"The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" -Tribal Jazzman Scholar, Episode #32

The late Dr. Leonard Shlain, in his book "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess," argued that it was the discovery of writing that led to the emergence of male-dominated societies which replaced the more egalitarian, goddess-worshipping cultures of the early Neolithic. In this video, I give a short overview of this radical idea of Shlain's.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Leonard Shlain
• brain development
• brain hemispheres
• neolithic
• patriarchy
• dominator social orders
• gimbutas
• kurgans
• social change
• literacy
• discovery of writing
• demise of the goddess

[TribalJazzman]

@ossiorn1 Thank you for the lead. I just purchased Innis's The Bias of Communication. It looks fascinating. I appreciate the lead.

[ossiorn1]

Your Welcome.There is also another author called Harold Innis.He was a Canadian just like Marshall.His studies involved looking at past societies and their means of communication.

What he found was that communities that used stone writing would usually wind up being controlled by a class of priests whereas societies that used some primitive form of paper would

usually become more bureaucratic and militaristic because leaves or paper was more easily movable.Fascinating.

[TribalJazzman]

@ossiorn1 I confess to not having read McLuhan, but Leonard Shlain discusses McLuhan's work in the book I am referencing in this posting. I think I would like to explore McLuhan's work. Thanks for the lead. And thanks for watching/listening.

[ossiorn1]

Have you read the work of Marshall Mcluhan?Some of it ties into this.