ABSTRACT
The nature of systems Our starting point is that the primary task of a social unit, whether an individual or a group, is to sustain its ability to function as a system. Only by being a system can it function at all, and to be a system it needs an identity (for the individual) or culture (for the society). The arguments here apply equally to the individual and society, not because one is a reduction of the other but because they are both systems; in order to function and persist, they both need to meet the same conditions.
