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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 |
