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The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess
The Conflict Between Word & Image
By Leonard Shlain Epilogue
Beauty will save the world.
-- Dostoevsky
In laying out the considerable circumstantial
evidence implicating the written word as the agent responsible
for the decline of the Goddess, I have sought to convince the
reader that when cultures adopt writing, particularly in its
alphabetic form, something negative occurs. because of
literacy's overwhelming benefits, this pernicious side effect
has gone essentially unnoticed. My methods differed from most
historical analyses in that I gave little weight to the content
of the works of any period, and focused instead on the
perceptual changes wrought by the processes used to learn an
alphabet. Throughout, as a writer, as an avid reader, and as a
scientist, I had the uneasy feeling that I was turning on one of
my best friends.
All of my adult life I have lived in two
worlds--one dictated by the exigencies of being a surgeon and
the other inspired by the imaginary realm of literature. I am
amazed at and humbled by the sheer volume of words in the
medical textbooks I have read in order to learn my profession. I
know that each written statement represents the accumulated
wisdom of earlier physicians who had to endure the inevitable
blind alleys associated with the imperfect process of trial and
error.
Without a means to organize, clarify,
classify, and pass on this gleaned knowledge--not only in
medicine, but in all fields--how far advanced would our culture
be? But the neatly alphabetized indices appearing in our
textbooks and encyclopedia represent only part of the great gift
of literacy. There exists another dimension also: the sheer
aesthetic pleasure that accompanies reading.
Breaking the confines of the shell that more
or less encases each individual, literature allows readers'
minds to emerge into the imaginations of the most thoughtful
writers who have ever lived. I, personally feel deeply grateful,
privileged, and ennobled to count Yeats, Plato, Shakespeare, and
Dostoevsky among my mentors. I am who I am because of alphabet
literacy. To bring this charge against the written word, I had
to use the written word to assist me in solving this complex
whodunit--an irony not lost on me.
I acknowledge the analytic, linear,
sequential skills of my own left brain without which I could
never have kept track of the narrative arrow that aligns this
work. My left hemisphere's gift of abstraction has permitted me
to discern this connection among seemingly disparate historical
events. My scientific side has persisted in badgering me like a
pesky gadfly protesting, "yes but" throughout, and
that skepticism resulted in a better book.
Perhaps in my zeal to make my points I have
overstated that right/left, feminine/masculine, nurturer/killer,
and intuiter/analyzer dualities. In individuals, the divisions,
the divisions are not so sharp, and there are templates upon
human history has helped clarify many complex currents and has
made certain patterns apparent that otherwise would have
remained murky.
I am aware that I have expended considerable
ink bashing the left brain, whose wondrous achievements are
celebrated on library shelves filled with the works of geniuses
of logic, science, philosophy, and mathematics; I did not think
it necessary to extol their contributions further here. The left
brain's essential expression--masculine energy--has crafted many
of humankind's great moments, but it has also informed the worst
ones. For every Newton, there has been a Jack the Ripper. A
subtheme of this book is that a lopsided reliance on the left
side's attributes without the tempering mode of the right
hemisphere initially leads a society through a period of
demonstrable madness. it is only after this initial phase passes
that literacy begins to work its salutary wonders for a culture.
I have tended to characterize the
right-hemispheric attributes as purely positive. But it is no
less true that relying on them without the ordering balance
which is the forte of the left hemisphere leads to a different
kind of disarray and can result in mindless anarchy and sensuous
excess. Emphasis on one hemispheric mode at the expense of the
other is noxious. the human community should strive for a state
of complementarity and harmony.
Another reason compelling me to write this
book: I have been troubled since my youth by a question that
surfaced as I became entranced by Greek mythology. I do not
remember at what point it occurred, but I became aware that the
Greeks did not engage in religious wars. Instead, they treated
one another's belief system with admirable tolerance and
civility. What then, I asked myself, had changed in human
culture? Presently, to be a Jew, Muslim, Catholic, or Protestant
seems to inspire suspicion and in many cases hatred of the other
three. Growing up during World War II and the Holocaust made
finding an answer to my question seem urgent. Nearly everyone in
the Western world believes in one God. How could the adherents
of the presumably lofty monotheistic belief despise each other
so since they all freely acknowledge that they worship the same
deity.
If there had been a time in the historical
past when people did not kill each other over religion, then why
did they start? What factor, i asked myself, could have exerted
such a powerful influence upon culture? That I suspect it was
the alphabet resonates with the quote from Sophocles I cited on
page 1: "Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a
curse."
I began my query intent on answering the
question Who killed the Great Goddess? My conclusion--that the
thug who mugged the Goddess was alphabet literacy--may seem
repugnant to some and counterintuitive to others. I cannot prove
that I am right. I have had to rely on the doctrine of
competitive plausibility, arranging the tesserae chips of
historical events into a mosaic of many periods and cultures.
Any individual chip's texture and design can be (an has been)
explained by local conditions, but when all of them are viewed
juxtaposed together, I think a pattern can be discerned showing
the shaping influence on culture of writing and particularly the
alphabet. the rise and fall of images, women's rights, and the
sacred feminine have moved contrapuntally with the rise and fall
of alphabet literacy.
I am convinced we are entering a new Golden
Age--one in which the right-hemispheric values of tolerance,
caring, and respect for nature will begin to ameliorate the
conditions that have prevailed for the too-long period during
which left-hemispheric values were dominant. images, of any
kind, are the balm bringing about this worldwide healing.
It will take more time for change to permeate
and alter world cultures but there can be no doubt that the
wondrous permutations of photography and electromagnetism are
transforming the world both psychically and psychically. the
shift to right-hemispheric values through the perception of
images can be expected to increase the sum total awareness of
beauty.
Long before there was Hammurabi stela or the
Rosetta stone, there were the images of Lascaux and Altamara. In
the beginning was the image. Then came five millennia dominated
by the written word. The iconic symbol is now returning. Women,
the half of the human equation who have for so long been denied,
will increasingly have opportunities to achieve their potential.
This will not happen everywhere at once, but the trend is toward
equilibrium. My hope is that this book will initiate a
conversation about the issues I have raised and inspire others
to examine the thesis further.
Source:
The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess: The
Conflict Between Word and Image (1998) by Leonard Shlain |
