The Alphabet and the Goddess, Part 2

So if you haven't listened to that first episode, you go back check that one out, so this one makes sense. But for a basic refresher, last time we discussed goddesses, we talked about Anano, we talked about Thetis, and we outlined the basics of Leonard Slain's hypothesis. His main claim is that human evolution led to a gender division and

brain hemisphere. Favorite is um that men and women biologically with their brains, can do pretty much the same things if they want to, but that the division of labor and hunter gatherer culture tended to favor a brain lateralized division of labor, where men were usually more left brain oriented because men had to be the hunters, and that that hunting required left brain emphasies on things like sequential

detail based thinking, uh, and emotional coldness and cruelty. And then on the other hand, you had women more often being selected for labor that favor favored right brain type stuff like emotional intuitions, empathy, nurturing, education, speech as opposed to written language and images. And so Schlain thinks, what that the introduction of writing kind of messed things up.

It shifted human culture to favor the left brain perceptual modes which traditionally had been associated with men males of the species, and that that gave rise to patriarchy and patriarchal culture. Yeah, it's such a puloss hypothesis. I'd really I haven't been able to get it out of my

mind since we first started researching it. Yeah, it's one of those that, as we said last time, even if we don't necessarily think his argument is convincing, or if you know, he hasn't necessarily made his case that this is really how it happened, it certainly brings up a lot of interesting subjects along the way, and so he raises interesting questions. Even if he's not ultimately right, and I'm I'm pretty sure I'm not convinced by his argument

in the end, But it's a fascinating book. Nonetheless. Yeah, like I said, it forces you to to rethink what language, what written language, does to us, and and why the status of the goddess is so diminished in our world, to the point where I was telling my son, who's only he's only six, just barely six, I was telling him about goddesses, and then later that day we see a representation of a goddess and he refers to it as a lady god. I'm like, no, actually, it's it's

a goddess. It is. Uh, it's not just a lady version of this other thing it is. It's really kind of the primordial thing you should be swing it a man goddess. Yeah, exactly. That That makes me think, like it's so deeply embedded. Now, I'm not calling your son a sexist, but I'm saying, like, you know, how what how come we see a goddess and we think that's a lady god instead of seeing a male god and

think that's a male goddess. Yeah, I mean, it's he's not sexist, but he he is growing up in a world that is that is ruled by by by patriarchy, and you can, you can try and balance out of child's upbringing as much as possible, but they're still growing

up exposed to that larger world. Yeah, and growing up with the legacy of you know, hundreds or thousands of years of literature and archetypes, and you know, it's it's they're not just in the full works of literature, but it's there in the metaphors we use in everyday speech. They tend to have a kind of patriarchal slant to them, or at least one that associates valued cultural traits or valued activities with men and men's behavior, and that goes

back through history. Uh, maybe only the fifty pages or so of Schlane's book are actually the part where he's outlining his hypothesis about evolution and brain lateralization um and and how writing affects that, And then most of the rest of the book is just him exploring cultures and time periods throughout history when the status of writing changed or when writing was introduced, and what happens to the

cultures there. Like one of the examples he talks about is in ancient Mesopotamia, with the introduction of cune of form and professionalized scribes and things like that, when writing was professionalized, you know. He thinks that this leads to the introduction of the idea of written law codes instead of unwritten norms of behavior, govering what's acceptable and what's

not acceptable to do in society. And so Slaine looks at some of the misogynistic qualities of the earliest written law codes and says, hmmm, it looks it looks to him like maybe the introduction of writing itself somehow coincided with a sharp turn towards misogynistic standards of conduct in society. Now. Of course, sh Lane spends a lot of time with the Greeks because there's a lot of mythological and historical

content to discuss there. And he points to the comparison to be made between Athens and Sparta as an example of how the spread of the written word pushed uh the goddess and just female power to the periphery of Greek culture, and he says that they're it's they're perfect examples to compare because they both spoke the same language, they worship the same gods, they spoken and wrote the same language, but the two big differences, he says, emerge

in their treatment of women and their attitudes towards the alphabet. That's interesting. Yeah, so let's talk about Sparta. I will I will present to you that this is Sparta. Uh yeah, I mean you bring up the example by illusion. If you were only to be trained on modern pop culture, you would tend to think of Sparta as very macho. So so you might be curious, how could how could

