Janus
“Like Janus, the two-faced Roman god, holons have a dual tendency to behave as quasi-independent wholes, asserting their individualities, but at the same time as integrated parts of larger wholes in the multi-levelled hierarchies of existence. Thus a man is both a unique individual but also part of a social group, which itself is a part of a larger group, and so on. Koestler shows that this polarity between the self-assertive and integrative tendencies is a universal characteristic of life. Orde...r and stability can prevail only when the two tendencies are in equilibrium. If one of them dominates the other, this delicate balance is disturbed, and pathological conditions of various types make their appearance. These seemingly abstract considerations turn out to be of prime importance when applied to emotive behaviour -- the 'paranoid streak' in our species which has played such havoc with its history and now threatens it with extinction. Yet Koestler believes that the two-faced god may guide us to a proper diagnosis and thus provide an 'alternative to despair'.MoreLess
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