Parts don't make a whole

A truth that architect Christopher Alexander called attention to is the idea that in nature, parts don't make a whole. Rather, the whole gives birth to the parts. Think of a tree for example. It's not made by stacking a trunk on top of the roots, followed by branches, stems and leaves. The whole comes first, which in the case of a tree means the earth itself which nourishes a seed and so forth. What does this have to do with scale? In creating and participating in human organizations and industrial systems designed to perpetually grow, we behave as though the parts come first and that each part has value only as it contributes to the whole. Without special design consideration in harmony with the example found in nature, the larger an organization becomes the smaller the parts (people) feel and the harder it is to manage. Some enshrine our economy as an exercise in self-interested cooperation which is an oxymoron. We use the fact that it makes money for people to justify it as a kind of pinnacle of human achievement. Yet, as we specialize ourselves in the breathless pursuit of money, without respecting our intrinsic wholeness (either as individuals or as a society), we make ourselves sick, both mentally and physically. We're indoctrinated to be self-interested which is in direct opposition to the concept of cooperation. What's more, our training is so technical and our outlook so narrow that we often don't have time to consider the big picture that we contribute to, or even the other departments we work interdependently with. This sickness comes because specialists are not what we were created to be. What we do to ourselves and each other is analogous to saying to a group of flowers "Ok, you flowers just be colorful, you over there just smell nice, etc. and together we'll all make one big superflower!" It doesn't work that way because every flower was made to be a whole flower, just as every person was made to be a whole person. The minute we raise our heads and look around and see things as they are--to look at the relationships and interconnectedness--and act appropriately, we begin to be generalists. Other skills immediately come into play that cause us and our organizations to begin to heal. Our self-image improves and we submit less to exploitation. That's an important word because specialization reduces us to commodities (The "framers" of our economy saw to it). That might be good for slash-and-burn economics, but in time it is bound to fail. The more responsibility we take for our own selves (and the less we rely on large-scale markets, corporations, etc.), as we live closer to the land, the more well-rounded we become simply because a variety of skills are needed to produce a living on nature's terms. In addition, our involvement with other living things softens us and makes us more aware of the needs of other people. Fortunately, in addition to the hard work involved we receive understanding about who we really are--whole people eager to express ourselves along with the rest of creation.