As I am using the organismic analogy, the total system which constitutes
a society includes as significant parts not only persons and groups with their
respective patterns of behavior, but also literally the cells and organs of which
the persons are composed. Indeed, one can argue that the system includes
nonhuman as well as human subsystems. Stress on one level is stress on all
levels. For example, lowering of sugar level (hunger) in the fluid matrix of the
body cells of one group of persons in a society is a stress in the society as a
whole. This holistic view of society as organism integrated from cell to nation
depends on the assumption that society, as an organization of living matter,
is definable as a network of intercommunication. Events on one subsystem
level must affect other subsystems (cellular vis-8-vis institutional, personal
vis-8-vis societal) at least as information; in this view, social organization
exists to the degree that events in one subsystem are information to other
subsystems.