From immunity to autoimmunity: the disolution of social order

Abstract

The high complexity of modern society produces interdependencies that cannot be controlled by its original operations. Many of these interdependencies contribute to the maintenance of limits and generalized social coordination; others, however, produce unexpected complex effects whose consequences can destroy the very units that produce them. Those operations that contribute to social coordination are recognizable as immune operations; the others can be called auto-immunity operations. Through a review of key authors in sociology and political philosophy, and through the application of their concepts of immunity and autoimmunity to the current crisis scenario, this article argues that the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates the conditions of autoimmunity in modern society and warns of a dissolution of social order as a result of these autoimmune processes. The article concludes that increasing complexity deepens the autoimmunity of modern society, so that this century can expect more autoimmune crises.