The Viability of Societies

16The book is about explaining and understanding thetwin processes of cohesion and fragmentation incontemporary societies and the challenges to bothgovernance and identity posed by these antinomicprocesses. It does this by demonstrating that a new way ofthinking and a new set of concepts drawn the realmsof cybernetics and communication can build a moreeffective sociological theory than has been possibleup to now. It sets out to explain why this is so and what musthappen to change it for the better. To this end italso constructs a narrative about human society asthe ongoing outcome of control attempts by people atvarying levels of social complexity, attempts whichproduce a recursive hierarchy of nested levels ofsocial organisation, from the individual up throughsocial networks, groups and organisations through tothe nation state and beyond. The key themes of the book are: identity, governance,identity, communication & control in complexsocieties and the future of16 human society.