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The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess
The Conflict Between Word & Image
By Leonard Shlain
Reviews
This groundbreaking book proposes that the rise of
alphabetic literacy reconfigured the human brain and brought
about profound changes in history, religion, and gender
relations. Making remarkable connections across brain function,
myth, and anthropology, Dr. Shlain shows why pre-literate
cultures were principally informed by holistic, right-brain
modes that venerated the Goddess, images, and feminine
values.
Writing drove cultures toward linear left-brain thinking
and this shift upset the balance between men and women,
initiating the decline of the feminine and ushering in
patriarchal rule. Examining the cultures of the Israelites,
Greeks, Christians, and Muslims, Shlain reinterprets ancient
myths and parables in light of his theory. Provocative and
inspiring, this book is a paradigm-shattering work that will
transform your view of history and the mind.
--Publisher
Literacy
has promoted the subjugation of women by men throughout all but
the very recent history of the West," writes Leonard Shlain.
"Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall with the fortunes of
the alphabetic written word.
That's a pretty audacious claim, one that
The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess provides extensive historical
and cultural correlations to support. Shlain's thesis takes
readers from the evolutionary steps that distinguish the human
brain from that of the primates to the development of the
Internet. The very act of learning written language, he argues,
exercises the human brain's left hemisphere--the half that
handles linear, abstract thought--and enforces its dominance
over the right hemisphere, which thinks holistically and
visually.
If you accept the idea that linear abstraction is a
masculine trait, and that holistic visualization is feminine,
the rest of the theory falls into place. The flip side is that
as visual orientation returns to prominence within society
through film, television, and cyberspace, the status of women
increases, soon to return to the equilibrium of the earliest
human cultures.
Shlain wisely presents this view of history as
plausible rather than definite, but whether you agree with his
wide-ranging speculations or not, he provides readers eager to
"understand it all" with much to consider.
--Ron
Hogan,
Amazon.com
The advantages of a literate society are self-evident, but
is there a dark side to language? In this extraordinary book,
Shlain, a surgeon and the author of Art and Physics (LJ
9/1/91), argues that when cultures acquire literacy, the brain's
left hemisphere dominates the right with enormous consequences.
Alphabetic writing, Shlain believes, "subliminally fosters
a patriarchal outlook" at the expense of feminine
values.
Focusing on Western cultures, Shlain surveys world history
and religion to illustrate how alphabet literacy fosters
extremes of intolerance. Indeed, a subtheme of the book is that
overreliance on the left hemisphere "initially leads a
society through a period of demonstrable madness." Such
aberrations as group suicide, religious persecution, and
witch-hunting are the result of a dominant linear, reductionist,
and abstract method of perception.
While admitting that "correlation does not prove
causality," Shlain presents a forceful case based on a
wealth of circumstantial evidence. An absorbing, provocative,
and, ironically, highly literate work that should receive
considerable review attention; recommended for most public and
academic libraries.?
--Laurie
Bartolini, MacMurray, Library
Journal
A bold and fascinating investigation of the dark side of
literacy.
--The
New York Times Book Review
A fascinating account of the evolution of our male and
female ways of knowing"
--Clarissa
Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run
with the Wolves
Making remarkable connections across a wide range of
subjects including brain anatomy and function, anthropology,
history, and religion, Shlain argues that, with the advent of
literacy, the very act of reading an alphabet reinforced the
brain's left hemisphere - linear, abstract, predominantly
masculine at the expense of the right holistic, concrete,
visual, feminine. This shift upset the balance between men and
women, and initiated the disappearance of goddesses, the
abhorrence of images, the decline of women's social and
political status, and a long reign of patriarchy and
misogyny.
The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess tracks the
correlations between the rise and fall of literacy and the
changing status of women in society, mythology, and religion
throughout European history, and in other cultures as well.
Shlain goes on to describe a colossal shift he calls the iconic
revolution, now under way, that began in the nineteenth century:
the return of the image.
