On Wholeness and Partiality
Elucidated.Voyyd
nothing can ever remind you about the actual working of the device,
the physical reality of the capacitors and transistors is obscene.
is it the same way we think human guts are disgusting?
to dissect a corpse is disgusting, worse still to mutilate a living person.
so, the computer is given its own "flesh" to hide its guts.
user interfaces are convenient, but also serve this function
of hiding the ugly labyrinth of "dead" mechanisms.
what is it about dissection that bothers us?
the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,
a whole is beautiful, divine, metaphysical, wonderous.
but our belief in that is shaken when we see the ugly mechanisms that make it up.
no surprise then that manufacturing jobs are disgusting for Americans
no matter how desperately good jobs are needed, manufacturing is ugly, unholy even.
especially for people so sheltered from machinations.
what is it about dissection, about mechanicality, that is so disgusting?
it is a corruption, a defilement of the sacred Wholeness of things-in-themselves.
The art gallery serves as an altar to this fake god, the wholeness of the artwork.
the artwork stripped of context, presented alone, plucked out of the living world,
and placed into a sterile hall of worship where its supposed "unity" can be observed.
philosophically thinking about wholes and parts is called mereology.
if we are so obsessed with sacred "wholeness",
is partiality always ugly, always lesser?
what place does "partiality" occupy for us?
in relationships, we are apart - one of us a part of the whole of both
in relationships, it is easy to forget oneself, one's own "partiality"
you can focus on the wholeness of the other, and the whole you make up together.
being alone, we "fall to pieces", with no other option than dissecting our self,
in our search for wholes we find them within ourself,
but this fragments us, and makes us feel broken, in pieces, shattered.
we can become a whole by being seen by another person,
the other person puts us "back together" in their mind.
in all of this, it should become clear that there is a glaring question.
isnt the reality that wholeness and partiality are just perspectives?