Customer Reviews

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I really thought I was going to like this book. Shalin is (ironically) a very stylistic writer, whose affinity for the written word and the English language give his prose a luminous quality. The premise of the book is fascinating. He provides an interesting overview of Western history, and re-interprets many events and developments in light of his thesis.

However. Here is a list of the ways in which this book disappointed me:

1. Near the start of the book, he says he is going to survey the available explanations for the historical developments he traces, and show why his theory is the one that explains the historical facts the best. He doesn't do this. His general approach is to show how some "bad" development followed immediately on the introduction of an alphabetic form of writing, or the printing press, or an increase in literacy. Although he says that he understands the difference between correlation and causality, in the end, he mostly presents correlations in time.

2. Along the same lines, he fails to provide any cogent analysis of what is wrong with competing theories for the rising dominance of men in Western society (he mentions the horticulture-to-agriculture shift theory, but simply dismisses it without explaining why this explanation is wrong or incomplete).

3. He takes odd little detours. I never did figure out what the chapter on Ganymede and Sappho had to do with his thesis.

4. By the end of the book, the chapters became tediously repetitious. Basically, each one consisted of a description of some heinous development in Western culture, the establishment of some time-based correlation between this development and an increase in literacy, followed by the assertion that this was further proof that alphabets cause horrible problems.

5. His entire premise relies on the equation of left brain with masculine (and thus with males), versus the right brain with feminine (and thus with females). He fails to distinguish between the social constructs of masculine/feminine and biological sex. He ignores all the studies which show that the differences within each sex (on this masculine/feminine scale) are far greater than between the sexes.

6. Whenever he encounters a woman who thrives in a "masculine" environment, he adduces this as evidence of that particular woman being co-opted by the over-emphasis on the left brain. He never seems to question the degree to which his thesis is affected by the culture in which he is located -- to what degree can he universalize a theory tied so deeply to a particular notion of masculine and feminine that come so cleary from the time and place in which he lives.

Interestingly, Shalin seems to recognize the irony of his entire project (using alphabet-based writing and logical thinking to debunk the same...). Therefore, he occasionally makes a point of saying that alphabets aren't *all* bad. It's just that whenever there's an increase in alphabetic literacy, then there is a corresponding social disruption.

In the end I found the book to be based on an interesting idea, but altoghter too dogmatic in expounding the idea. And this dogmatism makes the argument ultimately unpersuasive to me.

Shlain has an interesting thesis, his scholarship is impressive, and the book is fun and provoking to read. But his argument ultimately fails (I feel) because the right brain vs. left brain dichotomy he bases it on simply doesn't agree with the facts: although it's abundantly clear from recent research that the two halves of the brain have their areas of specialization, it's also clear that their differences aren't as marked as people commonly think, and that the two "brains" need to work together or we can't make sense of the world around us. (See Robert E. Ornstein's latest book, "The Right Mind," for a concise summary of the current state of our understanding.) Shlain's discussion of how language shapes our thought processes is pretty solid (and has been echoed by other writers, e.g., David Abram and Thom Hartmann), although I think he takes it too far: research shows that a person whose language has 20 different words for "snow" doesn't actually SEE snow in a different way than someone whose language has two or three; he just has a better vocabulary in which to describe it. In general, I enjoyed reading the book, but I think it needs to be taken with about a pound of salt because its central thesis is flawed.

Every so often I read a book that makes me groan, wishing that I'd seen the connection first, that I were a writer, that I'd written THIS book. In a class with Sjoo and Moore, Eisler, and Merlin Stone, The Alphabet vs. the Goddess connects the dots and follows them into our collective future. The question of the past few decades "HOW did humankind transition from matrifocal culture to patriarchal, and why?" is answered brilliantly in this book (and finally, a much more plausible answer than just 'IndoEuropean Invaders'). I LOVED this book, it will go high on my list of titles to recommend. Even if you are immersed in academia, studying linguistics and philosophy (as I once was) don't worry about the negative review posted below -- take it as an indication of how revolutionary this work is. Its a book I am tempted to immediately read again, the second time with a highlighter in hand.

Intelligent, insightful, provocative and challenging, this is a book I could hardly put down! For many, Leonard Shlain's thesis will be difficult to swallow, cutting across cultural and religious prejudices and taboos with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. (The author's specialty is brain surgery). For others, this books will evoke many 'Ahas's' and 'Amens'. Unlike many contempory authors, Mr. Shlain offers us a genuine vision of ourselves. To borrow a Zen metaphor, reading this book is like holding up a polished mirror which allows us to see ourselves more clearly and wholly. In particular, the issue of hemispherical dominance in relationship to perception, communication, art, religion, politics, gender roles and values, psychology and philosophy is illuminated by this perspective. And the central question of 'What became of the Goddess?'is given a strong and intelligent reply.

