Came across this interesting article from the BBC:
My first question is: when people talk about linear vs. holistic, is everyone talking about the same thing? Like, is this article describing what Dramatica means by “holistic”?
Interestingly the article points to research which suggests that thinking style is primarily cultural, not genetic. For example, the “frontier” and wheat growing areas (even within cultures – e.g. Hokkaido) tend to have more linear/individualistic thinkers. And immigrant communities tend to adopt the new culture’s thinking style or are more comfortable in both.
This would seem to contradict Dramatica’s contention that PS style is at the root (preconscious) level (or does it?)
Finally, I didn’t see a mention in the article about gender correlations. I wonder if that’s because there aren’t any in the research or if they just don’t mention it.
There’s not a definition of what they mean laid out in the article, but I think the way they use it (relationships and context vs components) suggests a similar view to Dramatica’s, though my guess would be that they are viewing “holistic” from a linear point of view.
What I found jarring was the suggestion that thinking styles develop from philosophies rather than the reverse. For instance, they suggest easterners are more holistic because their culture developed around Confucius emphasized relationships. It doesn’t seem to have struck them that maybe Confucius emphasizes relationships because he was already a holistic thinker.
As for thinking styles matching geography and changing over the course of a generation, I think Mental Relativity addresses this in a couple ways. First, remember that everyone can use both styles. The idea is that everyone is preconsciously pulled in one direction or another, but can consciously train to use either. So the Hokkaido or the two groups on either side of a river could both be preconsciously pulled the same direction and yet have trained themselves to go in opposite directions.
Second, there are some interesting ideas in Mental Relativity for how DNA passes info to the next generation. I haven’t looked at it in a while and almost certainly can’t do the explanation justice, but it’s something like this. DNA carries the accumulated history of ones ancestors. This accumulated information guides one by way of a sort of average of that information. And yet, the newer the information in the chain is, Mental Relativity suggests, the stronger the pull. So if a culture has a thousand years of farming well known lands in their history, but suddenly finds themselves hunting a wild frontier, the pull of that hunting generation may or may not be strong enough to equal or outweigh the past thousand year. That’s a very brief explanation that leaves out a lot, but hopefully gets the idea across.
One thing that stuck out me was how many times the word “tend” and it’s variations where used. I’m sure that big picture there are substantial differences between groups, but I’m also sure that within groups there is also a tons of variation.
I know both Linear and Holistic are capable of thinking like the other, the difference being that one is the root level and the other will be more of an approximation. With that in mind, it wouldn’t surprise me that a Linear person could be conditioned to be more holistic in thinking or vice versa.
After I posted this, the obvious occurred to me – that the groups, over time, could be self-selecting to some extent, and then reinforced through culture. So while all the linear people head out to the Wild West or Hokkaido, the holistic types stay home and try to improve their relationships. Or something.
The Japanese were at some point all holistic. But a group that took to Hokkaido lost the balance they had once had with their environment which led to a more linear mindset when they began to view themselves as components within an environment they were no longer connected to.
All of the Japanese were more Linear as they first moved across Asia and into Japan. Once they took root and settled within their environment, they began to feel a balance with it and became more holistic while those who were still on the frontlines of the frontier remained linear.
This is a big thing missing from the article. I’m guessing because the causality of these groups is still up for debate?
They make the point that Americans are really linear overall, but there are plenty of holistic thinkers in the US and I run into them daily.
We even have Holistic Action Blockbusters!
I think there’s more to the story than “crops determine your mindset”. I would imagine “making your mark in the new frontier” being more appealing to Linear folks is a big factor.
