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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Joe,

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Speaker 1: quick question here, who is your favorite goddess? Oh? Man, Well,

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Speaker 1: it depends on if you ask me while I've just

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Speaker 1: been listening to some some Stevie Nicks jams. If I'm

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Speaker 1: going to go into the Fleetwood Mac kind of Rhiannon territory. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But if not, I think I'm going to stick with

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Speaker 1: something that. Actually I wonder if there's a linguistic relationship

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Speaker 1: between Rhiannon and the one I'm about to talk about,

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Speaker 1: because it's kind of a cognate the Sumerian goddess in Anna.

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Speaker 1: You're familiar with in Anna, but she's the one who

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Speaker 1: rings like a bell through the night. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: that's also Rhiannon. But in Nana does sort of take

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Speaker 1: to the sky like a bird in flight, and I

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Speaker 1: don't maybe sometimes she promises you haven't. She is definitely

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Speaker 1: the darkness and she rules her life like a fine skylark.

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Speaker 1: But let's not get sidetracked. In Nana has hymns of

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Speaker 1: her own that we can sing and I think we

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Speaker 1: actually should read some in a second here. So in

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Speaker 1: Nana is a Sumerian goddess. She is also known as

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Speaker 1: the Acadian Ishtar. I think that they're This is believed

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Speaker 1: to be the same goddess, essentially across a different stream

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Speaker 1: of tradition, and the deep history of the Mesopotamian goddess

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Speaker 1: has lots of different things associated with it. So in

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Speaker 1: some sense, Nana is the goddess of the storehouse, meaning

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Speaker 1: that she rules over the stores of things like dates

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Speaker 1: and meat and grain. But she's also a goddess of

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Speaker 1: fertility and sex and war and slaughter. So she's got

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Speaker 1: all of this interesting stuff gathered up under her feathers.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why I said feathers. I don't think

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Speaker 1: she's a bird under her dark wings. That's a different

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Speaker 1: that's a different song. But it's interesting because all the

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Speaker 1: things that she is encompassing here. Um, this, this is

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Speaker 1: the domains that we would cover in a vast pantheon

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Speaker 1: of gods and goddess is from other traditions, all wrapped

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Speaker 1: up into one. Yeah, And to give a sense of

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Speaker 1: the power of Ananna, I if Robert, if you will comply,

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Speaker 1: I think we should have a reading of some excellent

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Speaker 1: ancient texts. Let's do it trivia question. In fact, I

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Speaker 1: didn't know this until this episode. Who do who do

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Speaker 1: you think is the earliest named author in all of

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Speaker 1: world literature? M hmmm, well it certainly it would probably

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Speaker 1: tie to this time period, but I had no idea

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Speaker 1: who the individual would be. Well, very often we find

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Speaker 1: ancient texts and carvings things, you know, marks made in

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Speaker 1: clay and cune of form and stuff. We don't know

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Speaker 1: who the author is. It doesn't say like you know,

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Speaker 1: Jeff wrote this clay tablet inscription. But a strong contender

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Speaker 1: for the title of the earliest named author in all

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Speaker 1: of world literature is in Headuwana, a twenty third century

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Speaker 1: b c. E. Mesopotamian high priestess and poet twenty third

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Speaker 1: century b c. Forty three hundred years ago. This priestess

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Speaker 1: and poet she was the daughter of the Akkadian king

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Speaker 1: Sargon the Great, and she's named as the author of

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Speaker 1: a collection of hymns and poems, many of which are

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Speaker 1: devoted to the praise of the Sumerian goddess in Hannah.

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Speaker 1: And I think we should read some selections from Inhduanas

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Speaker 1: him the Exultation of Anna. And this is from a

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Speaker 1: translation that I found on the electronic text Corpus of

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Speaker 1: Sumerian Literature based out of the University of Oxford. Now

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Speaker 1: the poem is way too long to read in its entirety,

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Speaker 1: but I put together some abridged selections. So here we go.

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Speaker 1: On the Exultation of Anna, Lady of all the divine powers,

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Speaker 1: resplendent light, righteous woman, clothed in radiance, beloved of On

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Speaker 1: and Rak, Mistress of Heaven, with the great pectoral jewels.

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Speaker 1: She loves the good head dress, befitting the office of

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Speaker 1: ain priestess. Like a dragon, you have deposited venom on

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Speaker 1: the foreign lands, Lady who rides upon a beast whose

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Speaker 1: words are spoken at the holy command of On the

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Speaker 1: great rights are yours? Who can fathom them? Destroyer of

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Speaker 1: the foreign lands, you confer strength on the storm, beloved

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Speaker 1: of Inlil. You have made awesome terror way upon the land.

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Speaker 1: Because of you, the threshold of tears is opened, and

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Speaker 1: people walk along the path of the House of Great

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Speaker 1: Lamentations in the van of battle. All is struck down

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Speaker 1: before you. With your strength, My lady, teeth can crush flint.

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Speaker 1: You charge forward like a charging storm, My lady, the

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Speaker 1: great an Una gods fly from you to the ruined

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Speaker 1: mounds like scudding bats. They dare not stand before your

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Speaker 1: terrible gaze. They dare not confront your terrible countenance. Who

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Speaker 1: can cool your raging heart? Your malevolent anger is too

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Speaker 1: great to cool, Lady Supreme over the foreign lands, who

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Speaker 1: can take anything from your province. Blood is poured into

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Speaker 1: their rivers because of you, and their people must drink it.

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Speaker 1: And then there's a section that's talking about if a

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Speaker 1: city has not acknowledged itself to be hers, if the

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Speaker 1: city doesn't say I belong to an Anna. Quote, it's

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Speaker 1: a woman no longer speaks affectionately with her husband at

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Speaker 1: dead of night. She no longer takes counsel with him,

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Speaker 1: and she no longer reveals to him the pure thoughts

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Speaker 1: of her heart. I in head to Anna, will recite

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Speaker 1: a prayer to you. To you Holy in Anna, I

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Speaker 1: shall give free vent to my tears like sweet beer.

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Speaker 1: Be it known that you are lofty as the heavens.

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Speaker 1: Be it known that you were broad as the earth.

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Speaker 1: Be it known that you destroy the rebel lands. Be

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Speaker 1: it known that you roar at the foreign lands. Be

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Speaker 1: it known that you crush heads. Be it known that

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Speaker 1: you devour corpses like a dog. Be it known that

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Speaker 1: your gaze is terrible. Be it known that you lift

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Speaker 1: your terrible gaze. Be it known that you have flashing eyes.