Where I would like to see more emphasis in the book is on the perception of sound as well as visual stimulus. For example, music is not examined as the potentially integrating artform that can overcome the schizophrenic tendencies of left-brained written language and right-brained visual imagery. And the left brained time dominance over image and sound is not considered in relationship to motion pictures (film) or digital technology/voice transmission and music.

Despite these differences in perception and opinion, this is an important book addressing critical issues in our evolution and survival as a species. I hope to read more books by this author of wit, style and substance!

OK, OK, so Shlain is not a scholar in the humanities. He does make some mighty big assumptions about everything from evolution to contemporary events. He doesn't seem to be aware that scholars have been quibbling about many of the things he presents as settled facts. As a scholar in religion, psychology, and history, I can say he doesn't have the nuanced view of these issues that I would prefer. NEVERTHELESS, the central thesis of the book is quite compelling: the very practice of becoming literate effects the human brain in such a way that it causes social upheaval. Take, for example, the witch hunts in the early modern era. No one has found a satisfactory explanation for the reason they occurred when they did. Shlain doesn't DENY that other proposed ideas have validity, he simply suggests that we have not taken enough care of the effects of literacy. Truth be told, it is a major shift when large numbers of people become able to read and write. We would be fools to think it would NOT have an effect on our culture. Exactly what those effects were and are remains to be seen, but credit Shlain with having the insight to make the connection.

After digesting Leonard Shlain's AVG hypothesis, I was left wondering if I had just experienced a brilliant, revolutionalry discovery, or the biggest pile of bull I'd ever read. It was an interesting intellectual exercise to come to the conclusion that it was most likely the latter. Shlain's hypothesis was interesting, but there was nothing he presented that convinced me that it had to be true, or was even likely to be true. The idea that the *process* of reading or viewing images has powerful effects on the brain that are independent of the *content* is so radical that it requires extraordinary proof to be accepted as true. Dr. Shlain has gathered interesting anecdotal evidence to support his ideas, but makes a huge leap by identifying the mental process of reading as being key. Even if literacy is correlated with women's oppression, what are the alternative hypotheses? Maybe literacy allows laws to be firmly codified and spread throughout a culture, allowing more organized government or repression that would favor a patriarchy. If this were the case, television could be expected to have an impact similar to literacy, instead of the opposite, liberating effect, as Shlain claims. He does not have a satisfactory answer to my question of how current media images of violence and female oppression could possibly be beneficial to women. Finally, Shlain's biological argument was very weak. As a neuroscientist, I am always skeptical of male/female, left/right brain ideas. When Shlain extended this metaphor to say that the rod photoreceptors in the eye are "feminine" and the cones are "masculine" I really began to tune out. I am disheartened by the lack of critical examination of Shlain's ideas and urge others to critically evaluate his work before accepting it as truth.

I started this book with high hopes, intrigued by Dr. Shlain's analysis of the evolution of humans and his explanation of our physiology.

However, as he delved into the historical record. I found myself more and more disappointed. He makes broad sweeping assertions without analysis, and he falls into the classic amateur historian's trap of focusing solely on events that bolster his case without even mentioning contrary evidence, nor considering whether there may be alternate explanations for the events he claims support his theory. He argues in one place that the Akkadians conquered the Sumerians, adopted their writing (cuneiform) and it was this adoption that gave rise to their patriarchialism - never considering that it may have been a patriarchal structure that enabled them to conquer Sumer in the first place. Then, to demonstrate this patriarchy, he shifts in mid-sentence and without explanation or transition from Akkad to Babylon.

He casually accepts as proven facts interpretations that are even today highly controversial or that have simply been proven wrong. For example, he writes about the JEPD(R) documentary hypothesis for the development of the Hebrew Scripture without ever once conceding that it IS a hypothesis which is still controversial and undergoing revision. He quotes without question Josephus' story of Pompey visiting the Second Temple and being astonished that its sanctum sanctorum was empty; we know from Roman records that Pompey never set foot in Jerusalem.

I was also nonplussed by his implication that grammar is a function of writing, not speech, an assertion casually tossed off as though he had never heard a mother correct her child's chatter. But where he finally lost me for good was in his discussion of rites of passage; while admitting that the Bible and the Talmud never once discuss the concept of a bar mitzvah, he then blithely asserts that the bar mitzvah proves that ancient Judaism valued literacy more highly than physical stamina in their young men. The bar mitzvah ceremony is at most 300 years old!

Anachronistic back-dating is hardly uncommon among polemicists, but no serious historian would be so sloppy. From the evidence of his earlier chapters, Dr. Shlain knows medicine, and that is what he should stick to.