Mx. Chara Aznable of Pnictogen on Nostr: This plays into the extreme **atomism** that I've talked about, an attitude prevalent ...

This plays into the extreme **atomism** that I've talked about, an attitude prevalent in "Western" science and academia: all things can be understood, goes the atomistic fallacy, by dividing them up into the smallest possible pieces first, then claiming that the true nature of the thing lies in the aggregation of its pieces or perhaps to one *special* piece from that collection, thought to be the quintessence or governing principle.

Nothing gets the right-wing #Christian crowd much happier, for example, than the news from #CSLewis that there's actually four separate things called "love" (exactly four, of course, like the Four Gospels or the four suits of playing cards) because dividing love up like this makes it easier to abuse and betray other people, especially one's own family and friends. One can, as it were, set one of the Four Loves against the other.

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