning. Meaning in language is primarily an interactional accomplishment (Cicourel 1985; Duranti 2003; Garfinkel 1967; Mertz 2007).
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Pronouns and other linguistic shifters of course play into reflexive indexicality, introduced earlier. But they also are prototypes for grammatical wordssmall closed classes that are ubiquitous across contexts, whether used in clause complexes, genres, registers, etc. Transposability is the core here, and thus this class accommodates well to the unending flux of netdom switching eventsthrough which in milliseconds varying partner ensembles snatch at meaning. A separate though related facet of grammar is provision of multiple meanings in the same realization, the same wording, as horizontal counterpoint to the pragmatic reach of indexicality. Verb wordings, for example, can supply not only tense in time, but also tenor in topic and mode of interpersonal address. This is a welcome crutch for grasping meaning through netdom switchings across the uncontrollable flux of events. Given heterogeneous voicing in language, any grammatical choice is ultimately a stylistic act. And any stylistic act, in turn, is influenced or regulated by the repertoire of patterns that has assumed grammatical shape and function in the language over different periods of time. In particular, two prototypical styles of reporting, direct and indirect quotation, can be manipulated in order to achieve a variety of social ends. Moreover, the syntax of a languageof subject and verb order, for exampleis also a fundamental stylistic act, changing its meaning via myriad stylistic switches across netdoms of various social spreads and times. We contend that change in language occurs always at the boundaries between grammar and stylistics. These boundaries are fluid and ambiguous because of the very mode of existence of language, in which, simultaneously, some forms are undergoing grammaticalization while others are undergoing degrammaticalization in the selective choice of particular styles and genres appropriate to the social situation (Volosinov 1973:126). Importantly, meaning changes come as intertwined spreads in social time and space between order and disorder, at the edge of chaos. Meaning horizons need not be limited within netdoms. Meaning establishes itself in consort with horizon, and these changes of horizon can be as much a matter of rhythm as of interdigitation. On our account, meaning is about syncopated complexity, complexity that occurs only through reproducing itself as integral sensibility; so we denote it as style, as much a precursor as a follower of identity. META-COMMUNICATION, RHETORICS, GENRES At least three broad perspectives explore the nature of semiotic communication or signification in social life. One perspective claims that signification occurs when signs correspond to their denotational objects (the semantic or referential theory of meaning). Signification also occurs from another perspective when signs relate to each other via contrasts and differences within a closed system (the syntactic or selfreferential theory of meaning). Finally, a third perspective argues that signification occurs when signs produce interactional effects or changes on sign users (the pragmatic or indexical theory of meaning). According to Silverstein (1976) it is the latter indexical mode of signification that has the capacity to anchor the other twothe referential and self-referential modesin real and practical contexts of use. Indexical signs render semiotic processeslinguistic and nonlinguisticfully operational in social communication, providing the necessary redundancies and informational cues to interpret and decode messages. Moreover, communication is always meta-communicationof framings anchored in different netdoms, at various (meta)-levels that sustain ongoing ambiguity to
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produce fresh action, and grasped, albeit incompletely, via abductive inference of speakers hard phenomenological work in the contexts in which they are produced. 13 According to Bateson (1985:188), any message, which either explicitly or implicitly defines a frame, ipso facto gives the receiver instructions or aids in his attempt to understand the messages included within the frame. Thus linguistic and paralinguistic messages frame communication, that is, they are context-markers that give cues or instructions to the addressee to discern at what (meta)-level of abstraction the message should be decoded to be understood (Goffman 1974, 1981). And this is done via contextualizing indexes or cues, such as voice tone, shifters, discourse markers, pronouns of address, code or register switching in talk, etc. (Gumperz 1982; Lucy 1993). Some examples of messages that frame context in meta-communicative ways are: indexing this is play (as opposed to aggressive combat) through gestures or light physical contact of adequate intensity (Bateson 1985); or changing the meaning of a remark into its ironic opposite through tone emphasis or simply winking (nonverbal communication); or indexing through indirect speech the meta-communicative message that we respect the hearers autonomy to act otherwise, such as in Could you pass me the salt? Please, that would be awesome! This is a hyperbolic remark that meta-communicates the opposite of an imperative. Note that all these examples include performative frames, cues, mannerisms, or subtle keys that mark shiftings in communicative performances, such as voice modulation, posture, gesture, side remarks, and also the dynamic interaction that takes place between performers and audiences, among other things. Moreover, through creative and poetic play of figurative and metaphorical speech, quotation, proverbs, riddles, jokes, rhymes, insults, greetings, gossip, innuendo, and various oratorical and rhetorical genres, as well as many other formal features of ordinary