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Speaker 1: Be it known that you are unshakable and unyielding. Be

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Speaker 1: it known that you always stand triumphant. The light was

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Speaker 1: sweet for her, Delight extended over her. She was full

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Speaker 1: of fairest beauty, like the light of the rising moon.

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Speaker 1: She exuded delight. Robert, how would you even begin to

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Speaker 1: characterize this awesome mixture of brutal, merciless conquest and all

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Speaker 1: these statements about radiants and beauty. Oh, I mean, well,

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Speaker 1: but she's not to be trifled with, and she's really

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Speaker 1: on on on par with the sun in terms of

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Speaker 1: just beautiful, radiant. But but but also with all this

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Speaker 1: destructive potential. I think it's fun. It talks about delight.

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Speaker 1: This is a poem with delight in it. And also

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Speaker 1: they will make you drink the blood. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: that The best I can think is the sun. It

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Speaker 1: is delightful to stand in the sun, but you will

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Speaker 1: and can be burned by the sun as well. I

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Speaker 1: mean it is, there's just a primal and vital energy

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Speaker 1: to her. Now. She in many ways I think here

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Speaker 1: is described as having the qualities of a storm god

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Speaker 1: like Baal or mar Duke or Yahwe or Zeus or

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Speaker 1: thor you know, these these storm war gods where the

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Speaker 1: sky weather deity tends to be so ceated with conquest

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Speaker 1: and power and killing um. But she's also embodied, as

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Speaker 1: you know, resplendence and delight, and she has all these

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Speaker 1: other qualities we see in in other stories about her.

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Speaker 1: That she's associated with stores of grain that are necessary

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Speaker 1: for survival, that she's associated with sex and fertility and happiness.

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Speaker 1: And so how does it end up that you've got

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Speaker 1: this one deity who's got all these different qualities gathered

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Speaker 1: underneath her. Yeah, and then what is taken away from

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Speaker 1: her over the centuries to follow. That's a good question,

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Speaker 1: you know. Uh. In thinking about my own favorite goddess,

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Speaker 1: my mind instantly turned to Fetis because I've been interested

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Speaker 1: in mythic sea creatures of late, and we've talked about

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Speaker 1: the Iliad quite a bit of late. So I I

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Speaker 1: thought to Thetis, who through really throughout the history of

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Speaker 1: written language. She's most well known as the mother of Achilles, Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the the nearly invincible warrior of the Iliad.

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Speaker 1: And she's commonly described as an immortal near it. And

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Speaker 1: she begot Achilles through her union with the mortal Pelias,

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Speaker 1: king of the Mermaidans. And to protect her mortal son,

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Speaker 1: she dipped him by the heel and the river sticks.

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Speaker 1: And she also commissioned Hephaestus to forge his armor and arms.

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Speaker 1: And she petitions Zeus himself on her son's behalf. Now,

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Speaker 1: Thetis never strikes me as as someone you want to

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Speaker 1: cross or mess with, especially as as far as the

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Speaker 1: welfare of her son is concerned. She commands a fair

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Speaker 1: amount of power and influence in the Greek pantheon. And

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Speaker 1: and she herself as the daughter of the sea god Nereus,

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Speaker 1: and her brother in law is Poseidon. And yet there

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Speaker 1: is something reduced about her. Uh. This this this being

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Speaker 1: that is that that was worshiped as a goddess. Uh

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Speaker 1: seems to be somewhat diminished in the Iliad and in

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Speaker 1: other works. It's like she's been reduced to a supporting

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Speaker 1: role when she once was the star. Yeah, and so

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Speaker 1: I I researched this a little bit and I can't

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Speaker 1: ram it ran across a pay per titled The Wrath

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Speaker 1: of Fetus by Laura M. Slatkin from Columbia University and

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Speaker 1: was published in the journal Transactions of the American Philological Association.

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Speaker 1: And she points out that in the Iliad, she's quote

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Speaker 1: a subsidiary deity who is characterized by helplessness and by

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Speaker 1: impotent grief, and yet she persuades Zeus to set in

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Speaker 1: motion the in the events of the Iliad, and in

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Speaker 1: Mighty Achilles invokes her name above all others. He asks

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Speaker 1: her to pretention Zeus and remind the king of the

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Speaker 1: gods that she is the one who saved Zeus when

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Speaker 1: all the other Olympians wanted to bind him, and to

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Speaker 1: be bound, Slatkin points out, is the doom of a god.

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Speaker 1: And Thetis does nothing short of saving the cosmos and

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Speaker 1: maintaining cosmic equilibrium by preventing Zeus from going down like

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Speaker 1: Zeus's own father Cronus. So that's kind of funny to

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Speaker 1: suggest that you would be saving the cosmos by saving Zeus,

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Speaker 1: because like, of what good is Zeus? Zeus is just trash? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it but he's the trash we know, right, You

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Speaker 1: can imagine a situation was like, oh man, these gods,

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Speaker 1: gods are crazy, but at least we kind of have

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Speaker 1: worked out, you know, what their their mad passions are.

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Speaker 1: We don't need another revolution so that the other Olympians

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Speaker 1: will rule the roost. I mean, Zeus mostly just does

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Speaker 1: bad stuff. Yeah, but it's true, it's true. Well, there's something.

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Speaker 1: It's like it's almost like we make excuses for him

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Speaker 1: as this like bad tempered, criminal, violent male deity, or

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Speaker 1: we're just like, oh, boys will be boys. What a rascal?

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Speaker 1: Are we still talking about mythology or not talking about

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Speaker 1: current events? No? No, no, I mean I think that well,

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Speaker 1: I think there's something to be said about that, and

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Speaker 1: that will tie into today's episode. So fetis were also

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Speaker 1: told in the writings of the Greek poet pindar Uh

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Speaker 1: was destined to birth of son more mighty than his father,

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Speaker 1: and that's why her her original suitors Zeus and Beside,

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Speaker 1: both abandoned her love and forced her against her will

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Speaker 1: to marry Immortal instead. Uh So, think of that. There's

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Speaker 1: tremendous power in thetis, like she was faded to birth

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Speaker 1: this this child greater than its father. So if she

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Speaker 1: had born the son of Zeus or Poseidon, that would

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Speaker 1: have been a rival to the King of the gods. Right,

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Speaker 1: but the King of the gods. If the King of

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Speaker 1: the gods has a son who's too powerful, he asked

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Speaker 1: to fear, he will be dethroned. Right, So maker Mary immortal,

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Speaker 1: so at least her mighty son will be mighty, and

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Speaker 1: more or less the mortal realm, and certainly at Kells

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Speaker 1: is mortal. That's kind of the that's the whole theme,

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Speaker 1: and this immortal mother and the son that is doomed

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Speaker 1: to die, and sola Can points out that this was

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Speaker 1: an established trope because Thetis has a lot in common

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Speaker 1: with Eos, the god, the goddess of the dawn, and

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Speaker 1: the mother of Memnon, who we've discussed on the show before,

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Speaker 1: and the Colossi of Memnon episode. Yeah, the established role

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Speaker 1: of an immortal mother looking after her mortal son who

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Speaker 1: in this one role, but still invoking the established mythological

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Speaker 1: role of the old Indo European don goddess. Interesting. So

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Speaker 1: Thetis was certainly worshiped as a sea goddess in her time.

