A Stranger in Paradise? Autopoiesis, Configuration and Societal Steering

Abstract

In 1908 Georg Simmel described one of his so called social types ‘Der Fremde’ as follows: “The stranger will (...) not be considered here in the usual sense of the term, as the wanderer who comes today and goes tomorrow, but rather as the man who comes today and stays tomorrow — the potential wanderer so to speak, who, although he has gone no further, has not quite got over the freedom of coming and going. He is fixed within a certain spatial circle — or within a group whose boundaries are analogous to spatial boundaries — but his position within it is fundamentally affected by the fact that he does not belong in it initially and that he brings qualities into it that are not, and cannot be, indigenous to it. “(Levine, 1971, p.143). This description seems to apply both to my experience at the conference as to its subject matter. To put it another way: I could not help thinking of a traditional anglo-saxon superstitious rhyme that tells brides to wear: ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’ on their weddingday.