Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety, said Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), one of the Founding Fathers of the United States in 1759. More than 200 years later the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann brought forward the scientific illumination of Franklins famous words: The outside world knows no risks, for it knows neither distinctions, nor expectations, nor evaluations, nor probabilities – unless self-produced by observer systems in the environment of other systems (2008: 6).
Paradise lost. Risks and adverse dangers of insisting on security
April 28th, 2009 | 0 comments | permalink