___________________________________ ___________________________________ Will a Sociological Communication Ever Be Able to Influence Social Communication? Rudi Laermans & Gert Verschraegen — K.U. Leuven In his earlier work Robert Bellah coined the concept of ‘civil religion’ for that ‘unique Ameri- can combination of secularization, individualism and pluralism’ 1 . Such a civil religion is supposed to work as an integrative factor on the level of societies and as a motivational factor on the level of individuals. At both levels, it supplies the meaning of meaning, a meaningful ‘ultimate reality’ which draws people together and delivers them with a personal idea of vocation or ‘calling’. Unfortunately, as Bellah and his research team state in books such as Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, this balanced nor- mative pattern is waning. Societal self-descrip- tions in the U.S. are confined to a vocabulary of ‘Lockean individualism’. They are no longer balanced by biblical and republican traditions, which provided ‘the language needed to make moral sense of one’s life’. At the same time, however these field studies observed that many urged “for a renewal of commitment and commu- nity.” Bellah and his research team conclude: “such a renewal is indeed a world waiting to be born if we only had the courage to see it.” 2 Because of the erosion of the shared symbolic system that provided some ‘ultimate social mean- ing’, Bellah conceives society to be disintegrat- ing. Group solidarity cannot be mobilized any more, individuals feel atomized and lack trust and belief. Well-versed in the Durkheimian tradition, Bellah can only observe society in terms of nor- mative integration. If shared values and beliefs are being hollowed out, social order can only be plunged into a crisis. The following analysis will not proceed along this Durkheimian path. We see no compelling reason to conceive of society in terms of normative integration alone. Instead we plug into the vocabulary of Luhmann’s systems theory and observe society as synonymous with all ongoing communications. Society only con- sists of communications and nothing else. This implies for example that human beings (or in systems theoretical discourse: psychic systems) do not belong to society, (but communications about human beings of course do belong to society). For psychic systems can only process thoughts, feelings, desires, but no communications! But what relevance do these apparently trivial, and at the same time quite abstract observations have for Bellah’s recent work? Let’s start with repeating Bellah’s plea for “a renewal of commit- ment and community (...) a world waiting to be born if we only had the courage to see it.” With this morally coloured communication (what else could it be?), Bellah appeals to the courage of individuals, that is to the consciousness of indi- viduals, as if it would be possible to construct a good society on the premise of wanting and daring to see it. Of course, we do not overlook the fact that psychic systems are impressionable through participating in moral communication (that is, can be socialized morally). But whether they fantasize about the good society or not is uncontrollable for communication. In what follows, we will restrict ourselves to communication. We cannot communicate about the invisible deep structures of individual con- sciousness. We can only communicate about the communication on psychic feelings, thoughts, commitments. As sociologists we can then observe how society communicates about itself, how it communicates about people, about their lack of responsibility. We can observe how _______________________________________________________________________________________ Ethical Perspectives 5 (1998)2, p. 127