Part/Whole Polarity

 

 

Description:

The Agency/Communion Pattern signifies the tension between integration and disintegration. It is one aspect of the more foundational Pattern, Dynamics. Agency/Communion demonstrates the interplay between the dynamic processes of boundary formation, which integrates parts into wholes, and the dissolution of boundaries which dis-integrate wholes into constituent parts. The rate of boundary formation and dissolution needs to be balanced with the strength of the requirement to work individually as parts or communally as wholes. The role of Agency/Communion is the creation and dissolution of systems.

Principle:

The principle of formative boundaries: the enduring health and evolution of any system depends on the appropriate balance and integration of boundary formation and boundary dissolution, for a given context.