The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (Compass) [Paperback]

Leonard Shlain (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0140196013 | ISBN-13: 978-0140196016 | Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Could the invention of writing, and then the alphabet, have been largely responsible for a decisive shift towards patriarchy and misogyny? in this book, the author draws on brain anatomy and anthropology, religion and history, to develop his challenging thesis. Literacy, he argues, encourages "masculine" linear, reductionist and abstract modes of thought which tend to degrade women. (The witch-hunts of the Renaissance coincided with the rapid expansion of printing). Yet the last century has been the rise of visual communications media such as photography, film, television and the Internet. Regardless of their content, such innovations are reconfiguring our brains and producing a climate far more amenable to feminine values. it is only by acknowledging the downside of literacy that we can incorporate its benefits into a culture rooted in "the right-hemispheric values of tolerance, caring and respect for nature.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

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 Coll. Lib., Springfield, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140196013
• ISBN-13: 978-0140196016
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (168 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Feminist Theory
  • #45 in Books > History > Ancient > Early Civilization

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating read!, June 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (Hardcover)

First of all, I absolutely loved this book. It is a fascinating and beautifully written book, encompassing history, science, and religion studies. I'd like to clear up some confusion and misconceptions about the book, however. (At least, how I see it) The Alphabet versus the Goddess is NOT an argument against literacy or writing. (It's ridiculous to even entertain such an idea, considering the medium we are talking about!) Nor is it an arrogant, sweeping statement of how things are absolutely. It is simply an observation of how male/female values have changed throughout history as the advent of the alphabet is experienced by cultures around the world. The author is always careful to acknowledge that there are other theories, and that this is only his opinion, based on the facts that are presented.

The main premise is not that literacy itself is the "root of all evil" or the sole cause of the oppression of women and feminine based religions. Rather, these things occur when alphabet literacy (primarily a left-brain, masculine function) is exalted and revered to the exclusion of all else. It is when linear, concrete thinking overrides image, the abstract, and intuition that conflict arises. The key is, to put it simply, balance. The feminine and masculine sides are neither "good" nor "bad", just different facets of the mind that need each other to be complete.

I love to read, probably more than most people. It is rare to find me in a spare moment with my nose not buried in a book. And there is no denying the tremendous value and importance the written word has in our lives. Yet I see and understand the necessity of this balance. Too often people will believe the most ridiculous statements, simply because they are in written form. (The supermarket tabloids and internet rumors are two obvious examples of this.) Reading and writing are also primarily solitary pursuits, which tend to shift our focus away from the world and people around us, to the point of indifference or, in extreme cases, outright hate. Balance, balance, balance.

I cannot help but make a couple observations on the review from San Francisco - One, the comment about the author being a doctor, which makes his words gospel and infallible. Only once in the entire book (in the preface) does the author identify himself as a doctor. He does this only to explain his knowledge of the neuroanatomical portion of his hypothesis. His title is not on the cover or the copyright page or anywhere else in the book. I don't see a basis for the insinuation that the author is "throwing his weight around" as a doctor, so his opinion should of course be correct. Also, did anyone else find the line about how the "precious resource" of paper and ink were "wasted" amusing? After reading this incredible book (which you don't have to agree with to enjoy, anyway; it's fascinating stuff!) the reviewer throws in a comment which perfectly epitomizes the problem of raising alphabet literacy to divine proportions. I don't know if anyone else caught that, but gave me a chuckle or two.

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provocative Connections, November 30, 1999

By 

David Natharius (Chandler, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (Hardcover)

As a professor of communication, humanities and gender studies, I am fascinated by AVG. My teaching perspective has always been to guide students towards discovering connections between and among seemingly disparate aspects of human communication behaviors. In this provocative book, Shlain offers a three stage analysis for connecting the rise and fall and rise of feminine perceptual processing. The first stage is his review of early, nonliterate cultures in which the goddess was revered and feminine ways of knowing were important aspects in many of these cultures. There is a great deal of interpretive evidence from archaeology and cultural anthropology suggesting that these preliterate cultures were often matriarchal and it was the women who guided and directed the movement, settlement and structure of the culture. Shlain offers a representative view of this evidence. The second stage is the development of written languages and the alphabet. Again, there is a significant amount of evidence that all cultures, when becoming literate, shift to or maintain patriarchal control and Shlain offers a selective review of this evidence. The third stage, or the one we are moving into now, according to Shlain, is the return to feminine ways of knowing, created by the shift in information processing created by the increase of electronic visual imagery in our society. It is this suggestion that creates the most intriguing and provocative part of the book. His argument is based, partly, of his knowledge of the neurological processes of the brain - the researched different functions of the right and left brain. His thesis, that feminine (or right brain) ways of perceiving will again become prominant in our culture, is a profound assertion worthy of continued discussion and examination. I am also fascinated by some of the remarks of his negative critics who argue that, from their perspective (though they do not claim it as a perspective but rather as the "truth") Shlain's research is "sloppy scholarship," "full of unsupported assertions," "psuedo history." They also find specific errors which, in their opinion, negate the entire thesis of the book. In an interesting way, many of the negative comments reflect the biases towards masculine, patriarchal, compartmentalized thinking - exactly the kind of linearity explored in AVG. If Shlain's critics had, indeed, read his book carefully, I suspect they would have realized that he offers ONE perspective (NOT the "truth") that invites the reader to think about the connections between written literacy, linear thinking, and the diminishment of feminine perceptual processes in our past and present cultures. From my perspective, he gives us a lot to think about even if some of his evidence does not pass the test of scholarly precision.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Provocative reading, January 5, 2000

By 

Caroline Garrett - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image (Compass) (Paperback)

Dr. Shlain has written a provocative account of the pervasive and often unacknowledged powers of right and left brain functions. Other thinkers, be they artists such as Dr. Betty Edwards in her classic "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" or businessman turned researcher, Robert Monroe in his "Journeys Out of the Body" have explored the effects of this division of labor into right and left hemispheres. Shlain's approach is that of the self-taught socio-historian and anthropologist. His thesis leads to many more possibilities in interpreting the evolution of our civilizations. It is a must read for anyone who wants to grasp a broad perspecitive of human behavior over the millennia. It might be required reading for a Women's Study course ,providing philosophical basis for understanding trends in gender-based roles. Dr. Shlain's insights into the possible cause and effect of collective thinking is startling, fresh, inspired, and controversial. He is making propositions and disavows absolutes in favor of a more expansive viewpoint. Like his book "Art and Physics" Shlain breaks the bonds of tradtional thinking by offering an intelligent and plasuible perspective. His fondness for the written word makes his book a delight to read. In Dr. Shlain's exploration of male and female dominant cultures, he is not porposing that we return to women-rule, if indeed that ever existed, any more than he suggests that we return to the agrarian lifestyle and put our technological advances behind us. His passionate, intellectual process is to understand why societies have evolved as they have and how seeing beneath the surface of influences can free us. The book reveals a genius for synthesis and novelty of thinking. To read it can give a new vision to the possibilities of our evolving society. There is a timely pertinenece to his insight: our times are intensely graphic , that is, both word AND image-oriented, due to technological advances. We are coming into a time of synthesis. Whether you agree with Dr. Shlain or not, you won't be left without some surprisingly new opinions about who we are and why we've allowed certain dominations to continue. Perhaps the time has come historically when equality is possible : the balance between right and left brain, between the male and female--is being embedded into our collective consciousness. Shlain's book will open your eyes as to why that is.