Rishon Rishon

Detail thinkers, Holistic thinkers

I just stumbled across a long multi-party rant against Steven Den Best’s anti-email post. I now feel a bit guilty having done something similar myself. What struck me most, however, was the shallowness of the criticism. I’d like to see one of these guys try to fisk one of SDB’s posts (and you have to pick one of his central themes – I’m sure that he has a few fiskable posts)!

My point earlier was that SDB wanted to have it both ways – that he wanted, but didn’t want, people to email him – and that that’s simply not possible (I hope, though, that that post did cut out some of the chaff). But I totally understand his problem. Anyone in his situation – getting hundreds of emails a day, that are not spam – would have to deal with this issue.

The problem is even worse than most of you can imagine, because SDB is a different kind of person from most of you. The Instapundit, for example, has to deal with the same issue, probably to an even greater degree. But I would wager that it takes much less of a toll on him.

You see, there are two kinds of thinkers – detail thinkers, and holistic thinkers. Or, to be more accurate, you can place a person’s thinking somewhere along a spectrum between very detail-oriented and very holistic. Detail thinkers organize their thoughts as a collection of direct relationships: this fact is related to this other fact. Holistic thinkers construct for themselves complex inner models in which they place their facts. So, while “holistic” may sound like a touchy-feely word, and few people may think of SDB as touchy-feely, SDB is definitely an holistic thinker.

An