Luhmann's theory reads as pessimistic or nihilistic when considering the anti-human assumptions that ground his theoretical concepts and work. Luhmann was not misanthropic -- or at least I don't think he was, given that he did have a wife and three children, and taught at the Bielefeld University, which itself was/is a hub or station for people. Luhmann's theory is anti-humanist at the social and agentic levels. First, humans are not a part of social systems. Humans are the environment for social systems, but they do not stage their emergence; they are not the components or elements of social systems. Even more plainly, people and their interactions are not balls and sticks connected together in some supermolecule. Interpersonal interactions, such as simple conversation, are not a construction of this theory. Second, the non-participation of humans in social systems also means that they have a limited -- neither none, nor total -- degree of control over said social systems. At best, they can disturb lines of communication and alter codes, but the functionality of the system must persist if it is to be differentiated from its environment and systems external to it (which, to the perspective of an arbitrary system, are the same). When we attribute agency to ourselves, we ascribe ourselves power over the systems we are dependent on (and the systems that are dependent on us); however, that power may or may not exist. Perceived power rests in first-order reflexivity, while objective power rests in irritation. (That last sentence is my own hypothesizing.) Moeller of The Radical Luhmann neither vilifies nor glorifies Luhmann's theory, but instead presents it with a stoic/Stoic attitude; "neither hope nor fear".
"[Growing up] is hard and nobody understands." // https://www.homestuck.com/story/2391