October 12, 2003
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
I finally finished The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain. I've been reading it in bits and pieces on the bus and light rail so it took me a lot longer than it should have to get to the end. I really enjoyed it though and highly recommend it! The premise is basically that literacty reinforces the masculine left hemisphere and devalues the right (which processes tasks traditionally female) and that this factor inflamed misogyny in literate societies. He shows how basically every society went crazy (for a while anyway) when literacy spread (resulting in the destroying of images, burning of witches, etc.). He does end with the optimistic view that television and the Internet are helping to reinforce images again which is allowing for much better treatment of women and values such as respecting the environment and diversity.
"Trapped in the center of a spinning washing machine, it is difficult for anyone so positioned to appreciate that the clothes tumbling violenty about are becoming cleaner." (p. 418)