Sparta be more more pro woman than Athens? Yeah? How could a place that is we we've we've come to define it by beards and six packs, like what what? What in there is empowering to women? Well? Certainly they were a militaristic society with little use for literacy. They produced no playwrights, philosophers, or historians that that really resonated beyond their own age. Their law, which was formulated by Lesurgis,

was not written down. Everyone had to memorize it instead, and Plutarch even reported that there was a Spartan law against committing any law to writing. What Yeah crazy? Uh So. On the other hand, they of course glorified deprecation and cruelty. Uh. Their government was an oligarchy with with definite fascist leanings.

But then compare this this place to Athens, Okay. Athens certainly is a fountain of culture, democracy, law, but it's also a place where women were excluded from education, government and public affairs. The the Athenian law of her Solon denied women the right to buy or sell land, and women were just considered property. A father could dissolve his daughter's marriage. Uh. And even though the muses were considered feminine deities, uh, the artists were not. The artists were male.

So Sparta, on the other hand, quote educated girls in nearly the same manner as boys. Women wore less restrictive clothing, and they also competed in athletic games. They ruled the household while the men were away at war, and they owned and sold property. In fact, by the fourth century b C. Women owned two fifths of all Spartan land Fritish land. Here's a quote from Slane's book. Spartan's honored women's life giving role and considered it equal to that

of their warriors. To immortalize his name by having it inscribed on his tombstone, a Spartan man had to die in combat to win the same honor a Spartan woman had to perish in childbirth. And another effect that he points out is that ATHENI demanded fidelity, virginity, and chastity among the women, but Spartan women were not so restrained.

So again he argues that this, this is a great bit of evidence to support his hypothesis, because you have you have kind of a wonderful uh uh, you know, a versus b testing situation here with with Athens on one hand and Sparta on the other. Yeah, these two civic societies that, at least if he's correct, he's claiming are are very similar, except by the cultural differences that are derived from one being highly literate in the elites and the other not being so fond of of written

down words. Yeah, it's a really interesting idea to compare the two like that. And I wonder what a scholar of ancient Greece would think looking at that. I mean, would a scholar of ancient Greece say, yes, those those comparisons are valid or or is picking? Yeah, Shlane cherry picking. You always gotta wonder if Slane's cherry picking, because I get the sense sometimes he may be doing that in support of his argument, But at least in the moment

while you're reading it, it seems very persuasive. Yeah, I can't help. But wonder if if one were to really get into some of the details of Sparta's brutality, if that would um, even that would go against Stoyan's argument here. But but but I have not looked at that data yet. Yeah. Hey, if you're a listener out there and you are an ancient Greek historian or a historian of ancient Greece, especially if you're an ancient Greek, if you travel through time,

do do rings up. We'll get somebody to translate. Yeah, but either way, please get in touch with us. Let us know what you think about that is. Is that on target? Is it bunk? We'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Um. But yeah, So he talks about many

ancient cultures. He talks about ancient Egypt, he talks about Mesopotamia, giving examples as he goes throughout of where he sees the introduction of the written word or parts of the society that favored the written word, causing women's position to go into a relative decline and even leading in many cases to these types of violent misogyny that we see in say, the Code of Hammurabi, the you know, the

written law codes of ancient Mesopotamia. But I think we should look at another interesting example that maybe goes a little bit counter to his theory, or at least see how he deals with it. And that example would be China. So we'll take a look at sh Lane's thoughts on ancient China after we come back from this break. Thank you, thank you. Alright, we're back, okay. So we were going

to discuss Leonard Schlane's treatment of ancient China. I was curious what he would do with this, because part of his idea is that the sequential reading of letters in alphabetic script is what tends to favor this like this male dominant way of thinking in the brain. But of course Chinese script doesn't exactly work that way, right, that's right, I mean China. The Chinese language does not have an alphabet, so it would seem to be a very difficult thing

