i was in Borders yesterday, exploring the Psychology section, a section that i would frequently visit (and purchase feverishly from) at McKay's in Knoxville. i was interested to see what was considered "new release" in big shot bookstore psychology.
an interesting title caught my eye: The Alphabet versus the Goddess: The Conflict between Word and Image.
this book intrigued me. i started reading the cover flap and discovered that it was actually a guy's thesis on how written language has a "masculine" effect on culture because it uses the left hemisphere of the brain, which controls linear thought. if you consider visualization, vision, and seeing the "big picture" or an abstract thought process as right brained (or feminine), then his theory makes sense. he explores several different people groups and events in history and writes that society has moved from a feminine way of thinking (when groups of people prayed to the goddesses of the earth, and had no written language, their cultures based completely on character and told stories) to the movement of written laws and literature and therefore became more masculine. he then explains that society could possibly be moving back towards the feminine way of thinking with all the sci-fi and fantasy-like media, movies, music, etc. he thinks society could be meeting an equilibrium of both ways of thinking. he says that visual orientation is moving its way back into society, especially with the rise of power in women authority/political figures.
oh, hillary. you might have a chance.
many people have opinions about his book, mostly saying that one way of thinking is good and the other is bad.
what do you think?
is it good for society to have a linear, practical, masculine way of thinking.....or a visually-oriented, abstract, visionary feminine way of thinking?
what's sad is that he implies that no one is using their ENTIRE brain-only one half at a time.
this is totally a dr. ketchen conversation.
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