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Speaker 1: But this goes beyond the mere limiting of a mighty

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Speaker 1: deity to a supporting role in the iliot Uh. Slatkin

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Speaker 1: primordial creatrix, so she she is quote not simply a

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Speaker 1: cosmic force, but the cosmic force. She not only has

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Speaker 1: power in the sea, but is the generative principle of

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Speaker 1: the universe. Well, that seems to go along with the

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Speaker 1: nature of the sea and creation myths, right, Like when

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Speaker 1: is like the darkness and the waters, and then you've

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Speaker 1: got creation coming out of that. The water is almost

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Speaker 1: of order can be wrought. And you see that in

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Speaker 1: other creation myths too, like in the Tiamat creation myth

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Speaker 1: where mar Duke slays Tamat, the sea monster, you know,

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Speaker 1: the who re presents the water being yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: of warring men or a or a minor deity that

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Speaker 1: is that is overpowered by masculine deities. What what happened

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Speaker 1: and what potentially is still happening in our culture? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And on one hand, that kind of male dominant, misogynist

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Speaker 1: rewriting of cultural ideas and mythology and stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: it seems so common that you might not even stop

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Speaker 1: to ask why things are that way, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it just seems like, well, that's always what happens in culture.

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Speaker 1: You know, men think they're better than women, and they

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Speaker 1: want to rewrite all of the cultural stories and everything

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Speaker 1: to downplay women's roles and make themselves feel more important.

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Speaker 1: And and some people just say, well that, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: just how it is. But why wouldn't that be an

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Speaker 1: interesting thing to have an explanation for why that is

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Speaker 1: such a trend. And that's what we're gonna be talking

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Speaker 1: about in today's episode. We're gonna talk about one hypothesis,

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Speaker 1: one fascinating hypothesis for why this has come to pass.

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Speaker 1: And this was presented in the book The Alphabet Versus

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Speaker 1: the Goddess The Conflict between Word and Image by American

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Speaker 1: surgeon author and inventor Leonard Schlaine, who lived n seven

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Speaker 1: through two thousand and nine. Yeah, so, in the late

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Speaker 1: nineties when this book was written, Schlaine was the chief

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Speaker 1: of laparoscopic surgery at California Medical Center in San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: and apparently he worked at least to some degree in

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Speaker 1: performing surgeries on the arteries supplying blood to the hemispheres

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Speaker 1: of the brain. And just a fun bit of trivia

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Speaker 1: that really has nothing to do with our episode today,

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Speaker 1: but his daughter Kimberly is married to the actor Albert Brooks,

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Speaker 1: and his daughter Tiffany as a noted filmmaker and founded

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Speaker 1: the Webby Awards. Stuff About Your Mind incidentally, is a

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Speaker 1: Webby Award winning podcast. I don't see that as a

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Speaker 1: conflict of interest, but I just thought I pointed out

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Speaker 1: but wait a minute, Albert Brooks, Hanks Scorpio, Yeah, Hank

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Speaker 1: Scorpio himself is connected to this episode. Now, before we

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Speaker 1: lay out sh Lane's central claim and discuss some of

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Speaker 1: his arguments, I definitely want to say that this is

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Speaker 1: an idea we're discussing because it's interesting and because it

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Speaker 1: raises questions worth investigating, and not because we're endorsing it

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Speaker 1: as correct. I'd say this is going to be more

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Speaker 1: in in bicameral mind kind of territory, where this is

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Speaker 1: a book that brings up a lot of interesting questions,

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Speaker 1: takes us to a lot of interesting places, but ultimately

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Speaker 1: we're not going to be saying we think that this

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Speaker 1: guy has the right idea. And in many cases I

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Speaker 1: think that I'll go ahead and say that I'm not

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Speaker 1: convinced by his core thesis, and I've got a lot

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Speaker 1: of criticisms about his approach to argumentation. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, I think a lot of peripheral arguments and

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Speaker 1: observations that come up in this book merrit individual analysis, right.

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Speaker 1: And then he's using he to build this hypothesis. He's

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Speaker 1: using uh, he's using science, and he's using history. He's

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Speaker 1: using a number of just fascinating cultural examples. So he

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Speaker 1: is uh. Even if we ultimately are not won over

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Speaker 1: by the hypothesis, uh, he supports it with so much

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Speaker 1: fascinating information, and it really does force you to at

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Speaker 1: least re examine some of these things that we've taken

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Speaker 1: for for granted, like just the absence of or that,

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Speaker 1: for the most part, the absence of goddesses from our

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Speaker 1: our our major world religions. Okay, so let's start with

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Speaker 1: Schlane's central claim and then back up and and run

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Speaker 1: through his argument. What do we have a quote here

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Speaker 1: that will help us get to the heart of Schlane's

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Speaker 1: claim from the beginning? We do. We have at least

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Speaker 1: a couple of quotes here, and and certainly he was

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Speaker 1: he was a great writer, so his words capture at best,

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Speaker 1: he writes quote, there exists ample evidence that any society

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Speaker 1: acquiring the written word experiences explosive changes. For the most part,

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Speaker 1: these changes can be characterized as progress. But one pernicious

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Speaker 1: of fact of literacy has gone largely unnoticed. Writing subliminally

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Speaker 1: fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially

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Speaker 1: it's alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and within them women's

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Speaker 1: power in the culture. WHOA. Now, that is a far

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Speaker 1: reaching and radical hypothesis and something that, if it were true,

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Speaker 1: would have profound implications for the whole world. Indeed, and

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Speaker 1: that's that's kind of the heart of his hypothesis here. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So whenever you've got these big kind of hypotheses like this, uh,

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Speaker 1: radical claims about something very fundamental about like say, the

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Speaker 1: role of gender egalitarianism or the lack thereof in the world,

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Speaker 1: and explaining it through something as widespread as the idea

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Speaker 1: of literacy. You definitely it makes your ears prick up right,

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Speaker 1: you know, you want to know what this was about.

