Everyday social life is determined to a much greater extent by recourse to normalized power, i.e. legal power, than by the brutal and selfish exercise of power. Exceptions limited to certain areas actually serve to illuminate this state of affairs. Intervention by legitimate force is more considerable; one simply cannot think it away without disrupting and transforming almost all normal social life. Brutality and selfishness are phenomena which are compatible with many social conditions so long as they do not undermine the dominance of institutionalized power.

DEFINE: Clarifies 'normalized power' as institutionalized/legal power versus the exceptional exercise of brute force.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 612