Anal Holism

The BBQ Pit
#1

Having just visited DavidB’s REALL page, I would like to voice my unmitigated irritation at the people who have turned Holism into an “unviable” touchie-feelie gobbledegook. My wife is a competent anthropologist who got interested in the work of Jan Christian Smuts (d. 1948), prime minister of South Africa, founder of the League of Nations, and eminent scholar in numerous fields, including philosophy, where he invented the school of thought properly named Holism. As best defined, it says, effectively, the Universe does make sense, but it’s intricate. The best way to get there is to start small and work up. Figure out what you can know about, say, an apple or a piece of rock, integrate the data together, and come up with sensible generalizations. When you’re done, you have a handle on what the world is.

Holism is NOT organic cures for cancer, mystic crystal revelations (from any dimension), or lost Lemurian spirit disciplines.

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“No, it isn’t; it’s only the sunset of the Age of Pisces.”

#2

this thread has nothing at all to do with the subject I thought it was about…so see ya!

#3

Erm…hey Kellibelli, Polycarp got me too with the title…shees got my hopes up…oh well I be seeing you

Unforgiven

#4

Me too. Sorry Polycarp.

#5

OK, I’ll bite.

Working free-lance (w/o any real prior knowledge or references), I’ll admit that my everyday understanding of the adjective “holistic” is that it means: 1) something that’s not even listed in my Webster’s, 2) something you get from a chiropractor or Whole Foods, 3) something that appeals to hippie chicks or denizens of Santa Fe, 4) something sort of vaguely global in it’s “naturalistic” connections to all the other things.

Now you’re telling me this term actually had meaning at one time. You’re on the rant forum, so maybe it’s not appropriate to be asking you what this means. Perhaps I shouldn’t respond in this forum unless I already have an opinion.

I don’t, but I’m curious. It sounds like Smuts’ approach was to kind of come at it all from the opposite side of the investigators of gestalt. And the bridge is fractal geometry?