conversation, speakers through their utterances can reframe contexts and signal meta-messages that may be quite tangential to the utterances actual referential and self-referential content (Bauman and Briggs 1990). In all these cases the interpretation of the meaning of the message (and therefore of the social tie and type of relationship producing it) is conveyed through contextualizing indexicalities that are inferredalbeit always incompletelyvia hard phenomenological work of abductive reasoning. In fact, viable communication in social life is based on the practical ability to manage these meta-communicative indexicalities that frame context. Such indexicalities are highly ambiguous and openended because they are rooted in multiple netdom switchings that span various social scopes and times. To be sure, Luhmanns presentations seem to offer repeated openings for the instability of indexical meaning across netdom switchings in differentiated society. For Luhmann, the function of meaning is to organize the contention between actuality and potentiality, which inevitably entails either instability or uncertainty. Given that in our world there is no access to stable certainty, meaning has to be based on the instability of elements (Luhmann 1990:8384). Further, in regards to meaning in a differentiated society he argues:
13 Abductive inference refers to forms of cognitive inference by which deductive rules and formal principles become reflexively linked to local features of interactive settings that are known inductively from everyday life experience (Peirce 1931b). In this sense, effective communication does not proceed only by following automatic rules of grammar and conversational turn-taking but by inductive knowledge of the practical meanings of a situation. In everyday life, these multiple contrasting levels of abstraction (deductive and inductive) become integrated and negotiated by abductive inference in the performance of speech.

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The contingency of experience and action in society rises with this explosive increase [with functional differentiation] in possibilities of experience and action. All tangible meaning enters the shadow of other possibilities; it is relativized and made problematic. (Luhmann 1985:148) And, like us, he also elaborates on the reflexivity of social process: By reflexivity we should understand that a process is applied to itself, or, alternatively, to a process of a similar kind, and only then finally comes into operation. Reflexive mechanisms are a very general form of meaning processing . . . the expectation of expectations . . . talking about words . . . bartering of exchange possibilities in the form of money, and following from this, financing of money requirements; production of the means of production . . . teaching of teaching in the form of pedagogy; trust in others trust . . . such reflexive arrangements facilitate . . . the consideration of more possibilities and the explanation of more complex circumstances. (Luhmann 1985:164) Therefore, reflexivity is described as comprising processes of growth by internal reproduction and multiplication of possibilities. Yet Luhmanns concept of reflexivity throughout his work has a recursive quality that appears more aligned with selfreferential or structuralist understandings of meaning than with indexicality and abductive inference. For Luhmann, communications revolve around basic binary codes that seem to be governed quasi-algorithmically within system self-closure in the efforts to reduce complexity from the environment. This is basically a rule-driven syntactic model of communication (Viskovatoff 1999; Wolfe 1992). 14 But we contend that communications do not simply generate other communications out of self-referential algorithms and abstract binary codes within a single subsystem. For instance, discourses regarding immigrants in modern nation-states make apparent the permeability and relative autonomy of subsystems. In them, legal debates, economic considerations, political pressures, and social concerns are simultaneously at play. Moreover, identities in their struggle to secure footing navigate and switch among different institutional rhetorics, often producing complex hybrid rhetorics in the process (Fontdevila and White 2010:339). Rhetorics guide identities across netdom switches by appealing to broader meanings that simplify the messiness of social life. Rhetorics thus demarcate broad interpretive contexts and become an important building block of an institutional system (White 2008:177). And yet we argue that in loosely connected netdoms of modern society with critical numbers of structural holes 15 identities may incorporate diverse rhetorics via exposure to heterogeneous

14 According to Wolfe (1992), Luhmann still works with two original assumptions from information theory: (i) that everything can be divided into binary codes, and (ii) that communication takes place when a bit of information is coded into one category or another. However, both assumptions have been challenged by new developments in the field of artificial intelligence. These developments have discredited the algorithmic model of communication, and have modeled communicative understanding on the human brains parallel data processing (PDP) or connectionism. In this latter model, communication does not take place through binary distinctions but is in fact possible only when organisms, including machines, learn from past experience . . . [PDP models] are not self-reproducing systems, at least not as Luhmann understands the term. They work imperfectly, by trial-and-error and fuzzy logic (Wolfe 1992:1733). 15 Structural holes consist of a relationship of nonredundancy between contacts in a network. As a result of the hole between them, the two contacts provide network benefitsinformation and controlthat are in some degree additive rather than overlapping (Burt 1995).