The invention of photography and the discovery of
electromagnetism have brought us film, television, video,
computers, advertising, graphics - and a shift from the
dominance of the left hemisphere to reassertion of the right.
Image information has gradually been superseding print
information, and in the resulting social revolution women have
benefited as society shifts to embrace feminine values.
--Card
catalog description
Source:
The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess: The
Conflict Between Word and Image (1998) by Leonard Shlain
* * * * *
Source:
The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (1998) by Leonard Shlain
 |
Leonard Shlain -- Surgeon, Author,
Educator, Inventor, Speaker -- has received many distinctions
and awards both as a surgeon and educator. He began his
writing career in the late 1970's contributing articles to
magazines and newspapers including the Los Angeles Times.
In addition to being an author, Shlain is
also Chief of Laparoscopic Surgery at California Pacific Medical
Center in San Francisco and Associate Professor of Surgery at
UCSF. He was a pioneer in the field of video-assisted
laparoscopic surgery and presently holds five patents for
surgical devices. His Art & Physics is presently used
as a textbook in many universities, high schools, and art
academies. |
In a more recent book,
Sex, Time, and
Power, Shlain offers carefully reasoned, and certain
to be controversial discussions on such subjects as
menstruation, orgasm, puberty, circumcision, male aggression,
menopause, baldness, left-handedness, the evolution of language,
homosexuality, and the origin of marriage. Written in a lively
and accessible style,
Sex, Time, and
Power is certain to
generate heated debate in the media and among readers interested
in human evolution and the history of sexuality.
Source:
The
Alphabet Versus The Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (1998) by Leonard Shlain* * *
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and
the Education of a President
By
Ron Suskind
A new
book offering an insider's account of the
White House's response to the financial
crisis says that U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim
Geithner ignored an order from President
Barack Obama calling for reconstruction of
major banks. According to Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, the
incident is just one of several in which
Obama struggled with a divided group of
advisers, some of whom he didn't initially
consider for their high-profile roles.
Suskind interviewed more than 200 people,
including Obama, Geithner and other top
officials . . . The book states Geithner and
the Treasury Department ignored a March 2009
order to consider dissolving banking giant
Citigroup while continuing stress tests on
banks, which were burdened with toxic
mortgage assets. . . .Suskind states that
Obama accepts the blame for mismanagement in
his administration while noting that
restructuring the financial system was
complicated and could have resulted in
deeper financial harm. . . . In a February
2011 interview with Suskind, Obama
acknowledges another ongoing criticism—that
he is too focused on policy and not on
telling a larger story, one the public could
relate to. Obama is quoted as saying he was
elected in part because "he had connected
our current predicaments with the broader
arc of American history," but that such a
"narrative thread" had been lost.—Gopusa
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|
Leonard Shlain -- Surgeon, Author,
Educator, Inventor, Speaker -- has received many distinctions
and awards both as a surgeon and educator. He began his
writing career in the late 1970's contributing articles to
magazines and newspapers including the Los Angeles Times.
In addition to being an author, Shlain is
also Chief of Laparoscopic Surgery at California Pacific Medical
Center in San Francisco and Associate Professor of Surgery at
UCSF. He was a pioneer in the field of video-assisted
laparoscopic surgery and presently holds five patents for
surgical devices. His Art & Physics is presently used
as a textbook in many universities, high schools, and art
academies. |
In a more recent book,
Sex, Time, and
Power, Shlain offers carefully reasoned, and certain
to be controversial discussions on such subjects as
menstruation, orgasm, puberty, circumcision, male aggression,
menopause, baldness, left-handedness, the evolution of language,
homosexuality, and the origin of marriage. Written in a lively
and accessible style,
Sex, Time, and
Power is certain to
generate heated debate in the media and among readers interested
in human evolution and the history of sexuality.
* *
* * *
update 31 July 2010
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