A South African tool in the mental toolkit
August 2, 2012 in Smart thinking
My involvement in business education keeps my interest alive in the mental toolkit we need to be responsible, acute, perceptive and discerning managers / leaders… well just human beings. If you guys click back, you will find my previous posts on the hugely stimulating book: This will make you smarter by John Brockman ( http://www.amazon.com/This-Will-Make-You-Smarter/dp/0062109391/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343891837&sr=8-1&keywords=this+will+make+you+smarter ).
I was most surprised to find one of the concepts highlighted to be ” holism,” by Nicholas Chirstakis a physician and social scientist at Harvard and the author of The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives. Surprised? Yes, holism was the term coined by one of the giants of South African history, Field Marshall Jan Smuts in his book Holism and evolution (1926), in which he attempted to integrate Darwin with the (then) latest developments in physics, notably Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Christakis argues for the concept of holism as a necessary counterbalance to our analytical thinking which involves breaking things into ever smaller bits to understand them. The converse direction is more difficult, he says, trying to understand how composition creates something beyond the sum of the parts.
I found it fascinating that a 90 year old concept conceived in a modest corrugated sink house near Irene on the outskirts of Pretoria in South Africa – and scribbled in the midst of a tumultuous public life – could still be a valid tool in the contemporary mindset.
The Smuts House of corrugated sink an old converted barracks where Smuts lived and wrote Holism and Evolution
Ike Jakson said on August 3, 2012
I find your Post well-placed and thought provoking but would like to see more detail on the actual views that Smuts held on “Darwinism”, the latter the word I decided to use because I am not sure in my mind that Smuts supported Darwin’s ramblings on Evolution.
It seems that you and I have a similar interest but from two different mindsets; either way it is good to see this kind of writing. And I enjoyed the Irene picture because I lived “almost just round the corner” from there before I retired to the place of my birth in the Western Cape 11 years ago.
I am also using this comment to test the Fin24 comment system as I am not entirely sure that it will reach your Post.
If you are agreeable about it I would like to pursue the topic. Smuts was a great South African and a great man; such a pity so few understood his wider views of the World to come when he was in his prime.
Bertie said on August 4, 2012
Hi Ike, thanks for the visit and please keep commenting. Smuts thoroughly understood Darwin and was clearly committed to a scientific world view. I recently saw a speech of his held within a couple of year after Wenger first aired his theory on continental drift and Smuts accepted it and offered further proof from fauna on in South Africa and the South American continents. I find Darwin’s prose very crisp and clear.
Ike Jakson said on August 5, 2012
Hi Bertie
Thanks for your response; it is a stimulating subject though we find ourselves in more of the financial field in Fin24. I will however follow it up because of my own interest in the history of the colonial period on which I am doing my own kind of research with a view to publish something.
But I want to read more of the General and his Darwin connection before I can comment. Colonialism is a many facetted topic; it is my dream to record the human side of it including the successes and the failures on both sides of the aisles.
However, I have since read one of your other Posts on computers and will write to you separately in that. My Blog has just been set up but I don’t know by whom and how it came about. I shall attend to that in that other Post on computers.
You seem to be in training and speaking; my field of endeavour before I retired was in money [pension Funds] and that is what brought me to Fin24. History is an interest that has been with me all my adult life; it was BTW my 72nd birthday Friday 3rd and I have now reached my twilight years. I AM CONTENTED AND HAPPY about it and it is a blessing to have left the rat race and the cities.
IkeJ
Bertie said on August 5, 2012
Hi Ike, best to get a copy of Holism and evolution. it really is a stimulating read.
Ike Jakson said on August 5, 2012
Hi Bertie
That is exactly what I have in mind. Thanks. I hope you will find my Post called “from Ike to Bertie” about my BlogSite problem.
Bertie said on August 6, 2012
Yes, I did and i replied Ike. Have a great day!
Tian Claassens said on August 6, 2012
The biography of genl Smuts by WK Hancock is excellent and will also provide lots of insight in this regard.
Bertie said on August 6, 2012
Yes, Tian, excellent. We should get a couple of interested people and make visit to his library at Irene. What an eyeopener.