Page 254 - Communication and the Evolution of Society
P. 254
231 Notes
ports this meaning into civil law. Legitimation in the sense of private en-
titlement presupposes, however, a legitimate order.
2. K. Eder, Die Entstehung staatlich organisierter Klassengesellschaften
(Frankfurt, 1976).
3. S. Rokkan, “Die vergleichende Analyse der Staaten- und Nationen-
bildung,” in W. Zapf, ed., Theorien des sozialen Wandels (Kéln, 1969),
pp. 228-252.
4. For this reason, the Aristotelian concept of the polis is less a consti-
tutional concept than a concept of identity. Cf. J. Ritter, “Politik und
Ethik in der praktischen Philosophie des Aristoteles,” in Ritter, Meta-
physik und Politik (Frankfurt, 1969), pp. 106-132.
5. N. Luhmann, “Die Weltgesellschaft,” Archiv fir Rechts- und Sozial-
philosophie (1971) :1-33; see also my critical remarks in “Konnen kom-
plexe Gesellschaften eine verniinftige Identitét ausbilden?,” in Habermas,
Zur Rekonstruktion des Histovischen Matevialismus (Frankfurt, 1976),
Pp. 92-126; some of these remarks are translated in “On Social Identity,”
Telos 19(1974) :91-103.
6. Cf, the argument of P. Kielmannsegg, “Legitimitat als analytische
Kategorie,” Politische Vierteljahresschvift 12 (1971) :367-401, esp. pp.
391 ff.
7. T. Wiirtenberger, Die Legitimitdt staatlicher Herrschaft (Berlin,
1973).
8. C. Meier, “Die Entstehung des Begriffs ‘Demokratie,’”’ Politische
Vierteljahresschrift 10(1969) :535-575-
9. V. Lanternari, The Religions of the Oppressed: A Study of Modern
Messianic Cults (London, 1963), p. 316. “When the pressure of the white
man makes itself felt from within a society, the natives reach for the
Bible, which they had refused to accept from the missionaries during cen-
turies of evangelism. This “‘self-Christianization” of many native groups
came about when the whites, having forced their way into the native en-
vironment, created conditions similar to those which fostered the early
growth of Christianity. As it was for the first Christians of the Middle
East and of ancient Rome, so it was for the native peoples of Africa, Asia,
Oceania, and the Americas: pressure and opposition came upon them
simultaneously from two sides, the militant hierarchy of the church and
the authoritarian power of the state.”
10. The proposed laws—land reform, shortening of military service,
civil rights for allies—throw light on the background of class confronta-
tions between aristocratic owners of large landed estates and peasants.
The attempt to set up a democracy on the Greek model, to withdraw as
many matters as possible from the responsibility of the Senate and trans-
fer them to the popular assembly, to alter the composition of the courts
made up of senators, shows that we have to do with a legitimacy con-
flict. That Octavius was unconstitutionally removed from his office of
tribune, that Tiberius allowed himself to be illegally put up as a candi-