Systems thinking

Is "systems thinking" just the Western attempt at emulating the "holistic" character of Eastern thinking? 

In a sense, by thinking of a system as a whole made of modular parts interacting with each other, it's still pretty reductionistic. 

In Eastern holistic thinking, there isn't much distinction between the concept of an individual vs the concept of a group of individuals. 
If anything, "real" holistic thinking might actually just be "less thinking". Question why we hold certain concepts, certain distinctions, in our minds, and simply observe. 

It's a pattern you see in mathematical traditions too -- take classical point-set topology vs. intuitionistic point-free topology. In the real and abstract spaces of our minds, do we focus on a foundational unit -- the point -- with which we build out the rest of the theory according to our expectations, or simply observe the space as it is, and allow whatever relations arise to build the theory itself? 

There is no tension, as some would have it, between these two modes of thinking. There's a good interview with Tyson Yunkaporta: Aboriginal and Indigenous Memory Techniques & No More "Memory Wars" with Tyson Yunkaporta - YouTube

Basically, it is counter to aboriginal thinking to try to classify and dictate which mode of thinking is "better". Yunkaporta describes it as almost a "patchwork quilt" of thinking strategies. I like to think of it more as a calm sea -- and Western thinking is certainly a fish in that sea. When we drag it up with the nets of our minds, we simply observe it and say, "Yep, that's certainly a way of sea-ing things!"