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Speaker 1: I've got another quote that expresses part of the core

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Speaker 1: of his idea. It's quote, literacy has promoted the subjugation

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Speaker 1: of women by men throughout all but the very recent

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Speaker 1: history of the West. Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall

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Speaker 1: with the fortunes of the alphabetic written word. Another nice

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Speaker 1: summary from from later in the book is quote the alphabet,

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Speaker 1: through its emphasis on linearity and sequence, caused the left

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Speaker 1: side of the brain of those who learned it to hypertrophy,

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Speaker 1: resulting in a marked cerebral dominance of one lobe over

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Speaker 1: the other. Metaphorically, the mind listed to one side as

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Speaker 1: one carrying an unevenly distributed load. So we're talking about

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Speaker 1: like a major, lasting influence on the way the human

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Speaker 1: brain works. Yeah. Now, Schlan talks. He tells a story

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Speaker 1: in his book, and he talks about how he first

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Speaker 1: began to form this thesis when he was touring Greece

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Speaker 1: with this great antiquities guide who kept going to sit

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Speaker 1: after sight and explaining, okay, what was once here was

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Speaker 1: a shrine to a goddess, female goddess, but then later

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Speaker 1: it was rededicated to a male god. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: an odd pattern to just see happening over and over

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Speaker 1: in one place after another. If the if the tendency

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Speaker 1: is generally toward male dominance in the culture and patriarchy

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Speaker 1: and misogyny, why did you have all these female goddesses

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Speaker 1: to begin with, and why did the changeover in power

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Speaker 1: to male dominated pantheon's occur? And so Schlan started to

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Speaker 1: wonder what what would cause all that? Yeah, because basically

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Speaker 1: we do have a wealth of goddesses in the polytheistic tradition,

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Speaker 1: but we see most of them fall out of favor

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Speaker 1: over time. They're either reduced to minor deities or demi gods,

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Speaker 1: or or certainly they are just the the feminine at best. Really,

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Speaker 1: they're the feminine aspect of the same god that also

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Speaker 1: has a masculine aspect as well, while the male gods

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Speaker 1: continue to climb up the hierarchy. Because really, outside of

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Speaker 1: Hindu Shaktism, which focuses on the feminine aspects of the

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Speaker 1: gods and the cosmos. Can you think of any widespread

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Speaker 1: goddess movements outside of WICCA and the neo pagan goddess

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Speaker 1: movement that is also rather modern. Well, the key is widespread.

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Speaker 1: If you go into beliefs held by smaller numbers of people,

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Speaker 1: I think you'll get into all kinds of things with

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Speaker 1: with female deities and and even uh, you know, matriarchal

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Speaker 1: kinds of pantheons. But the big religions of the world,

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Speaker 1: you know, you've really just got a few that are

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Speaker 1: representing the vast majority of humankind, right, and those tend

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Speaker 1: to be the big monotheisms. And then you've also got

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Speaker 1: Hinduism and Buddhism, right. So as a sort of an

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Speaker 1: inform formal survey of sorts, I reached out to the

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Speaker 1: folks and the discussion module which is which is the

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Speaker 1: official stuff to Blow your Mind Facebook group, which you

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Speaker 1: should all join if you want to engage in meaningful

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Speaker 1: conversation with other listeners and and also your hosts here.

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Speaker 1: But I said, hey, what are what are some goddesses

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Speaker 1: or divine females that are displayed in your homes? Uh?

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Speaker 1: And I and I also open this up to sort

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Speaker 1: of hyper real religious examples as well, which will say so,

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Speaker 1: just a quick list of some of the uh goddesses

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Speaker 1: that were mentioned. I this wonder Woman, the Virgin Mary

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Speaker 1: Desire of the Endless, which is a character from the

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Speaker 1: Sandman comic book. Um, somebody mentioned sort of an abstract

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Speaker 1: feminist goddess tattoo, uh Freya, Princess Leiah Calisi from Game

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Speaker 1: of Thrones, um Mucha's Claire de Lune painting. And also

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Speaker 1: Marlene Dietrich who was an actor, right, yeah, uh Tara.

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Speaker 1: In fact, here is a quote from listeners sorry, who says,

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Speaker 1: I have several white Taras in my house. She's a

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Speaker 1: Tibetan Buddhist deity thought to help curb ego driven thoughts

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Speaker 1: and action. So I thought this was interesting beginning. I

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Speaker 1: had to ask because I was looking around my own

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Speaker 1: living room and I realized, well, we have several depictions

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Speaker 1: of various gods, but they are all masculine. Why do

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Speaker 1: I not have any images of a goddess in here

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Speaker 1: as well? I'm gonna have to fix that. Yeah, what's

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Speaker 1: wrong with your living room? Man? I know I've got

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Speaker 1: I've got I've got to balance it. And that brings

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Speaker 1: us back to uh to Schlane's are here, how did

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Speaker 1: this unbalancing occur? Yes, And another side of the theory,

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Speaker 1: of course, would be how come we see goddesses diminished

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Speaker 1: throughout the world for the last few thousand years? But

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Speaker 1: now you've got all kinds of people who say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've got wonder woman, she's a goddess. Where did that

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Speaker 1: come from? She Len has an answer for that too, Again,

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Speaker 1: not necessarily something we're going to agree with him on,

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Speaker 1: but it's an interesting thing to consider. All right. Well,

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Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take a quick break and

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Speaker 1: we come back. We will jump into she Lene's hypothesis.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. All right, we're back. Now we're

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Speaker 1: about to get into Leonard Slaine's hypothesis about what happened

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Speaker 1: with the decline of female lead pantheons of goddess based

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Speaker 1: religions and lead to male dominated religious ideas and cultures

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Speaker 1: in history. And so he's got a framework that he

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Speaker 1: uses throughout the book to sort of describe these associated

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Speaker 1: ideas of types of thinking, sort of perceptual modes, hemispheres

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Speaker 1: of the brain, and a gender identity that are all

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Speaker 1: sort of grouped together into these hemispheres, and I think

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Speaker 1: this grouping could be kind of problematic. We'll talk about it.

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Speaker 1: But what is his basic basic division of the two

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Speaker 1: perceptual modes. All right, so you have the feminine outlook,

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Speaker 1: which is holistic, simultaneous, synthetic, and uh and it involves

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Speaker 1: concrete worldviews. So this is sort of the perceptual mode

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Speaker 1: that sees sees things by gestalt, sees everything at once,

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Speaker 1: that goes by intuition, that works uh more with concrete

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Speaker 1: images and objects very much bound in image. And then

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Speaker 1: you have the masculine outlook, which is linear, sequential, reductionist,

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Speaker 1: and abstract in its worldview. Okay, so this is more

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Speaker 1: based on non visual information and uh, sequential analysis of things. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the feminine is, hey, give me a picture, and then

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Speaker 1: the masculine outlook is I'd rather have those thousand words. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people you're listening to this

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Speaker 1: and saying, like, I'm not loving the like gender associations

424
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: there with the different types of points of view, And

425
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,560
Speaker 1: I think that's a fair point to make. Slain himself

426
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 1: is aware of the fact that these generalizations could be problematic,

427
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 1: and he writes, quote every individual is generously endowed with

428
00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: all the features of both, right. Yeah. He frequently brings

429
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 1: up the Yen yang Uh symbol from Taoism as as

430
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 1: the idea of balance between the two. Yeah. So Slain

431
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 1: is obviously aware of the fact that these perceptual modes

432
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 1: do not always correspond to the literal divisions of biological

433
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:38,400
Speaker 1: sex or of gender identity. But nevertheless he uses these

434
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:42,200
Speaker 1: concepts by by these terms male and female to describe them,

435
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes throughout the book this leads to

436
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: trouble because it continually suggests a blurring of the distinction

437
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: between for example, the quote male perceptual mode, which female

438
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 1: primates are perfectly capable of using and even favoring and

439
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 1: confusing that perceptual mode with literal males of the species.

440
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,479
Speaker 1: So this, I think, this book is, for one thing,

441
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 1: going to be vulnerable to a lot of criticisms of

442
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: over generalization with all kinds of things, actually, but gender

443
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: is going to be one of them. Yes, So let's

444
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the the key sources that

445
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: ground his idea. Because he didn't you know, he's very

446
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 1: upfront about this. He didn't just dream all of this up.

447
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 1: He was basing Uh, he's basing it on the foundation

448
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: established by other thinkers. Okay, so he points to a

449
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 1: few of these. First of all, there's Robert Logan's the

450
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 1: Alphabet Effect, from which states that quote, a medium of

451
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: communication is not merely a passive conduit for the transmission

452
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 1: of information, but rather an active force in creating new

453
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 1: social patterns and new perceptual realities. There's an intrinsic impact

454
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: to the use of an alphabet, and the literate worldview

455
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 1: is different from one where information comes exclusively via oral communication. Okay,

456
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 1: this sounds very parallel to another author that he quotes frequently,

457
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:02,719
Speaker 1: which is Marshall McLuhan. Uh. The the idea that the

458
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,479
Speaker 1: medium is the message, right in some way, that the

459
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: medium through which information is conveyed actually does change the

460
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: way your brain works. Yeah, I mean I instantly think

461
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 1: of the you know, the classic bit of writing advice,

462
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: or I guess just storytelling advice in general, show don't

463
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: tell you know it is that is in effect image

464
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: versus word. But in any case, when you're doing that

465
00:26:27,680 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: as a writer, you're using words. True. Yeah, so it

466
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: does get get a little complicated. He also points to

467
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: the work of anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss, who touches on

468
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 1: the downside of the power of literacy that it brought

469
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 1: with it hierarchical societies and slavery. So while one might

470
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: think to the current state of Western women and credit

471
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: their rising status to higher levels of education, Schlane argues

472
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: based on this that that men and women lived in

473
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: greater balance in nonliterate agricultural societies, and that we see

474
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 1: some examples of this in preliterately at grarians cultures, um

475
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: you know, from from relatively recent times. Okay, So his

476
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: proposition here is that we might actually be very surprised

477
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,679
Speaker 1: at how much gender egalitarianism we would find if we

478
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: went back in history at times before the written word. Right.

479
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,119
Speaker 1: He says that quote images are primarily mental reproductions of

480
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 1: the central world of vision. So he points out that

481
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: the brain uses the human brain uses wholeness, uh, simultaneity

482
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 1: and synthesis to observe the world and to gain meaning

483
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: from alphabetic writing, the brain is forced to depend on

484
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: sequence analysis and abstraction. In other words, the way that

485
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 1: you take in uh, you know, an open field is

486
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: different from the way you read a paragraph about what

487
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: that open field looks like. And so he's saying that

488
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 1: this ultimately shapes the mind of men and women in

489
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,360
Speaker 1: a way that leads to more patriarchy and culture. Yeah,

490
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: he says, it affects the inner, outer, and supernatural realms

491
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: of the mind. And uh, yeah, he points back to

492
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 1: a time when the goddess, in all her forms, was

493
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: the principal deity. And there's that. There's this wonderful quote

494
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: that I keep coming back to. Uh. From the book,

495
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: he says, from the outer rim of history. We begin

496
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: to learn her name Insumer. She was in Nanna in Egypt.

497
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 1: She was Isis in Canaan. Her name was Ashera in Syria.

498
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:24,399
Speaker 1: She was known as as Tarta in Greece Demeter, and

499
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,880
Speaker 1: in Cyprus Aphrodite. Whatever her supplicants called her, they all

500
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 1: recognized her as the creatrix of life, nurturer of young,

501
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: protector of children, and the source of milk, herds, vegetables,

502
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: and grain. Since she presided over the great mystery of birth,

503
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: people of this period presumed she must also hold sway

504
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: over that great bedevil er of human thought, death. I

505
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: brought you into this world, I can take you out.

506
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: It makes sense, right, Yeah, And again this this this

507
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: gets back to our just our ideas of these primordial

508
00:28:55,680 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 1: feminine deities. Meanwhile, uh, these his deities, he says, they

509
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:04,479
Speaker 1: tended to have male consorts who, in these concerts might

510
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: be gods of the hunt, you know, representing the the

511
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: the the hunter gatherer balance of life. But he was

512
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: generally a temporary lover to be cast aside, or if

513
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: not that, a son, So she was not. It wasn't

514
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: even like a king and queen scenario. So when does

515
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: Slane propose that this transition from the female empowering female

516
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: deity lead religions transitioned into the more patriarchal, male dominated religions. Well,

517
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: he points out that around fIF BC you had hundreds

518
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: of goddess based religions enveloping the Mediterranean basin. But by

519
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: the fifth century CE you these have been almost completely eradicated,

520
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: and by that time women were prohibited from he says,

521
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 1: conducting a single major Western sacrament. So something is occurring

522
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: during this time that that that depletes the power of

523
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: the goddess and allows the masculine gods and ultimately the

524
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: the male abstrac abstraction of the one God in Abrahamic

525
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 1: tradition to rise so obviously it's not going to be

526
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: so easy to prove that the cause of this change

527
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: was the alphabet literacy. So how's he going to go

528
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: about it? Well, he argues that this is ultimately left

529
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: to quote the court of what archaeologists call competitive plausibility. Yeah,

530
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: and this is something that the historical sciences often have

531
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: to resort to. Write. You're a historian, you're an archaeologist.

532
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: You can't run the experiment of replaying history to figure

533
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: out what happened. So you have to sort of construct

534
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: a model and see what model best fits the existing evidence,

535
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 1: and then even more important than that, what accommodates new

536
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: evidence that gets discovered. Yeah. So, first of all, in

537
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: the book, Schlane spends a lot of time assembling an

538
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: overview of human evolution with a focus on gender relations.

539
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: So he takes us from the scent dependent ground to

540
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: the vision dependent life in the trees. He takes us

541
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: from packs of male chimps feasting on their kills and

542
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: sharing with only females and heat, to the emergence of

543
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 1: estrus free humans who are thus unshackled from the alpha

544
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: male structure. Uh human physiology, he points out, increasingly ends

545
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: up demanding fragile young and a birthing process that that

546
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: incapacitates the female. Prolonged childhood ends up meaning that the

547
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 1: females can't participate in the hunt as much and often

548
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: have to stay closer to home, and they need support

549
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: from the males and from each other. And then on

550
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: top of that, the infant's brain is incomplete. Uh, and

551
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: language comes in to fill the gaps, and it also

552
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:42,719
Speaker 1: enables learning lessons to take place outside of genetic change.

553
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: Now that's an interesting idea that the fact that humans

554
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: are born with maybe fewer instincts about how to behave

555
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: properly and and fill their role within the human society

556
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,920
Speaker 1: than other social animals come born with. And there's but

557
00:31:57,080 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: that humans have this this card they can play, which

558
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: is the language card. You can transmit a lot of

559
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: information from one generation to the next through speech. Quote,

560
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: using speech, one number of a clan learning a lesson

561
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: that would enhance survival could pass it on to the

562
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: others within hours instead of eons. And he said, this

563
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: this is another bit that I just absolutely love. He says,

564
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: the new corporate brain called culture hovered like a friendly

565
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: poltergeist over each tribe of hunter gatherers. Isn't it funny

566
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: that culture can be like a person. It's almost like

567
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 1: a person who's not there. It's the invisible queen of

568
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: your society, right, That culture is a thing that has preferences.

569
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: It's a thing that tells you what to do and

570
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: how to act. It's a thing that tells you what's

571
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: beautiful and what's not, what's tasty and what's not. It's

572
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: almost sort of like you have this invisible parent who's

573
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: a corporeal parent is assembled from the parts of many

574
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: other parents that came in generations before. Yeah, and it's uh.

575
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: He points out that all this probably begins as gesture

576
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 1: based communication, uh, you know, as well as um the

577
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: visual features of the faith, various expressions. But then these

578
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: we end up incorporating vocal communication to free up those

579
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: hands and the eyes because if you're only speaking in

580
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 1: sign language, you can't it diminishes your ability to work

581
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: a tool. At the same time, you have to look

582
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 1: at the other person. But if you as you can

583
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: communicate in the dark, Yeah, it also gives you the

584
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,440
Speaker 1: chance the ability to do it in the dark. So

585
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 1: uh language, vocal language begins to take over. Uh. And

586
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: it's not only the relay of information here, but complex

587
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: discussion and strategy. All of that becomes possible as well,

588
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: and so you end up having the situation where the

589
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 1: hunter gatherer divide grows for these early humans, and there

590
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: are ramifications on the way that males and females both

591
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: experience the world, he argues. He says that you know,

592
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 1: hunting demands cold bloodedness, tinged with cruelty, but if you're

593
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: a nurture that requires an emotional generosity combined with warmth, uh,

594
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: we see this emergence of of different roles, which leads

595
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: males and females to respond differently emotionally to the same stimuli,

596
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:12,240
Speaker 1: different worldviews, different ways of surviving, essentially redesigning the human

597
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,799
Speaker 1: nervous system in the process. So he's saying that even

598
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 1: though men and women are born with these kind of

599
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: very potent brains that could do whatever they want, the

600
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: roles that they tend to assume within the group force

601
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 1: them to favor one kind of emotional state versus the other.

602
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,240
Speaker 1: You can have the state that's usually assumed by the males,

603
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: which is this cold, cruel hunter state of mind, or

604
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 1: you can have this state that's more often assumed by

605
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 1: the females, which is the intuitive, emotional, nurturing and educating

606
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:41,919
Speaker 1: side right. And of course, all this takes place within

607
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,720
Speaker 1: a bilobed brain, something that all vertebrates, beginning with fish,

608
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: actually possess. The human brain lobes look symmetrical, but they're

609
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: functionally different, what we call hemispheric lateralization, and other vertebrates

610
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: have this as well, but it's most striking in humans.

611
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 1: And then you have in between all of this, you

612
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: have the neuronal fibers that are called the corpus colossum,

613
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 1: the connect and integrate the two lobes. Each controls the

614
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: movement of the opposite side. They work in close congress

615
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: with each other. And we've discussed a lot of this

616
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 1: on the show before. With all things brain region related,

617
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: we've learned a lot about function through dysfunctions, specifically injury

618
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: and disease affecting specific regions of the brain, and in

619
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:27,359
Speaker 1: recent decades we've learned even more through magnetic stimulation. But

620
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 1: essentially it comes down to this divide right brain, you

621
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: have nonverbal emotional states, dream, spirituality, music, balance, altered states

622
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: of consciousness, metaphor and holistic views and just a quick

623
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 1: reminder that Julian Jaynes and his bi cameral mind hypothesis, Uh,

624
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 1: this is the source of the voices. And then with

625
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: the left brain, we have doing, we have action, we

626
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: have language, and we have the the complex meshing of

627
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: competing emotions. And he describes metaphor as quote the right

628
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: brains unique contribution to the left brains language capability. Now,

629
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 1: if we're to recall some of the interesting thoughts of

630
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: Julian James, James had this whole idea that our very

631
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: consciousness itself is built on the possibility of metaphor. I

632
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: don't know if he's correct about that, but it's certainly

633
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: true that metaphor undergird's our entire structure of language. There

634
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: are very few ways of talking that do not involve metaphors.

635
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: In fact, most of our abstract words are actually based

636
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 1: off of metaphors for concrete tasks. Yeah, Slaine. He argues

637
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 1: that metaphors essentially bring plasticity to language, and they translate

638
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 1: emotion into language, birthing poetry, mythology, and more. And then

639
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: he to get back to the gender divide here. He

640
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 1: says that in in females and again I want to

641
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: remind everybody that this is a um this is a

642
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:52,839
Speaker 1: book from the nineties, so just bear than in mind

643
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: of on the science here. But but he argued that

644
00:36:57,239 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: that in females we see ten to thirty three pc

645
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 1: more neuronal fibers in the forward part of the corpus colossum,

646
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: and that means greater integration, better communication of emotions, increased

647
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 1: global awareness, field perception, and the understanding of offspring moods.

648
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: And they're also generally more adept at multitasking. That's the

649
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:17,919
Speaker 1: other part of the argument. Males, on the other hand,

650
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: they become more adapted shutting down their feelings for you know,

651
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: improved hunting ability. So the fact that there's more tissue

652
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: connecting the hemispheres on average and the female brain tends

653
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 1: to mean that the brain has a more balanced approach,

654
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,399
Speaker 1: whereas the male brain, if it on average has less

655
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: tissue connecting the two hemispheres, it can tend to be

656
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 1: more uh, an isolated kind of left brain approach to things. Right.

657
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: But then again, the argument here too is also that

658
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: that that male and female brains can ultimately do the

659
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 1: same things, because he points out that in a hunter

660
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 1: gatherer society, each hemisphere of the brain is executing tasks

661
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: for which it is best suited. But you still have

662
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,879
Speaker 1: to have versatility in case of injury or death. Right,

663
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 1: what happens if the hunter is sick? Uh, then maybe

664
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: the the gatherers have to do a little hunting, or

665
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 1: vice versa. So each sex of the human species has

666
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: to be able to assume the principal labors of the other.

667
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: So he's not saying that only men can be hunters

668
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: and only women can be nurtures. He's saying the opposite.

669
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: But this cultures are generally arranged so that men do

670
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: the hunting tasks and women do the nurturing tasks. And

671
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 1: then he talks of a fair bit about eyeballs. All right,

672
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: we will address the eyeball question when we get back.

673
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:38,360
Speaker 1: Thank Okay, we're back. It's time for eyeballs now. I

674
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 1: think this is actually one of the most interesting little

675
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:43,800
Speaker 1: side tangents in the book. Uh. It only takes a

676
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:46,800
Speaker 1: couple of pages, but he puts forward this interesting idea

677
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: about the differing role of light sensitive cells called rods

678
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: and cones in the retina and how this may have

679
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 1: actually shaped our cognition. I've never read any thoughts along

680
00:38:57,360 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 1: these lines before, but I thought this was one of

681
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: the most interesting actions of the book. So you've got

682
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 1: these different cells in your retina, you've got rods, you've

683
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: got cones. And rods are extremely light sensitive, Schlin writes, quote,

684
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: like trip wires, they detect the slightest movement in a

685
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: visual field, distributed evenly throughout the periphery of each retina.

686
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: They see in dim light and appreciate the totality of

687
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:23,600
Speaker 1: the visual field, seeing images as gestalts. So rods are

688
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: for kind of all at once. Perception is how you

689
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 1: get a general sense of a field of vision. Cones, meanwhile,

690
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: are concentrated densely in the middle of the retina, called

691
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: the macula. And cones have two main functions. One of

692
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: them is that they pick out differences in color, and

693
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 1: the other is that they intensify clarity in the in

694
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 1: the middle of the vision, so he writes, quote, concentrating

695
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: on one aspect of reality at a time. Cones view

696
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: the visual field as if through a tunnel. Like rods,

697
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: Cones report to both hemispheres, but the left hemisphere is

698
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: metaphorically best suited to p process their input. So while

699
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 1: you've got rods that are used for this all at

700
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:06,400
Speaker 1: once perception of a general field of vision. Cones are

701
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:12,320
Speaker 1: used for focus analysis and sequential processing. Now, biologically, rods

702
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:16,359
Speaker 1: are older than cones. All vertebrates have rods. Cones are

703
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,319
Speaker 1: only possessed in abundance by a few animals. Schlan points

704
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: out that cones are mainly present in predatory animals like

705
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: predatory predatory birds and predatory mammals, and especially in the

706
00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 1: in the human primate um because they allow you to

707
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 1: focus on something and to see where it's going and

708
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,800
Speaker 1: to scrutinize. So the cones isolate elements of the field

709
00:40:38,800 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: of vision then look at them one at a time,

710
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 1: and this is better served by the sequential analytic function

711
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 1: of the left part of the brain. So to quote

712
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 1: one of Schlene's most interesting smaller hypotheses in the book, quote,

713
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: the focusing ability of the phobious centralis creates the illusion

714
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: of time passing because the image is seen within this

715
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: new auro circle of the eye can only be processed

716
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 1: one at a time. Because macular vision examined what was

717
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: and then moved on to what is, it forced the

718
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: emerging human brain to consider the possibility of what might

719
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: come next. So Schlan argues that the abundance of cones

720
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: in the human eye, paired with left brain analytical thinking,

721
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 1: helped give rise to the human sense of time and

722
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,840
Speaker 1: our tendency for mental time travel into the past and future,

723
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: something that other animals only have these sort of rare

724
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:34,719
Speaker 1: little inklings of though there are some inklings, and we've

725
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: talked about that in the past with birds and other animals. Um.

726
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:40,800
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that's an interesting thing to consider,

727
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 1: the fact that we've got these eyes that focus on

728
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: one thing at a time, and how that affects our

729
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: perception of reality. Could that actually generate time as we

730
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: know it? Yeah? Yeah, this is this is definitely an

731
00:41:54,680 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 1: interesting portion of the book. He also talks about hands

732
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 1: a good bit. Yeah. He in that specifically this is

733
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:05,839
Speaker 1: tying in with the predominance of right handedness in human beings. Uh.

734
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: He points out to the left hand, controlled by the

735
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: right brain, is more protective than the right. This is

736
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:13,839
Speaker 1: the hand that's going to hold a baby. Meanwhile, what's

737
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: the right hand doing the attacking hand? Right? Yeah, again,

738
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: except in people who are reversed and are of course

739
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: left handed. Um. So, in all of this, males come

740
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:27,840
Speaker 1: to embodied death. Females come to embody life, but eventually

741
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: men come to identify their own role in reproduction as well.

742
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: And again, the female goddess reigns supreme. Is this master

743
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: of life and death, realizing when there's a dependency between

744
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: the two that I have to kill to eat, I

745
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: have to consume life in order in order to live.

746
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: And h. Layne writes that the goddess reign supreme and

747
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,839
Speaker 1: then the Kurgan culture rides in on its horses and

748
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: represses it, replacing her with their sky god. Uh and UH.

749
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:56,919
Speaker 1: What he says is interesting about this in this very

750
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,400
Speaker 1: early example is uh, is that in other aces we

751
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 1: see a more primitive of two colliding cultures absorbing the

752
00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: more advanced culture. So you have got these agricultural, more

753
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 1: technologically advanced societies that are invaded by these horse riding

754
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: Kurgan people's, and you would expect them to adopt the

755
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 1: more advanced agricultural technology of the societies they invaded, right,

756
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 1: you know, very much like when the when the Mongols

757
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:27,359
Speaker 1: invade China and then essentially become Chinese culturally. But that's

758
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 1: not what we see here. And of course the question

759
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: is why, all right, so Schlaine can't be the first

760
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 1: person to offer a hypothesis on what caused the demise

761
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 1: of goddess culture. Uh. And so I know he referenced,

762
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,959
Speaker 1: he references Claude levy Strauss a good bit. Does levy

763
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 1: Strauss have a have an argument that he counters? Yeah?

764
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: So the the Levee Strauss argument is that the essentially

765
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 1: bride bartering kicked kicked things off, so men came to

766
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:58,320
Speaker 1: realize that they had a role in reproduction. And then women,

767
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: of course can procreate earlier than men, so they become

768
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: a commodity, and eventually all femininity is is treated as

769
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: such a commodity. But Chlane opposes as he says that

770
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: it doesn't explain the quote dramatic zigzagging from masculine to

771
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 1: feminine and then back to masculine principles that occurred before, during,

772
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 1: and after the first five thousand years of agriculture. And

773
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: then another argument, you have anthropologist Sherry Ortner who credits

774
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 1: the tendency to align the masculine with culture and the

775
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: feminine with nature. This is definitely a tendency you see

776
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: in in literature all throughout the ancient world. Yeah, and

777
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: what do. What do cultures do? Will they rise up

778
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: in the world by advancing their culture, and in doing

779
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: so they are mastering nature. They are overpowering nature, and

780
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: sometimes the exact language for that is even more severe.

781
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 1: Butch Lane opposed this and says, well, it doesn't account

782
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:57,760
Speaker 1: for the female imagery that is predominant throughout these different mythologies. Meanwhile,

783
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,320
Speaker 1: you have Frederick Engels who are us that the goddess

784
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 1: perished due to the rise of private property. Of course

785
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: he did, and he argues that this this becomes a

786
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,879
Speaker 1: thing as nomadic hunter gatherers. Uh, you know, give way

787
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,399
Speaker 1: to agriculture so you can own land, and then it

788
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 1: follows that you can own women. Now, sh Leane opposes this,

789
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:17,400
Speaker 1: neans is that it doesn't explained the fall of the goddess.

790
00:45:17,440 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: He points to the work of William Irwin Thompson and

791
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: Jane Jacobs who argue that hunters were so reduced in

792
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:28,359
Speaker 1: status during the agricultural revolution that they turned to conquest

793
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 1: and this led to the fall of goddess cultures, which

794
00:45:31,080 --> 00:45:36,240
Speaker 1: I think is an interesting especially an interesting idea, especially

795
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: in light of of so many discussions going on in

796
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: our culture today about what happens when when roles and

797
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:50,239
Speaker 1: peoples who traditionally felt more empowered, uh feel less empowered.

798
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: So the idea here is that you've got all these

799
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: people with these hunting instincts, especially predominantly men, with hunting

800
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: instincts that are not really very necessary anymore. Like, you know,

801
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 1: we've got plenty of grain, we don't we don't need

802
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: to hunt, and in fact, there aren't even all that

803
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: many animals around for you to hunt anymore. So what

804
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: are you gonna do. Well, maybe you just turn your

805
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,960
Speaker 1: hunting instinct on people and you say, I'm going to

806
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: become a warrior now instead. Yeah, the rise of the

807
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: warrior class. Now. Meanwhile, feminist historian Gerda Learner she blames

808
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:24,880
Speaker 1: the form flames all of this on the formation of

809
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: the archaic states. So the idea here is that you had,

810
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: through the necessity of centralized power, you end up resurrecting

811
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: the role of the alpha male. You need some sort

812
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:38,840
Speaker 1: of decision maker at the heart of it. And Lennon

813
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: Learner also argus argues that slavery ties into all of

814
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: this because slaves would have been of little use during

815
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: in hunter gatherer culture. But when you have agriculture. This

816
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:55,399
Speaker 1: gives slaves value, and so the former hunters they they

817
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:59,800
Speaker 1: turn first people into slaves and then women, specifically into

818
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: subservient people. Now, Shelen opposes this. He says that it

819
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: doesn't account for the numerous goddess based societies that thrived

820
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: during this period. And he says, you know why we're there,

821
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: slave owning archaic states built around goddesses then, and so

822
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: Slaine argues that, yes, there's a change going on here,

823
00:47:17,239 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: but it's a change coming from within and it all

824
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 1: ties in to the hidden cost of literacy. Okay, well,

825
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: I think we should end our first part there, and

826
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:27,399
Speaker 1: in the next episode, we're gonna look at a little

827
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: bit of the historical evidence that Slane uses to support

828
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 1: his hypothesis, and we're going to discuss some criticisms of

829
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:36,839
Speaker 1: the argument, both criticisms of reviewers and some critical thoughts

830
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: of our own. In the meantime, be sure to head

831
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: it over the Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

832
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 1: That is the mothership. That's what we will find all

833
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 1: the episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, as well

834
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 1: as links out to our various social media accounts. And

835
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: I'll always remind everyone, Hey, if you want to support

836
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: the show. A great way to do it is to

837
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 1: rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks as

838
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Terry Harrison.

839
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

840
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:02,879
Speaker 1: to give us feedback on this episode or any other,

841
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: to share your thoughts, to share topics you think we

842
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 1: maybe should cover in the future, or just just to

843
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: say hi, you can email us at blow the Mind

844
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:22,800
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

845
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,479
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

846
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:48,719
Speaker 1: dot com