to fit into this theory. So I do want to discuss some of the key points that he makes in discussing Chinese culture Chinese language. So he points to the evidence of preliterate female centric Chinese culture, and indeed there are some very powerful goddesses in Chinese myths, such as the creatrix goddess uh Nua. But he also makes the following points about about Chinese language. He says, there's no tensh calligraphy is is visual artistic in ways that Western

script doesn't have to be. There's more poetry, entity says, and and so it would seem to be a right hemisphere written language, and there's actually some sided evidence to back that up, he says. Quote researchers tested a select group of Chinese and English speaking individuals who had learned to read and write both languages as small children, and who later in life had experienced damage to one hemisphere

or the other. Right handed Subjects who had damage to their left hemispheres lost the ability to speak either Chinese or English, and although they could not write English, they retained a limited ability to communicate in written Chinese. Those with damage to their right hemispheres could still speak Chinese and English, and although they could write English, they had

difficulty writing Chinese. However, Schlein stresses that that all of this language, even though it might be tipped a little more in the direction of the feminine, it still diminishes the role of the nonverbal component of speech. Chinese character still must be read in sequence. They and they are, as we discussed in the Chinese Typewriter episode abstract inform,

there's a certain reductionism involved in consuming it. And so he argues that the Chinese writing is still much closer to the alphabet than it is to oral communication and uh. And it's this proximity that makes it a masculizing influence

on Chinese culture. And he also points out that the following he says that quote the tentacles of literacy began to wrap around the minds of the Chinese people in the sixth century b c. And then this is around the same time that Taoism and Confucianism emerge, so that this is fascinating. He points out that Taoism embodies feminine values, no attempt to control others, and promotes mother Nature as a guide. And and this is where we get the symbol of the yin yang, of the of of of

the two opposing forces feminine and masculine. Yeah, he portrays Daoism is very is very feminine friendly. Yeah. On the other hand, he says that Confucism this touts masculine values, UH structures, patriarchal society and UH and and a father culture. And so these two systems of belief they coexist in relative equilibrium until the Chinese invent the printing press in around CE. Literacy rates sore, and soon after Daoism declines

and Confucism becomes China's dominant belief system. Now, Robert, I know you're very interested in Chinese history. How how does that square with your understanding of the development and culture and the role of Daoism versus Confucism. Well, I love the way he's looking at this, uh, this sort of

tug of war between Taoism and Confucism. But but then to come back around and and say, but it's the it's the written language that is the key, when clearly you have these two different worldviews that are having, you know, enormous effect on Chinese culture. Um. I think it's an interesting read, but it feels like written language is just one of several factors at work here, you know, which I guess is kind of my my response to the whole hypothesis. Well, I would say that throughout many of

his discussions in in different times in history. I think one problem with his hypothesis is that he over generalizes the the pro female or anti female characteristics of cultures or ways of thinking. You know, he characters tends to characterize something as either like, you know, this this way of thinking was very anti woman, or this way of thinking was very pro woman, when I think in both cases there's usually a little more nuanced than he's letting on.

I agree, Like one example from the Western history is when he gets into the idea of like medieval medieval Catholicism being pro woman, but then the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent Catholic reaction to the Protestant Reformation being anti woman. I think you're more likely to find strong strains of misogyny in both, but examples of women breaking through it in both cases, right. And then also, of course we're realizing that you have varying levels, varying class levels in

any given um group. So I mean, for instance, in medieval Europe, you're gonna have some women who are who are nuns and are a part of the religious hierarchy. Uh, and then you're gonna have some that are that are simply peasants. You're gonna have some that are royalty. Likewise, in Chinese history, when you get into the era of footbinding, you're going to have you're gonna have members of the upper class who are who are who end up being

a part of footbinding culture. Then you're gonna have women in lower classes who can who are not part of it, part in many parts in many instances due the fact they do have to work and contribute. Not to get too much into foot binding, that it's another fascinating and disturbing topic all on its own. So in Schlane's book, we come back time and time again to the notion that the medium is the message. We go from oral tradition to written records, eventually compounded by the advent of

printing press technology. With any key upheavals in society aligned and his hypothesis with the with the technology and the literacy of its people, masculine powers entrenched themselves. The trend continues unabated through the world wars of the twentieth century, with some impact from the advent of photography. That's an