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voicings and multiple addressivities. These complex heteroglossic and hybrid rhetorics linked to nonredundant ties may juggle different points of view, enabling identities to reflexively frame ambiguity in the face of netdom decouplings and rapid change. In fact, identities with robust but supple footings seem to be connected to a wide range of diversified ties and netdoms, much like a multi-legged table on a dais (Bothner et al. 2010; White, Fuhse et al. 2007:546). Often these identities are at the intersection of a number of traversing core netdoms but also supported by the peripheries of many others. Moreover, they may observe distant cores as well. We argue that identities with robust footings spread among diversified and nonredundant ties and netdom levels have better prospects for becoming relative outsiders and secondorder observers of the various rhetorics that circulate among them. As second-order observers of other netdoms and their rhetorics, these more durable identities become aware of how other institutional rhetorics are reflexively constructed, what their commonsensical building blocks are, and whether these other rhetorics can be incorporated or manipulated. 16 Robust identities connected to diversified netdoms have a reflexive edge in seeing other core and peripheral institutional rhetorics for what they are, a social construction, because [t]hat which appears obvious and necessary to the network appears improbable, variable, and contingent to its outside observers (Fuchs 2001:39). In this connection, identities with robust and durable footings may not only deconstruct other identities institutional rhetorics but become reflexively aware of their own constructions when they switch back to their cores. In fact, complex back-andforth switchings between different observational levels, cores and peripheries, insiders and outsiders, trigger . . . adventures in reflexivity (Fuchs 2001:25). The existence of complex hybrid rhetoricsor a repertoire of rhetoricsgives identities as they switch across institutional subsystems the capacity to frame ambiguity and avoid indexically closing systemic meaning to a reduced set of contexts. This proves crucial to boundary maintenance of rapidly differentiating subsystems due to complexity, since it keeps boundaries permeable and porous to new meanings, avoiding systemic collapse. In the case of the legal subsystem, for instance, a repertoire of rhetorics stemming from nonlegal netdoms can be crucial to the subsystems normative capacity to incorporate and meta-interpret new lived experiences into the law (legal/illegal), avoiding legitimation crises among significant segments of the population (Capps and Olsen 2002). For example, in debates over gay marriage legalization, we find that traditional marriage as an institution sustained by a rhetoric of a bond between a man and a woman can only be reflexively reframed into a rhetoric of committed relations between two consenting adults (regardless of gender) by legal decision-making actors that incorporate heteroglossias and indexicalities from other netdoms and systems. Given the incommensurable nature of these two rhetorics (and many others in complex and differentiated societies, including reproductive rights), no formal algorithmic and self-referential procedure of the legal subsystem itselfbased on legal precedent, for examplecan be expected to find a compromise, other than by fresh meanings of contemporary intimacy arrangements brought into the system by its constitutive actors, with their own set of rights, interests, and concerns.
16 According to Fuchs, outside observers do not observe first-level whats, but second-level hows. They see what cannot be seen from the inside, decomposing the foundational certainties and invisibilities without which the observed network could not do what it does (2001:39).

