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The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image | 
 enlarge | Author: Leonard Shlain
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  155 reviews
Sales Rank: 159226
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0140196013
Dewey Decimal Number: 305
EAN: 9780140196016
ASIN: 0140196013
Publication Date: September 1, 1999
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Condition: Standard used condition.
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Amazon.com
"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
Book Description
Is it sheer coincidence that the European witch hunts quickly followed the invention of the printing press? In his groundbreaking work The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, Leonard Shlain proposes that the invention of writing, particularly alphabetic writing, rewired the human brain, causing profound cultural changes in history, religion, and gender relations. While the advent of literacy brought innumerable benefits to society, the switch to left-brain thinking upset the balance between men and women. The rise of male dominance led to a corresponding decline in goddess veneration and the status of women. Ending on a positive note, Shlain notes that the return of an image-oriented culture - through the media of photography, film, television, and the Internet - has brought about a sharp rise in the feminine values denigrated during the 5,000-year reign of patriarchy and literacy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 150 more reviews...
great read but I'm not completely convinced April 21, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book a lot - it's very well written and I admire the breath of research the author brings to his case, and the massive range he covers. There's no doubt that the great transition he talks about is real. What I'm not completely convicined about, however, is his suggested reasons for this transition. I don't think literacy was a significant enough factor to account for it, especially when throughout recorded history (until very recent times) only a tiny number of people were literate. Steve Taylor's excellent book The Fall covers similar ground from a different perspective and puts forward a more convincing case for a deep rooted psychological shift which he calls the Ego Explosion. The Fall: The Evidence for a Golden Age, 6,000 years of Insanity and the Dawning of a New Era
 The Alphabet vs. The Goddess March 2, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
A couple of years ago, during a religious conversation with my daughter, I asked (somewhat plaintively) "What the hell ever happened to God the Mother?!" She smiled and walked over to her bookcase and brought back two books. One was "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" and the other was "The Alphabet vs. The Goddess." Together they changed my thinking about a lot of things. Of course I had a little trouble adjusting to being joined at the hip with the Oxford Dictionery! I wish the fathers of the Church would give as much thought to this book as they do the writings of Augustine
first read understanding media December 30, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Shlain's work was informed by Marchall Mcluhan. Read Understanding Media first (and related works) and you'll appreciate the truth of Shlain's insights re printing, reading, writing and technology. Gutenberg changed EVERYTHING. Hot vs Cool, Linear vs holistic. The power of myth and its demise. What Slain has done is include his knowledge of the brain & gender roles to an established construct. And please do read WAlker's "Women's Book of Myths and Secrets" to get a more thorough understanding of how patriarchal cultures (Greek Roman Hebrew) and the Catholic religion have savaged, usurpeed and manipulated early Pagan cultures to their own imperial purpose.
Significant factual misunderstanding, but thesis too well-done to overlook entirely October 29, 2007
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
"The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" is a hard book to evaluate.
Whilst it apparently aimed to show that literacy has many serious problem, it actually comes across as much less politically correct that the author intended.
Shlain, being a surgeon with necessarily an excellent knowledge of biology, begins the book by looking at the nature of the human brain and the differences between men and women. He shows clearly that the human brain is unusual in more than size: the presence of "cones" gives a type of vision quite rare among animals. He also shows with unusual detail the roles of the two sides of the brain and how they functioned in pre-agricultural and agricultural human society. Even when he cites the often-criticised Marija Gimbutas, he never latches onto theories of matriarchal prehistory that I have become rather suspicious of.
His description of the revolution brought about by alphabetic (more precisely, "abjadic") literacy and the Bible is also quite interesting and he shows clearly how alphabet literacy led to focus on abstract concepts that was unknown in pre-literate societies or those whose writing was not alphabetic or abjadic. Shlain is very balanced, contrary to what is often thought, he illustrates throughout "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" the benefits of literacy in a way that would not be out of place in a Politically Incorrect Guide. However, his viewpoint that the Bible and other book written with an alphabet relegated feminine values seems contrary to his claim in the first chapter that research has shown women understand writing better and men manipulate images more easily. It also contradicts cultures like the Old Order Anabaptists who extremely rigorously avoid images but epitomise extremely feminine, nurturing, gentle values and reject abstract ideas.
However, when he studies more modern cultures, Shlain is still clearly very well-informed but at times rather confused. His discussion of women in Ancient Greece and Rome is not as well-done and one chapter (the fourteenth) is far too short. However, he does show how women became treated very badly because of the actual spread of literacy in Greece. Shlain has, rightly, been criticised for failing to see the similarity between Sparta and twentieth century Stalinist nations: both were militarised egalitarian societies in which women took up traditional male roles like sport or industry, and in which art (as in alphabetic societies) was devalued.
