Holism, Ruler, Ruled

Aristotle's formulation that a Whole is prior to its Parts is misleading in two respects.  First, it suggests that Whole and Parts are independent, whereas a Whole is a Whole of its Parts, and a Part does not exist in isolation from the rest of the Parts.  Second, it superficially entails that in its antithesis, the Parts are prior to the Whole, rather than there being therein only individual entities and their assemblage, i. e. absent a real Whole, the multiplicity are not Parts.  Now, the feature of Political Holism that is most difficult to grasp from the perspective of Political Atomism is that in it, Ruler and Ruled are each Parts, so that each is at the service of the Whole.  The difficulty is a consequence of the denial of the existence of the Whole, leaving the Ruled at the service of the Ruler, i. e. a Hierarchical ordering.  The Modern aversion to Ancient Political doctrine is that of an Atomism that mistakes Medieval Hierarchism for the fundamental concept Ancient Political Philosophy.