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Genres in relation to professional and other discourse communities, we contend, are also built through netdom switches across subsystems. Let us examine journalism and fashion as examples of reflexive practices of meaning generation. Journalism, for instance, can be conceived as the antithesis of Luhmanns functional subsystems in that its emergence and autonomy as a system does not depend on specific binary codings. Meaning production in journalism is achieved through netdom switchings, not as systemic self-coherence and continuity, as Luhmann would suggest. In this sense, we see journalism as the epitome of our argument. However, claims can still be made for journalism to be a self-producing profession, and thus, reminiscent of a functional system. Let us explore by invoking contrasts. A special system of marketsoutside an economy of production flows and barter exchangemay emerge around cultural practices, for example, of journalism and also of fashion, to yield some other sort of profession. Journalism and fashion are historically emergent genres, both rooted in gossip, analogous to the emergence of production economy through a sequence of putting out systems (White 2002). A gossip is a part-time journalist who also gains stature by outing the behavior of third parties. But we contend that journalism has gone on to bring the far near, whereas the gossip pushes the near far away. And the opposite switch holds for fashion (Godart 2009) and its precursor in sewing-circle gossip. Both professionsjournalism and fashionhave come to look toward the near future rather than the past, and each transfixes citizens in cycles of recurrence and change. Each of the two has come to embed citizens into a market public exactly as it decouples them from own personal networks. Journalism is as much about network configuration, the situation observed, as about events. Further, both journalism and fashion focus on how social coteries ape each other. Thus agency short-circuits transitivity in ties: triads involving observer replace in each, networks of dyads as constitutive. As reflexive genres of meaning generation, both journalism and fashion evoke the public as distinctive master realm, thereby eroding special realms like Luhmanns. Switching netdoms within the public constitutes meaning. Yet all are subordinate to the super-realm of everyday reality, portrayed vividly by Goffman (1959, 1974). Full mappings of genres remain rare (Swales 1990). Moreover, we suggest that the examination of poetry as genre could further illuminate our analysis of journalism and fashion. Following this line of reasoning, we argue for a paradox: Luhmanns part subsystems, almost involute from functional differentiation, can only be realized and reproduced through netdom switches not oriented or confined to these part systems themselves. In Luhmanns theory social networks are left out in favor of patterns of communication, and instead, the evolution of each subsystem (law, economy, politics, education, science, etc.) has been involute, with self-referentiality presupposed. As Wolfe (1992) points out, Luhmann tell us how systems must communicate, ought to communicate, and should communicate, but never how systems actually communicate (1992:1739). We argue that this eviscerates tangible and testable meaning-making mechanisms from Luhmanns theory. We should leave functional systems aside until we can derive rather than presuppose them, and look for mechanisms able to manage and sustain the pervasive ambiguity and indexicality in daily interactions expected in both Luhmanns and our theories. In short, our vision in its concreteness is different from Luhmanns, yet meanings, and so ambiguities, are central to both. The difference is
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that we open up the varied heuristics that concrete persons use to navigate social life. Yet both visions draw on distinctions between first- and second-order observation. DYNAMICS OF DOMINATION Managing mounting ambiguity and contradiction across rapidly polymerizing netdoms calls for skillful innuendo and indirect language, true, yet it also can evoke direct language and domination. In the face of shifting netdom demands and rapid decouplings, some identities exploit languages reflexive and indexical features to contextualize and manage growing ambiguity and contradiction, as in the case previously mentioned of Cosimo de Medici. At times, strong interactional footings or other competitive edges may emerge through successful, albeit temporary, juggling of disjointed framings (Goffman 1974) across netdom switchings. Grammar is routinization (Hopper and Traugott 1993). This may be by domination rather than innocent habituation, over choices of switchings among unequal social networks and interpretive domains. But domination can also, as Bourdieu (1977, 2001) has shown, work through apparently natural habituation so that certain hierarchical relations become ingrained into a context-specific doxa (e.g., masculine domination). In both these respects, we call on insights from sociolinguistics of pidgins and creoles as models for localized grammaticalization processes intrinsically embedded in relations of domination (Fasold 1990; Holm 1988). We can adapt these insights to any pragmatic situations where actors, fluent in different sublanguages and indexical subsystems, are forced to interact in a common lingua franca. These include not only trade posts and plantations of yore (Galison 1999), but also multi-ethnic job places in any modern organization traversed by global networks of transactions and peoples. We argue that far from egalitarian and universal patternings, switches among netdoms are seized and shaped differently according to social positionings in struggles over semiotic and material control. Hence, the shaping of identities is always influenced by dynamics of domination. Our emphasis on domination differs from Luhmanns macroevolutionary description of modern society in which no particular ordering can be identified. With this, we claim, Luhmann assumes too much homogeneity among subsystems. In contrast, our approach, rooted on sociolinguistic interactions across time and social space turns the attention to the actual mechanisms of power and domination that operate in social relationships and that ultimately make up Luhmanns subsystems of society. To become fully operational the reflexive ` la Bakhtin need to be sited in notions of multiple voicing or genre heteroglossia a tangible and reflexive network switchings. Only after enough power and complexity develop can a variety of speech forms sustain indexicality through switchings. Note that we are moving here beyond the debates in linguistics that try to explain the difference between the referential and the indexical function of language (semantics from pragmatics) since we take it one step further and differentiate the indexical from the relational via differentiated switchings (pragmatics from social scope and network): networks and domains in their interpenetration as network-domains allow one to locate social chains and waves of interpretive consequence, to which dyadic analysisor purely cultural and cognitive interpretation, or purely social network connectivityis blind (White 1995b:8, 1995c; also Mische and White 1998).