interesting thing. He essentially says that we're retreating back away from some of the patriarchy and that women are gaining more rights to some degree because of photography and the introduction of the importance of the image back into society. He even at one point talks about how it used to be that a family was fleeing a burning home, what would they grab. It would be the family bible. That'd be the thing around which all of their family

memories were centered. It was a word, yeah, the printed text. And then after the introduction of photography, it would be the family photo album. Yeah. And then then he argues that post World War Two, you see this television boom, which which he says, really brings the feminine medium to prominence, because this again is the triumph of the visual over the text. Right. But one thing that's interesting is that Schlane isn't always saying that, say, the left brain is

bad and the right brain is good. Right, that's right. He brings up the example of Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, which he points out was a highly literate nation at the time. And uh, and how did Hitler rise to power will through the use of of the of radio And he characterizes this is the dark

side of a sudden shift to right brain culture. Yeah, So he says the ideas that Hitler used radio too circumvent this sort of organized, sequential left brain thinking of the printed word, and goes straight into people's brains by talking to them in their ears. Is his quote, Hitler's voice buried deep into the depths of the right hemisphere, resurrecting tribal myths and rituals. Now, I wonder what he's gonna make a twitter. Well, he does touch on the

Internet age a bit here. He points out that you have the the invention of personal computer technology who would great, which greatly changes the way people interact. You have graphic icons increasingly replacing text commands, and he says that the Internet and Worldwide Web are based on feminine images of

nets and webs. I don't know. That feels like kind of a stretch, but but still, well, a lot of his associations in the book are kind of stretching, like, but then again, we're talking about the realm of symbols and the power of symbols, and certainly symbols are powerful. Now beyond that, he doesn't get really get much into

the contemporary world. He died in in two thousand nine and this book was published in Uh, there's much I think that one might say about the role of say, hate speech in the primarily written world of Twitter and Reddit. Um And yet at the same time, meme culture makes use of images as well, often to drive home some rather problematic ideas. Yeah, what about how about podcasts? Right? Well, that's true right now, everybody that's listening, that's that's taking

in this podcast. You were listening to our voices. You're not reading it. Um So Yeah, I feel like that the world of podcast represents more of the the the feminine energy that he's he describes in his book. There are quite a few reasons that he seems to think that the modern technological situation is going to be a positive thing for the elimination of the influence of patriarchy. One of which is that you've got photography and imagery everywhere.

Another one of which is that we depend now so much on electricity, which he characterizes is as always being described in terms of feminine power or him and in type words. Another thing is that the keyboard has very much changed the way we compose even written texts. Now, the previous idea of how you'd compose a written text would be that you'd write it out by hand with your dominant hand, which is controlled by the dominant hemisphere

of the brain. So if you're a right handed person, left hemisphere dominant brain, you'd be writing with that hemisphere. But now we type with both hands, and so if you're composing things on a keyboard or on a typewriter, maybe that would somehow circumvent part of the way that he believes that the left brain has been dominant in

alphabetic cultures. He even points to the fact that when typewriters first came into prominence, the people who mainly focused on typing for a living were women, and that typing was seen as like it was kind of men who were trying to get into typing were tweeted dismissively. Is like, oh, that's the thing for women to do. That's a great point, yeah, and not something I would have necessarily thought about going

into this spite. I mean, we had the fact that we had a whole episode that that discussed the the technology of typewriters and its effect on culture. Now, I will say Slane was optimistic about where we were headed and what our trajectory was. Slash is as a as a people should be consider this a disproof of his hypothesis. It depends how you look at it. Again, you have to you have to think about the various uh um um you know, peaks and valleys in this various timeline

of feminine versus masculine. Yeah, it's true, we shouldn't. You know. It's easy to be negative about how things are in the present. You know, you have that bias, nativity bias, and it's like, you know, you'll give it some time. You had a few decades and then you can see how things were. But this is this is what he

said in his epilogue. He said, quote, I am convinced we are entering a new golden age, one in which the right hemispheric values of tolerance, caring, and respect for nature will we begin to ameliorate the conditions that have prevailed for the too long period during which the left him spheric values were dominant. Images of any kind are