His look at Eastern cultures is, overall, excellent. He reveals the character of East Asian culture, and how literacy affected India and China differently, along with the survival of Buddhism in only largely illiterate Indochina.
Shlain's look at Christianity reveals the contradictions inherent in its teaching - which are actually less than he suggests because "pain, suffering and obedience" are not the masculine values he asserts, but really highly feminine, selfless ones quite opposed to the individuality that he shows literacy to have promoted. His look at the abstract ideals evident in early Christianity and the contrast with the militant Church of after Constantine is very well-done, as is his study of the fluctuations in the status of women in the Middle Ages and how women's status was diminished by the development of the printing press. Shlain shows how in turn this printing press caused irrational outbreaks like the witch-hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The last few chapters, whilst they offer a very interesting take on how many events of modern society like how the Germans turned to Nazism through Hitler's use of the radio. However, his discussion of linguistic differences between European tongues is rather poorly done and does not take into acocunt that the presence of gender distinctions favours less formal address forms, (e.g East Asian languages have no gender disinctions but extremely formal address forms). His look at the Sixties counterculture as an "image tribe" is, as Neil Howe and William Strauss back up, not ridiculous because the ideals of caring for nature and "back to the land" are so typical of the feminine value system. At the same time Shlain does overlook the great likelihood that the Industrial Revolution and machines - through being complex and three-dimensional as he mentions on page five - have caused loss of feminine values via radical masculinisation of women.
On the whole, if you can recognise the mistake Shlain makes, "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" is a really good read. It offers an excellent perspective on many factors controlling what a society values, and is remarkably well-balanced in assessing the merit of changes that must be seen as radical and potentially dangerous. It may have too many errors for the full five stars, but I recommend "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" to the curious nonetheless.
 Interesting philosophical premise weighed down by redundancy October 13, 2007
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
The author states his premise (an interesting one that I find to be a valid possibility) in the opening chapters of the book. Thereafter he proceeds to repeat himself ad nauseum. "Redundant" lacks the sufficient punch needed to describe the effect. This is perhaps the book's largest problem overall, but not the point that stuck in my own personal craw, as it were.
While describing the basics of his theory in chapter one (image and word being the themes at hand) and referring to feminine and masculine archetypal views of the world (and styles of communication and the affects on society of said archetypes) he launches into a harangue that compares and contrasts the two.
From p7:
"Whenever a culture elevates the written word at the expense of the image, patriarchy dominates. Whenever the importance of the image supercedes the written word, feminine values and egalitarianism flourish."
There are so many logical problems with this statement (that is an unfortunate running theme in his world view as expressed in the book) that I don't quite know where to begin. The easiest way to address it is by rephrasing it as such:
When masculine language archetypes are used by a society, said society can expect male dominance over women and all of the assorted associated problems. But when a society values the feminine archetypes over the masculine ones, there will be peace on earth and everyone will be happy.
Funny, I thought imbalance was imbalance and one could expect repercussions of a negative variety from an imbalance at either end of a spectrum. And for whatever it is worth, I say this as a woman who has certainly taken advantage of the positives brought about by Women's Lib while at the same time noticing many negative backlashes from the same movement.
Ironically, this quote is preceded by a statement that these archetypes are COMPLIMENTARY opposites and the very next chapter of the book is started off with a Virginia Wolf quote regarding the of an "androgynous mind" as ideal. Even the opening quote of the first chapter seems to contradict the author's strange dogmatic stance; "Even a positive thing casts a shadow....its unique excellence is at the same time it's tragic flaw." Too bad the theme continues until the end and Mr. Shlain does not apply his thoughts on balance to his own theories.
TO be fair, in the epilogue, he goes on to say that he saw no reason to expound on the positive contributions of masculine communication models in society since there is already a wealth of work on the subject. But by the time I got to that point, it felt like faint and damning praise as well as an attempt to cover his own unbalanced thoughts; almost as if he looked back at the end of writing it and realized he sounded a bit off in the head. If I wanted to be the author's therapist I would have charged him instead of paying for his work.
TO sum up, there are some very interesting thoughts (and fascinating research into other fields of research) in this book. But one needs a very heavy filter to weed out the garbage to get through them. And you can expect to have them restated continuously until many will want to throw the book across the room. I recommend reading the titles, opening quotes, preface and epilogue. You'll more than have the gist. If you want the extras, find his bibliography.
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