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CONCLUSION Viable identities produce reflexive accounts and stories about their netdom ties and cliques 17 that remain indexically open through changing contingencies and participation frameworks. In fact, we contend, contra Luhmann, that navigating uncertainty in social life is not so much about stabilizing expectations of interacting dyads to resolve their double contingency 18 as it is about skillful and open juggling of expectation sets across the multiple contingency of shifting netdom configurations (Fontdevila and White 2010; White et al. 2007; White et al. 2007). In other words, we argue that system closure is not a solution to the problem of uncertainty. In fact, lack of uncertainty is itself a problem. Actionhere understood as netdom switchingsdoes not just irritate or trigger changes (using Luhmanns terminology) within a set of communicative forms dictated by a subsystem. Quite differently, action is capable of changing the meta-rules of the operation of a system through meta-pragmatics, poetic functions, heteroglossias, and rhetorics. We propose that systems have porous boundaries, and that action is fundamental for indexically and reflexively managing such boundaries. Systems are constructed via meta-pragmatic action and meaning is generated through netdom switchings across those systems. Switchings across systems, therefore, provide constitutive elements of the very meta-rules that define a system. We also argue that it is unclear how Luhmann deals with problems of contingency and meaning across subsystems. By placing great emphasis on the social systems autopoiesis and self-production, Luhmann paid a price: he left aside the real-life communicationand thus the meta-communicationthat occurs within and across networks of human beings, which is necessarily open and indexical. In Luhmanns theory of self-reproducing systems, language is taken for granted and its relevance in explaining social action is obscured under the abstract and disembodied notion of systems communication. We claim that keeping ambiguity ongoing is important to establish viable footing across rapidly differentiating subsystems (opening or closing contingency at various meta-levels of expectations). In this line, juggling multiple contingency to accomplish fresh action via netdom switchings creates strong footing across multiple differentiated systems and ultimately some sort of reflexive meta-order (e.g., second-order observation of rapidly changing network shapes and expectations, taking into account expectations of ties that are several nodes removed from co-present relationships, and located in different subsystems). Indeed, managing ambiguity in decoupling differentiations is inherently and reflexively contradictory, with truncated logics that have no meta-consistency in any of their multiple ramificationsand that is precisely what enables new switchings and footings. And thereby viable social formation can emerge. Order is necessary, but order that is at the edge of chaos. Identities locked in netdoms that are too orderly are incapable of responding to switches, and thus incapable of reflexivity. To be sure, there is no meaning without ambiguity. Polyphony is the congruent term here, rather than harmony: netdom heteroglossia rather than system self-reference.
is directly linked to every other element. the basic problem that underlies every social encounter, i.e., alter and ego experience each other as black boxesI dont know what the other is going to do, but I do know that she does not know what I am going to do. This circularitythat both know that both know that one could also act differentlycreates a fundamental indeterminacy in social relations. Social systems, Luhmann argues, can only emerge through solving the problem of double contingency.
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17 Cliques are fully connected (sub)networks, i.e., every element 18 According to Luhmann (1995), double contingency reflects

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Our analyses must offer the capacity to convey uneven, distorted, and unfinished perception. In social life what creates continuity and yet freedom of contingency is the ability to reflexively transpose and reassemble indexical stories, genres, styles, and rhetorics across networks of ties and domains. Transitional phases composed of unfinished narratives of social ties, of the self, stories and rationalizations, and multiple framings are the stuff that creates enough meaning redundancies and meta-communicative complexities to carry a social system to the edge of chaosnot too congealed to anticipate systemic change. Far from self-referential meaning and closure, functional systems owe their supple existence to identities weaving incomplete meshes of indexical ambiguities as they switch netdoms in their struggle for control. The traditional focus of theory on the micro/macro gap is thus put aside as tangential, as also is a preoccupation with levels and embeddings. Horizontal is a more apt metaphor than vertical for these switchings. Some theoretical progress has been made in this direction in Identity and Control (White 2008) by using the concepts of control regimes, institutional rhetorics, and disciplines, all of which constitute reflexive arrangements that bridge systems differentiation, action, and language. What we have done is to analytically link reflexivity, switchings, stories, and heteroglossia back to our targets of ambiguity and functional differentiation, in a counterpoint between harmony and polyphony across systems. Domination is conjoined with habituation.

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