This chapter turns to what at first sight may seem a very strange problem, the problem of the *system status* of the terror system. So far, we have worked with a canon of criteria [→Kriterienkanon] that is typically used to decide whether some socially imposing context has acquired the quality of a socially operating system, the status of a functional system. One's feathers or hair would be ruffled if the assumption were justifiable that terror is a functional system of society like economy, law, art, education, religion, science and so on. We have disconnected the concept of function right at the beginning from ideas of serviceability, usefulness, expediency by saying that observers construct the problem in view of which a system can be interpreted as an already functioning solution, but nevertheless one would only reluctantly (and only with a theoretical freezing look) want to admit that terror is formally the same as art, education, law or politics.
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