Question

What is the importance of holistic perspective as a pointed out by the poet john Godfrey Saxe

Answer 1

First, let's define what holistic means. Holistic means you're not only looking at something or someone in one way, that it's best that you take a look at all angles to grasp the bigger picture or idea.

John Godfrey Saxe has a poem titled "The Blind Men and the Elephant". What happened basically was there were six blind men who happened to touch just one side of the elephant

A man each touched these parts: side of the elephant, tusk, trunk, leg, ears and tail. 

Given that they are blind, they took them as something else: (in same order) wall, spear, snake, tree, fan and rope

Bottomline is they are all touching the same thing (elephant) but because they are basing their observation from only 1 side, they ended up arguing about what the object was.

If only they applied the holistic perspective wherein they took an effort to explore the other sides of the object, they could have arrived at the same idea.