Individual and Social Holons: There's No "I" in Team

In this clip, Ken discusses some extremely important distinctions between individual and social holons, and the different sorts of influences they have upon each other. This has been a source of considerable confusion for many evolutionary thinkers, some of whom are able to easily grasp the holonic sequence of whole/parts, but often make the mistake of stacking social holons on top of individual holons—for example, one frequently-used model of evolutionary complexity looks like this:

atoms » molecules » cells » organisms » human beings » families » cities » nations » ecosystems » gaia » solar system » galaxy

To many, this sequence makes immediate intuitive sense, as each piece seems to envelop the previous piece, forming larger and larger magnitudes of existence. But when we take a closer look, we can see that there are in fact two very different types of hierarchies in play—individual hierarchies and social hierarchies—and these two different dimensions of hierarchical growth do not stack on top of each other, but grow alongside each other, as demonstrated here: