Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And this is going to be part two of our
Speaker 1: two part discussion about Leonard slain book The Alphabet Versus
Speaker 1: the Goddess, which argues that literacy and writing, especially alphabetic writing,
Speaker 1: led to a demotion of the status of women and
Speaker 1: goddesses and a promotion or arise in patriarchal religions and cultures.
Speaker 1: So if you haven't listened to that first episode, you
Speaker 1: go back check that one out, so this one makes sense.
Speaker 1: But for a basic refresher, last time we discussed goddesses,
Speaker 1: we talked about Anano, we talked about Thetis, and we
Speaker 1: outlined the basics of Leonard Slain's hypothesis. His main claim
Speaker 1: is that human evolution led to a gender division and
Speaker 1: brain hemisphere. Favorite is um that men and women biologically
Speaker 1: with their brains, can do pretty much the same things
Speaker 1: if they want to, but that the division of labor
Speaker 1: and hunter gatherer culture tended to favor a brain lateralized
Speaker 1: division of labor, where men were usually more left brain
Speaker 1: oriented because men had to be the hunters, and that
Speaker 1: that hunting required left brain emphasies on things like sequential
Speaker 1: detail based thinking, uh, and emotional coldness and cruelty. And
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, you had women more often
Speaker 1: being selected for labor that favor favored right brain type
Speaker 1: stuff like emotional intuitions, empathy, nurturing, education, speech as opposed
Speaker 1: to written language and images. And so Schlain thinks, what
Speaker 1: that the introduction of writing kind of messed things up.
Speaker 1: It shifted human culture to favor the left brain perceptual
Speaker 1: modes which traditionally had been associated with men males of
Speaker 1: the species, and that that gave rise to patriarchy and
Speaker 1: patriarchal culture. Yeah, it's such a puloss hypothesis. I'd really
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to get it out of my
Speaker 1: mind since we first started researching it. Yeah, it's one
Speaker 1: of those that, as we said last time, even if
Speaker 1: we don't necessarily think his argument is convincing, or if
Speaker 1: you know, he hasn't necessarily made his case that this
Speaker 1: is really how it happened, it certainly brings up a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting subjects along the way, and so he
Speaker 1: raises interesting questions. Even if he's not ultimately right, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pretty sure I'm not convinced by his argument
Speaker 1: in the end, But it's a fascinating book. Nonetheless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said, it forces you to to rethink what language,
Speaker 1: what written language, does to us, and and why the
Speaker 1: status of the goddess is so diminished in our world,
Speaker 1: to the point where I was telling my son, who's
Speaker 1: only he's only six, just barely six, I was telling
Speaker 1: him about goddesses, and then later that day we see
Speaker 1: a representation of a goddess and he refers to it
Speaker 1: as a lady god. I'm like, no, actually, it's it's
Speaker 1: a goddess. It is. Uh, it's not just a lady
Speaker 1: version of this other thing it is. It's really kind
Speaker 1: of the primordial thing you should be swing it a
Speaker 1: man goddess. Yeah, exactly. That That makes me think, like
Speaker 1: it's so deeply embedded. Now, I'm not calling your son
Speaker 1: a sexist, but I'm saying, like, you know, how what
Speaker 1: how come we see a goddess and we think that's
Speaker 1: a lady god instead of seeing a male god and
Speaker 1: think that's a male goddess. Yeah, I mean, it's he's
Speaker 1: not sexist, but he he is growing up in a
Speaker 1: world that is that is ruled by by by patriarchy,
Speaker 1: and you can, you can try and balance out of
Speaker 1: child's upbringing as much as possible, but they're still growing
Speaker 1: up exposed to that larger world. Yeah, and growing up
Speaker 1: with the legacy of you know, hundreds or thousands of
Speaker 1: years of literature and archetypes, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: they're not just in the full works of literature, but
Speaker 1: it's there in the metaphors we use in everyday speech.
Speaker 1: They tend to have a kind of patriarchal slant to them,
Speaker 1: or at least one that associates valued cultural traits or
Speaker 1: valued activities with men and men's behavior, and that goes
Speaker 1: back through history. Uh, maybe only the fifty pages or
Speaker 1: so of Schlane's book are actually the part where he's
Speaker 1: outlining his hypothesis about evolution and brain lateralization um and
Speaker 1: and how writing affects that, And then most of the
Speaker 1: rest of the book is just him exploring cultures and
Speaker 1: time periods throughout history when the status of writing changed
Speaker 1: or when writing was introduced, and what happens to the
Speaker 1: cultures there. Like one of the examples he talks about
Speaker 1: is in ancient Mesopotamia, with the introduction of cune of
Speaker 1: form and professionalized scribes and things like that, when writing
Speaker 1: was professionalized, you know. He thinks that this leads to
Speaker 1: the introduction of the idea of written law codes instead
Speaker 1: of unwritten norms of behavior, govering what's acceptable and what's
Speaker 1: not acceptable to do in society. And so Slaine looks
Speaker 1: at some of the misogynistic qualities of the earliest written
Speaker 1: law codes and says, hmmm, it looks it looks to
Speaker 1: him like maybe the introduction of writing itself somehow coincided
Speaker 1: with a sharp turn towards misogynistic standards of conduct in society. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, sh Lane spends a lot of time with
Speaker 1: the Greeks because there's a lot of mythological and historical
Speaker 1: content to discuss there. And he points to the comparison
Speaker 1: to be made between Athens and Sparta as an example
Speaker 1: of how the spread of the written word pushed uh
Speaker 1: the goddess and just female power to the periphery of
Speaker 1: Greek culture, and he says that they're it's they're perfect
Speaker 1: examples to compare because they both spoke the same language,
Speaker 1: they worship the same gods, they spoken and wrote the
Speaker 1: same language, but the two big differences, he says, emerge
Speaker 1: in their treatment of women and their attitudes towards the alphabet.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Yeah, so let's talk about Sparta. I will
Speaker 1: I will present to you that this is Sparta. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you bring up the example by illusion. If
Speaker 1: you were only to be trained on modern pop culture,
Speaker 1: you would tend to think of Sparta as very macho.
Speaker 1: So so you might be curious, how could how could
Speaker 1: Sparta be more more pro woman than Athens? Yeah? How
Speaker 1: could a place that is we we've we've come to
Speaker 1: define it by beards and six packs, like what what?
Speaker 1: What in there is empowering to women? Well? Certainly they
Speaker 1: were a militaristic society with little use for literacy. They
Speaker 1: produced no playwrights, philosophers, or historians that that really resonated
Speaker 1: beyond their own age. Their law, which was formulated by Lesurgis,
Speaker 1: was not written down. Everyone had to memorize it instead,
Speaker 1: and Plutarch even reported that there was a Spartan law
Speaker 1: against committing any law to writing. What Yeah crazy? Uh So.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, they of course glorified deprecation and cruelty. Uh.
Speaker 1: Their government was an oligarchy with with definite fascist leanings.
Speaker 1: But then compare this this place to Athens, Okay. Athens
Speaker 1: certainly is a fountain of culture, democracy, law, but it's
Speaker 1: also a place where women were excluded from education, government
Speaker 1: and public affairs. The the Athenian law of her Solon
Speaker 1: denied women the right to buy or sell land, and
Speaker 1: women were just considered property. A father could dissolve his
Speaker 1: daughter's marriage. Uh. And even though the muses were considered
Speaker 1: feminine deities, uh, the artists were not. The artists were male.
Speaker 1: So Sparta, on the other hand, quote educated girls in
Speaker 1: nearly the same manner as boys. Women wore less restrictive clothing,
Speaker 1: and they also competed in athletic games. They ruled the
Speaker 1: household while the men were away at war, and they
Speaker 1: owned and sold property. In fact, by the fourth century
Speaker 1: b C. Women owned two fifths of all Spartan land
Speaker 1: Fritish land. Here's a quote from Slane's book. Spartan's honored
Speaker 1: women's life giving role and considered it equal to that
Speaker 1: of their warriors. To immortalize his name by having it
Speaker 1: inscribed on his tombstone, a Spartan man had to die
Speaker 1: in combat to win the same honor a Spartan woman
Speaker 1: had to perish in childbirth. And another effect that he
Speaker 1: points out is that ATHENI demanded fidelity, virginity, and chastity
Speaker 1: among the women, but Spartan women were not so restrained.
Speaker 1: So again he argues that this, this is a great
Speaker 1: bit of evidence to support his hypothesis, because you have
Speaker 1: you have kind of a wonderful uh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a versus b testing situation here with with Athens on
Speaker 1: one hand and Sparta on the other. Yeah, these two
Speaker 1: civic societies that, at least if he's correct, he's claiming
Speaker 1: are are very similar, except by the cultural differences that
Speaker 1: are derived from one being highly literate in the elites
Speaker 1: and the other not being so fond of of written
Speaker 1: down words. Yeah, it's a really interesting idea to compare
Speaker 1: the two like that. And I wonder what a scholar
Speaker 1: of ancient Greece would think looking at that. I mean,
Speaker 1: would a scholar of ancient Greece say, yes, those those
Speaker 1: comparisons are valid or or is picking? Yeah, Shlane cherry picking.
Speaker 1: You always gotta wonder if Slane's cherry picking, because I
Speaker 1: get the sense sometimes he may be doing that in
Speaker 1: support of his argument, But at least in the moment
Speaker 1: while you're reading it, it seems very persuasive. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't help. But wonder if if one were to really
Speaker 1: get into some of the details of Sparta's brutality, if
Speaker 1: that would um, even that would go against Stoyan's argument here.
Speaker 1: But but but I have not looked at that data yet. Yeah. Hey,
Speaker 1: if you're a listener out there and you are an
Speaker 1: ancient Greek historian or a historian of ancient Greece, especially
Speaker 1: if you're an ancient Greek, if you travel through time,
Speaker 1: do do rings up. We'll get somebody to translate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but either way, please get in touch with us. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think about that is. Is that
Speaker 1: on target? Is it bunk? We'd be interested to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Um. But yeah, So he talks about many
Speaker 1: ancient cultures. He talks about ancient Egypt, he talks about Mesopotamia,
Speaker 1: giving examples as he goes throughout of where he sees
Speaker 1: the introduction of the written word or parts of the
Speaker 1: society that favored the written word, causing women's position to
Speaker 1: go into a relative decline and even leading in many
Speaker 1: cases to these types of violent misogyny that we see
Speaker 1: in say, the Code of Hammurabi, the you know, the
Speaker 1: written law codes of ancient Mesopotamia. But I think we
Speaker 1: should look at another interesting example that maybe goes a
Speaker 1: little bit counter to his theory, or at least see
Speaker 1: how he deals with it. And that example would be China.
Speaker 1: So we'll take a look at sh Lane's thoughts on
Speaker 1: ancient China after we come back from this break. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. Alright, we're back, okay. So we were going
Speaker 1: to discuss Leonard Schlane's treatment of ancient China. I was
Speaker 1: curious what he would do with this, because part of
Speaker 1: his idea is that the sequential reading of letters in
Speaker 1: alphabetic script is what tends to favor this like this
Speaker 1: male dominant way of thinking in the brain. But of
Speaker 1: course Chinese script doesn't exactly work that way, right, that's right,
Speaker 1: I mean China. The Chinese language does not have an alphabet,
Speaker 1: so it would seem to be a very difficult thing
Speaker 1: to fit into this theory. So I do want to
Speaker 1: discuss some of the key points that he makes in
Speaker 1: discussing Chinese culture Chinese language. So he points to the
Speaker 1: evidence of preliterate female centric Chinese culture, and indeed there
Speaker 1: are some very powerful goddesses in Chinese myths, such as
Speaker 1: the creatrix goddess uh Nua. But he also makes the
Speaker 1: following points about about Chinese language. He says, there's no
Speaker 1: tensh calligraphy is is visual artistic in ways that Western
Speaker 1: script doesn't have to be. There's more poetry, entity says,
Speaker 1: and and so it would seem to be a right
Speaker 1: hemisphere written language, and there's actually some sided evidence to
Speaker 1: back that up, he says. Quote researchers tested a select
Speaker 1: group of Chinese and English speaking individuals who had learned
Speaker 1: to read and write both languages as small children, and
Speaker 1: who later in life had experienced damage to one hemisphere
Speaker 1: or the other. Right handed Subjects who had damage to
Speaker 1: their left hemispheres lost the ability to speak either Chinese
Speaker 1: or English, and although they could not write English, they
Speaker 1: retained a limited ability to communicate in written Chinese. Those
Speaker 1: with damage to their right hemispheres could still speak Chinese
Speaker 1: and English, and although they could write English, they had
Speaker 1: difficulty writing Chinese. However, Schlein stresses that that all of
Speaker 1: this language, even though it might be tipped a little
Speaker 1: more in the direction of the feminine, it still diminishes
Speaker 1: the role of the nonverbal component of speech. Chinese character
Speaker 1: still must be read in sequence. They and they are,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in the Chinese Typewriter episode abstract inform,
Speaker 1: there's a certain reductionism involved in consuming it. And so
Speaker 1: he argues that the Chinese writing is still much closer
Speaker 1: to the alphabet than it is to oral communication and uh.
Speaker 1: And it's this proximity that makes it a masculizing influence
Speaker 1: on Chinese culture. And he also points out that the
Speaker 1: following he says that quote the tentacles of literacy began
Speaker 1: to wrap around the minds of the Chinese people in
Speaker 1: the sixth century b c. And then this is around
Speaker 1: the same time that Taoism and Confucianism emerge, so that
Speaker 1: this is fascinating. He points out that Taoism embodies feminine values,
Speaker 1: no attempt to control others, and promotes mother Nature as
Speaker 1: a guide. And and this is where we get the
Speaker 1: symbol of the yin yang, of the of of of
Speaker 1: the two opposing forces feminine and masculine. Yeah, he portrays
Speaker 1: Daoism is very is very feminine friendly. Yeah. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, he says that Confucism this touts masculine values,
Speaker 1: UH structures, patriarchal society and UH and and a father culture.
Speaker 1: And so these two systems of belief they coexist in
Speaker 1: relative equilibrium until the Chinese invent the printing press in
Speaker 1: around CE. Literacy rates sore, and soon after Daoism declines
Speaker 1: and Confucism becomes China's dominant belief system. Now, Robert, I
Speaker 1: know you're very interested in Chinese history. How how does
Speaker 1: that square with your understanding of the development and culture
Speaker 1: and the role of Daoism versus Confucism. Well, I love
Speaker 1: the way he's looking at this, uh, this sort of
Speaker 1: tug of war between Taoism and Confucism. But but then
Speaker 1: to come back around and and say, but it's the
Speaker 1: it's the written language that is the key, when clearly
Speaker 1: you have these two different worldviews that are having, you know,
Speaker 1: enormous effect on Chinese culture. Um. I think it's an
Speaker 1: interesting read, but it feels like written language is just
Speaker 1: one of several factors at work here, you know, which
Speaker 1: I guess is kind of my my response to the
Speaker 1: whole hypothesis. Well, I would say that throughout many of
Speaker 1: his discussions in in different times in history. I think
Speaker 1: one problem with his hypothesis is that he over generalizes
Speaker 1: the the pro female or anti female characteristics of cultures
Speaker 1: or ways of thinking. You know, he characters tends to
Speaker 1: characterize something as either like, you know, this this way
Speaker 1: of thinking was very anti woman, or this way of
Speaker 1: thinking was very pro woman, when I think in both
Speaker 1: cases there's usually a little more nuanced than he's letting on.
Speaker 1: I agree, Like one example from the Western history is
Speaker 1: when he gets into the idea of like medieval medieval
Speaker 1: Catholicism being pro woman, but then the Protestant Reformation and
Speaker 1: the subsequent Catholic reaction to the Protestant Reformation being anti woman.
Speaker 1: I think you're more likely to find strong strains of
Speaker 1: misogyny in both, but examples of women breaking through it
Speaker 1: in both cases, right. And then also, of course we're
Speaker 1: realizing that you have varying levels, varying class levels in
Speaker 1: any given um group. So I mean, for instance, in
Speaker 1: medieval Europe, you're gonna have some women who are who
Speaker 1: are nuns and are a part of the religious hierarchy. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna have some that are that are
Speaker 1: simply peasants. You're gonna have some that are royalty. Likewise,
Speaker 1: in Chinese history, when you get into the era of footbinding,
Speaker 1: you're going to have you're gonna have members of the
Speaker 1: upper class who are who are who end up being
Speaker 1: a part of footbinding culture. Then you're gonna have women
Speaker 1: in lower classes who can who are not part of it,
Speaker 1: part in many parts in many instances due the fact
Speaker 1: they do have to work and contribute. Not to get
Speaker 1: too much into foot binding, that it's another fascinating and
Speaker 1: disturbing topic all on its own. So in Schlane's book,
Speaker 1: we come back time and time again to the notion
Speaker 1: that the medium is the message. We go from oral
Speaker 1: tradition to written records, eventually compounded by the advent of
Speaker 1: printing press technology. With any key upheavals in society aligned
Speaker 1: and his hypothesis with the with the technology and the
Speaker 1: literacy of its people, masculine powers entrenched themselves. The trend
Speaker 1: continues unabated through the world wars of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: with some impact from the advent of photography. That's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. He essentially says that we're retreating back away
Speaker 1: from some of the patriarchy and that women are gaining
Speaker 1: more rights to some degree because of photography and the
Speaker 1: introduction of the importance of the image back into society.
Speaker 1: He even at one point talks about how it used
Speaker 1: to be that a family was fleeing a burning home,
Speaker 1: what would they grab. It would be the family bible.
Speaker 1: That'd be the thing around which all of their family
Speaker 1: memories were centered. It was a word, yeah, the printed text.
Speaker 1: And then after the introduction of photography, it would be
Speaker 1: the family photo album. Yeah. And then then he argues
Speaker 1: that post World War Two, you see this television boom,
Speaker 1: which which he says, really brings the feminine medium to prominence,
Speaker 1: because this again is the triumph of the visual over
Speaker 1: the text. Right. But one thing that's interesting is that
Speaker 1: Schlane isn't always saying that, say, the left brain is
Speaker 1: bad and the right brain is good. Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: He brings up the example of Adolf Hitler's rise to
Speaker 1: power in Germany, which he points out was a highly
Speaker 1: literate nation at the time. And uh, and how did
Speaker 1: Hitler rise to power will through the use of of
Speaker 1: the of radio And he characterizes this is the dark
Speaker 1: side of a sudden shift to right brain culture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he says the ideas that Hitler used radio too
Speaker 1: circumvent this sort of organized, sequential left brain thinking of
Speaker 1: the printed word, and goes straight into people's brains by
Speaker 1: talking to them in their ears. Is his quote, Hitler's
Speaker 1: voice buried deep into the depths of the right hemisphere,
Speaker 1: resurrecting tribal myths and rituals. Now, I wonder what he's
Speaker 1: gonna make a twitter. Well, he does touch on the
Speaker 1: Internet age a bit here. He points out that you
Speaker 1: have the the invention of personal computer technology who would great,
Speaker 1: which greatly changes the way people interact. You have graphic
Speaker 1: icons increasingly replacing text commands, and he says that the
Speaker 1: Internet and Worldwide Web are based on feminine images of
Speaker 1: nets and webs. I don't know. That feels like kind
Speaker 1: of a stretch, but but still, well, a lot of
Speaker 1: his associations in the book are kind of stretching, like,
Speaker 1: but then again, we're talking about the realm of symbols
Speaker 1: and the power of symbols, and certainly symbols are powerful.
Speaker 1: Now beyond that, he doesn't get really get much into
Speaker 1: the contemporary world. He died in in two thousand nine
Speaker 1: and this book was published in Uh, there's much I
Speaker 1: think that one might say about the role of say,
Speaker 1: hate speech in the primarily written world of Twitter and Reddit.
Speaker 1: Um And yet at the same time, meme culture makes
Speaker 1: use of images as well, often to drive home some
Speaker 1: rather problematic ideas. Yeah, what about how about podcasts? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: that's true right now, everybody that's listening, that's that's taking
Speaker 1: in this podcast. You were listening to our voices. You're
Speaker 1: not reading it. Um So Yeah, I feel like that
Speaker 1: the world of podcast represents more of the the the
Speaker 1: feminine energy that he's he describes in his book. There
Speaker 1: are quite a few reasons that he seems to think
Speaker 1: that the modern technological situation is going to be a
Speaker 1: positive thing for the elimination of the influence of patriarchy.
Speaker 1: One of which is that you've got photography and imagery everywhere.
Speaker 1: Another one of which is that we depend now so
Speaker 1: much on electricity, which he characterizes is as always being
Speaker 1: described in terms of feminine power or him and in
Speaker 1: type words. Another thing is that the keyboard has very
Speaker 1: much changed the way we compose even written texts. Now,
Speaker 1: the previous idea of how you'd compose a written text
Speaker 1: would be that you'd write it out by hand with
Speaker 1: your dominant hand, which is controlled by the dominant hemisphere
Speaker 1: of the brain. So if you're a right handed person,
Speaker 1: left hemisphere dominant brain, you'd be writing with that hemisphere.
Speaker 1: But now we type with both hands, and so if
Speaker 1: you're composing things on a keyboard or on a typewriter,
Speaker 1: maybe that would somehow circumvent part of the way that
Speaker 1: he believes that the left brain has been dominant in
Speaker 1: alphabetic cultures. He even points to the fact that when
Speaker 1: typewriters first came into prominence, the people who mainly focused
Speaker 1: on typing for a living were women, and that typing
Speaker 1: was seen as like it was kind of men who
Speaker 1: were trying to get into typing were tweeted dismissively. Is like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the thing for women to do. That's a great point, yeah,
Speaker 1: and not something I would have necessarily thought about going
Speaker 1: into this spite. I mean, we had the fact that
Speaker 1: we had a whole episode that that discussed the the
Speaker 1: technology of typewriters and its effect on culture. Now, I
Speaker 1: will say Slane was optimistic about where we were headed
Speaker 1: and what our trajectory was. Slash is as a as
Speaker 1: a people should be consider this a disproof of his hypothesis.
Speaker 1: It depends how you look at it. Again, you have
Speaker 1: to you have to think about the various uh um
Speaker 1: um you know, peaks and valleys in this various timeline
Speaker 1: of feminine versus masculine. Yeah, it's true, we shouldn't. You know.
Speaker 1: It's easy to be negative about how things are in
Speaker 1: the present. You know, you have that bias, nativity bias,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, you'll give it some time.
Speaker 1: You had a few decades and then you can see
Speaker 1: how things were. But this is this is what he
Speaker 1: said in his epilogue. He said, quote, I am convinced
Speaker 1: we are entering a new golden age, one in which
Speaker 1: the right hemispheric values of tolerance, caring, and respect for
Speaker 1: nature will we begin to ameliorate the conditions that have
Speaker 1: prevailed for the too long period during which the left
Speaker 1: him spheric values were dominant. Images of any kind are
Speaker 1: the bomb bringing about this worldwide healing. I will take
Speaker 1: more time for change to permeate and alterate world cultures,
Speaker 1: but there can be no doubt that the wondrous um
Speaker 1: permutations of photography and electromagnetism are transforming the world, both
Speaker 1: physically and psychically. The shift to write hemispheric values through
Speaker 1: the perception of images can be expected to increase the
Speaker 1: sum total awareness of beauty. Yeah, one could hope some
Speaker 1: version of that is true, you know. And in the
Speaker 1: book he does point out that when you look at
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, what are two of the most um
Speaker 1: widespread images, like what, what are two pictures that are
Speaker 1: probably going to show up in any discussion of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century? And one is the picture of Earth as
Speaker 1: a whole from space, and then the other is, uh
Speaker 1: is the the detonation of an atomic bomb. There's a
Speaker 1: sense of revelation in the photo in in the photograph
Speaker 1: that is that it's harder to grasp in the word
Speaker 1: I guess, or it's or at least it's it's harder,
Speaker 1: it takes longer to convey the meaning. When I think
Speaker 1: about those two images juxtaposed with one another, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, they both kind of indicate that line from
Speaker 1: Auden's poem September one, ninety nine where he just says
Speaker 1: we must love one another or die. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling we're going to come back to that that kind
Speaker 1: of proposal at the very end of this episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we'll discuss some criticisms of Slane's argument. Thank you, alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So I guess at the end here we
Speaker 1: should focus on a few general criticisms of Slane's theory.
Speaker 1: I mean we we've peppered some of our critical thoughts throughout.
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound too critical because on one hand,
Speaker 1: I do think he brings up a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: ideas and this is actually a book worth reading, even
Speaker 1: though I think in the end I'm not persuaded by
Speaker 1: his main argument, and I think his style of argumentation
Speaker 1: is very loosey goosey, And it is important to and
Speaker 1: drive home that it is. It is an argument, It
Speaker 1: is a hypothesis. Is that he has not written the
Speaker 1: Bible for us here and say here, here is the
Speaker 1: absolute word he's saying, this is my hypothesis. And here's
Speaker 1: how I would support that with our with with the
Speaker 1: existing body of scientific, historical, cultural, archaeological evidence. Yes, I
Speaker 1: do want to mention briefly one critical review, which was
Speaker 1: by the science writer Sandra Blakesley. If you're writing any
Speaker 1: of her books, Robert, I don't believe so I think
Speaker 1: I might there's one I've been looking at that was
Speaker 1: about um. But she writes a lot about topics related
Speaker 1: to neuroscience, and she co authored this book about how
Speaker 1: stage magic can show us certain ways our mind plays
Speaker 1: tricks on us. It seemed kind of interesting. I think
Speaker 1: it's called Slights of Mind. But anyway, she wrote a
Speaker 1: critical review for The New York Times in nine and
Speaker 1: her main criticism is just that the book is she
Speaker 1: accuses Schlaane of peddling just so stories. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a term that often comes up to describe historical narrative
Speaker 1: explanations for things that are offered without proof. And one
Speaker 1: example would be I think this was actually somewhere in
Speaker 1: the book, if I remember right. But anyway, why do
Speaker 1: men in some cultures wear neckties? Well, let's say the
Speaker 1: answer is it's because in our evolutionary history, dangling genitalia
Speaker 1: was a sign of virility in males, and it was
Speaker 1: a sign of good mate quality. So men want to
Speaker 1: show off some kind of dangling object to set off
Speaker 1: the same responses, so they wear neckties. Now, notice I
Speaker 1: didn't provide any evidence that that's the reason. It's basically
Speaker 1: just like I told a plausible story. I told a
Speaker 1: story and you say, oh, I can see how that
Speaker 1: might be the case. And these types of explanations are
Speaker 1: often referred to pejoratively as just so stories. I just
Speaker 1: told you a story, and well, that's just how it is,
Speaker 1: and it has that kind of truthiness to it, and
Speaker 1: so you just buy into it. Yeah. Now, I do
Speaker 1: think that the accusation of being a just so story
Speaker 1: is unfairly leveled sometimes that explanations based in evolutionary anthropology
Speaker 1: and psychology, because you know, after all, a hypothesis is
Speaker 1: often just an unproven, plausible explanation that's awaiting some supporting evidence.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes I think you see attacks on things,
Speaker 1: uh that attacks on things, calling them just so stories,
Speaker 1: when really what you should be doing is, well, you know,
Speaker 1: let's allow people some room to speculate. It's okay to
Speaker 1: speculate as long as you remember what you're doing. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not saying like, well, here's the facts, this is
Speaker 1: how it is. You're saying, hey, what if this were true?
Speaker 1: Would that you know, could we find some evidence to
Speaker 1: support it? Yeah. It's not like say a conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: where you're saying, uh, where you're exploring that you're leaning
Speaker 1: a bit too heavily into the what if exactly, And
Speaker 1: you definitely can lean a little bit too heavily into
Speaker 1: the what if, And I think maybe she Layne does
Speaker 1: that in the book. I think we're slippery creatures. Often,
Speaker 1: in the heat of our zeal to explain things, we
Speaker 1: sort of forget that the ideas were entertaining for the
Speaker 1: purpose of speculation are just speculation and want of good evidence,
Speaker 1: we start treating them as if the last thing I speculated, well,
Speaker 1: We've got that proven. Now now I'm moving on to
Speaker 1: the next thing, when really you haven't proven anything in
Speaker 1: any step. You're just offering a lot of plausible, possible
Speaker 1: explanations in a row. Yeah, and run the risk of
Speaker 1: creating something that is more like a religious framework for
Speaker 1: understanding the past. Not that I'm saying that that this
Speaker 1: is religion or aspiring to be religion, but sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel like say that I feel that something like the
Speaker 1: um the bicameral mind kind of it satisfies me. It
Speaker 1: satisfies me in ways that I might look to religion
Speaker 1: to satisfy me, and that it can it gives me
Speaker 1: a model upon which I might make sense of the
Speaker 1: mysteries of the past. Yeah, it satisfies you because it's
Speaker 1: interesting and because it gives you a way of contemplating
Speaker 1: possible answers to two questions you you're probably never going
Speaker 1: to have a really solid evidential answer for, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. And that's why, you know, hypotheses
Speaker 1: like this and like the bicameral mind are interesting exactly
Speaker 1: for this reason. They take a really big fundamental question
Speaker 1: or really big fundamental issue, offers some kind of radical
Speaker 1: solution to it, and then they range over all different
Speaker 1: types of subject matter and across different disciplines, drawing on
Speaker 1: different types of evidence to to answer it. And so
Speaker 1: for some reason that process is really fun. Like to
Speaker 1: engage in that game of solving the puzzle and ranging
Speaker 1: across all these different disciplines and going to all these
Speaker 1: different places in history. It feels very good, at least
Speaker 1: to me, it does. It. It's very satisfying, an emotionally
Speaker 1: exciting journey. I'm not sure it necessarily provides the best,
Speaker 1: strongest explanations for things. Yeah, it's like you're looking for shape.
Speaker 1: It provides a shape. Is it the shape? Well maybe not,
Speaker 1: but it forces you to ask questions. So then why
Speaker 1: does this shape line up with at least certain aspects
Speaker 1: of realities we understand it? And that's where that's where
Speaker 1: it becomes such a a fascinating internal exploration. Now, one
Speaker 1: way in which I would actually compare the b Cameral
Speaker 1: Mind favorably to this book is that I think that
Speaker 1: Bi Camera, I think that Julian James is actually a
Speaker 1: little bit more cautious than than Slayne is. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you'd agree with that, but I feel like
Speaker 1: he tends to take things slower and makes fewer broad generalizations. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say so. And uh, you know, Julian Jayes
Speaker 1: also was He seemed willing to say is this right?
Speaker 1: I don't know this is? But what this is the
Speaker 1: model I'm presenting? You know, he would, well, and she
Speaker 1: Leyne does that in his opening He basically says, this
Speaker 1: whole book is a hypothesis. But then if you read
Speaker 1: sentence to sentence throughout the rest of it, he doesn't
Speaker 1: he doesn't continually acknowledge that. Well, but then again he
Speaker 1: is making an impassioned argument for it, and the kind
Speaker 1: of right brained argument. Yeah, so you kind of and
Speaker 1: and I guess that's kind of a trap one risk
Speaker 1: falling into as a writer that you you become so
Speaker 1: passionate about the theory that you're not stopping every few
Speaker 1: paragraphs to remind everybody that's a hypothesis. I should also
Speaker 1: point out in my saying this that I have read
Speaker 1: more of Julian Jayne's work, like from from different points
Speaker 1: in his career, and I have only read um this
Speaker 1: one work of Schlaine's, and he has written other books,
Speaker 1: So I don't know if this is I don't know
Speaker 1: to what extent he comes back and subsequent um um
Speaker 1: his subsequent writings and and sort of revisits any of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd be interested to see that. I mean I I
Speaker 1: so I didn't find anything about this theory being picked
Speaker 1: up in an academic context. I mean Slaine was writing
Speaker 1: for a popular audience, so he makes the argument in
Speaker 1: a in a popular kind of way, and I think
Speaker 1: that probably also gives him the freedom to take some
Speaker 1: license with making kind of broad generalizations when he talks
Speaker 1: like the Greeks were like this, and you know, the
Speaker 1: right brain is like this, and men are like this
Speaker 1: in every case, like the critical reader and me wants
Speaker 1: to put a big asterisk every time he says something
Speaker 1: like that and be like, well, wait a minute, So
Speaker 1: you're saying, like, in what percent of the time is
Speaker 1: it like that? How this also sounds like a great
Speaker 1: framework for stand up comedy routine, the alphabet versus the
Speaker 1: goddess as stand up I like it. All Right, we're
Speaker 1: basically out of time here, but I do want to
Speaker 1: touch on one last topic, one last goddess, and that
Speaker 1: goddess is goes Er. Well let's goes there. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I am talking about the fictional entity from the the
Speaker 1: film Ghostbusters goes through the Gazarian, goes through the destructor,
Speaker 1: goes through the Traveler, et cetera, an entity of many names.
Speaker 1: I have a question is Goeser in Anna? I think
Speaker 1: should they say she's supposed to be Sumerian? She is
Speaker 1: described as being a Sumerian, so she's a She's a
Speaker 1: Type seven for starters. That's her like her spirit ranking
Speaker 1: within the Ghostbusters um system. And we're told that it
Speaker 1: was worshiped as a goddess by the Sumerians around six
Speaker 1: thousand BC. That's significantly earlier than any Anana we know about, right,
Speaker 1: So the timeline is not going to perfectly line up
Speaker 1: with what we've been talking about here. For instance, we
Speaker 1: were talking about how Marduk worship began to to rise
Speaker 1: in sec etcetera. But anyway, I do want to ask
Speaker 1: everyone to consider consider the following in regards to Gozer.
Speaker 1: So Gozer is a world destroying traveler, yet despite her
Speaker 1: worship in ancient times, she did not lay waste to
Speaker 1: the ancient world. Why not? Well, uh, let's let's remember
Speaker 1: what we know about how Gozer functions. So Gozer's form
Speaker 1: is chosen by the mortals it encounters our heroes and ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: Imagine it is a Imagine it as a seemingly harmless
Speaker 1: yet masculine corporate logo, and it's still rampages. Oh the marshmallow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The ancient Sumerians, however, chose the form of a goddess,
Speaker 1: one attended to by a pair of demi gods representing
Speaker 1: each gender, both the vins Clortho the key Master and
Speaker 1: Zul the Gatekeeper, and they seem to share equal footing
Speaker 1: in their service to Gozer. Oh man, I'd say, if anything,
Speaker 1: Zul is more powerful than Vince clarthough I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: it's hard, Well, can Evince Claro can do is just
Speaker 1: run around saying your parish in flames. Here, you're thinking
Speaker 1: of the of potential um complications based on their mortal hosts.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Sigourney Weaver's character clearly the more powerful human
Speaker 1: host that was chosen. Well, I'm sorry for jumping me on.
Speaker 1: I will wait for the sign. Okay. So this is
Speaker 1: my theory. Gozer does not destroy the ancient world because
Speaker 1: it manifested during a time of goddess worship and was
Speaker 1: bound to a form, bound to a form by a
Speaker 1: right brain culture rather than a left brain culture. So
Speaker 1: the true way to avoid extinction at the hands of
Speaker 1: gozer Uh is to choose a form that emanates from
Speaker 1: right brain qualities, or at least a more balanced mind state.
Speaker 1: The modern brain, especially the modern male brain, is so
Speaker 1: dominated than by the left brain the alphabet and infected
Speaker 1: patriarchal energy that that even a cartoon marshmallow Man can
Speaker 1: be nothing but a force of conquest in mass slaughter.
Speaker 1: And perhaps I'll even go so far as to say
Speaker 1: maybe that's Gozer's true purpose, to wipe left brain dominated
Speaker 1: species from the cosmos, because right brain dominated species are
Speaker 1: going to see it as a goddess. Now there is
Speaker 1: actually a great idea for a sci fi fantasy story.
Speaker 1: You've got like a hemispheric lateralization culture where one side
Speaker 1: brain culture fears being taken over by the other side
Speaker 1: brain culture and they create a memetic weapon to destroy it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look at that. And we're giving it away for free
Speaker 1: right here. We're not giving it away. You can't use it.
Speaker 1: But but but yeah, inevitably, in talking about gods and goddesses,
Speaker 1: I can't help but come back to fictional entities in
Speaker 1: uh books and movies, and uh, it's really it's really
Speaker 1: given me a new respect for Ghoser, not that I
Speaker 1: ever disrespected Gozer. To be clear, anyway, you should tune
Speaker 1: into our upcoming fictional podcast, The Ancient brain Bomb. I
Speaker 1: mean it is telling to that Gozer is then defeated
Speaker 1: in Ghostbusters by a pack of men with phallic lightning swords. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so predictable. And hey, I'm gonna say it here. As
Speaker 1: funny as the movie is, as much as you love
Speaker 1: the character, is that Binkman, he's not a nice guy.
Speaker 1: He's no, he's he's a patriarchal jerk. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: that you have it a little bit of Ghostbusters to
Speaker 1: cap off an exploration of the alphabet versus the Goddess. Now,
Speaker 1: I think we should try to come back to some
Speaker 1: of the more interesting questions raised by this book in
Speaker 1: the future. I want to come back to the idea
Speaker 1: of visual perception styles affecting the perception of time, uh,
Speaker 1: the way that the way that our media really do
Speaker 1: shape us. I mean, I'm sure there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: research on how on how keyboard driven communication is changing
Speaker 1: the what people communicate. Yeah, indeed. Plus there's so many
Speaker 1: just little, you know, brief moments in the book where
Speaker 1: he touches on this culture or that or or For instance,
Speaker 1: there's a bit where he talks about the Sistine Chapel
Speaker 1: and I realized, oh man, there are a number of
Speaker 1: kind of cool uh reads on the Sistine Chapel that
Speaker 1: have come out over the years. Would be neat to
Speaker 1: corral them all into a single podcast. He's got a
Speaker 1: really interesting and really fun chapter on Dionysus and the
Speaker 1: mine Ads and and that kind of stuff in ancient Greece.
Speaker 1: I actually think it doesn't help his art, doesn't help
Speaker 1: his overall argument all that well, but it's just interesting
Speaker 1: to revisit his treatment of it. On its own and
Speaker 1: again if you want to check out the book and
Speaker 1: its entirety, I will I'm going to include a link
Speaker 1: to it on the landing page for this episode of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com, as well as
Speaker 1: a link to the homepage for it, which has a
Speaker 1: wonderful timeline for the hypothesis as well listing out various
Speaker 1: historical UH moments and UH technological achievements that line up
Speaker 1: with his hypothesis. And while you're at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com, you can check out all the
Speaker 1: episodes of the podcast. You can check out links to
Speaker 1: our various social media accounts and UH. As I've been saying,
Speaker 1: if you want to support this podcast, a great way
Speaker 1: to do it is to rate and review wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Big thank you as always to our
Speaker 1: wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us directly to
Speaker 1: let us know feedback on this episode or any other
Speaker 1: suggest a topic for the future, UH, to share your
Speaker 1: thoughts with us on anything you think we might be
Speaker 1: interested in, or just to say hi, you can always
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