the bomb bringing about this worldwide healing. I will take more time for change to permeate and alterate world cultures, but there can be no doubt that the wondrous um permutations of photography and electromagnetism are transforming the world, both physically and psychically. The shift to write hemispheric values through the perception of images can be expected to increase the sum total awareness of beauty. Yeah, one could hope some

version of that is true, you know. And in the book he does point out that when you look at the twentieth century, what are two of the most um widespread images, like what, what are two pictures that are probably going to show up in any discussion of the twentieth century? And one is the picture of Earth as a whole from space, and then the other is, uh

is the the detonation of an atomic bomb. There's a sense of revelation in the photo in in the photograph that is that it's harder to grasp in the word I guess, or it's or at least it's it's harder, it takes longer to convey the meaning. When I think about those two images juxtaposed with one another, I think, you know, they both kind of indicate that line from Auden's poem September one, ninety nine where he just says

we must love one another or die. I have a feeling we're going to come back to that that kind of proposal at the very end of this episode. Okay, but first let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll discuss some criticisms of Slane's argument. Thank you, alright, we're back. So I guess at the end here we should focus on a few general criticisms of Slane's theory. I mean we we've peppered some of our critical thoughts throughout.

I don't want to sound too critical because on one hand, I do think he brings up a lot of interesting ideas and this is actually a book worth reading, even though I think in the end I'm not persuaded by his main argument, and I think his style of argumentation is very loosey goosey, And it is important to and drive home that it is. It is an argument, It is a hypothesis. Is that he has not written the Bible for us here and say here, here is the

absolute word he's saying, this is my hypothesis. And here's how I would support that with our with with the existing body of scientific, historical, cultural, archaeological evidence. Yes, I do want to mention briefly one critical review, which was by the science writer Sandra Blakesley. If you're writing any of her books, Robert, I don't believe so I think I might there's one I've been looking at that was

about um. But she writes a lot about topics related to neuroscience, and she co authored this book about how stage magic can show us certain ways our mind plays tricks on us. It seemed kind of interesting. I think it's called Slights of Mind. But anyway, she wrote a critical review for The New York Times in nine and her main criticism is just that the book is she accuses Schlaane of peddling just so stories. Now, this is a term that often comes up to describe historical narrative

explanations for things that are offered without proof. And one example would be I think this was actually somewhere in the book, if I remember right. But anyway, why do men in some cultures wear neckties? Well, let's say the answer is it's because in our evolutionary history, dangling genitalia was a sign of virility in males, and it was a sign of good mate quality. So men want to show off some kind of dangling object to set off the same responses, so they wear neckties. Now, notice I

didn't provide any evidence that that's the reason. It's basically just like I told a plausible story. I told a story and you say, oh, I can see how that might be the case. And these types of explanations are often referred to pejoratively as just so stories. I just told you a story, and well, that's just how it is, and it has that kind of truthiness to it, and

so you just buy into it. Yeah. Now, I do think that the accusation of being a just so story is unfairly leveled sometimes that explanations based in evolutionary anthropology and psychology, because you know, after all, a hypothesis is often just an unproven, plausible explanation that's awaiting some supporting evidence. And so sometimes I think you see attacks on things, uh that attacks on things, calling them just so stories, when really what you should be doing is, well, you know,

let's allow people some room to speculate. It's okay to speculate as long as you remember what you're doing. You know, you're not saying like, well, here's the facts, this is how it is. You're saying, hey, what if this were true? Would that you know, could we find some evidence to

support it? Yeah. It's not like say a conspiracy theory, where you're saying, uh, where you're exploring that you're leaning a bit too heavily into the what if exactly, And you definitely can lean a little bit too heavily into the what if, And I think maybe she Layne does

that in the book. I think we're slippery creatures. Often, in the heat of our zeal to explain things, we sort of forget that the ideas were entertaining for the purpose of speculation are just speculation and want of good evidence, we start treating them as if the last thing I speculated, well, We've got that proven. Now now I'm moving on to the next thing, when really you haven't proven anything in any step. You're just offering a lot of plausible, possible

explanations in a row. Yeah, and run the risk of creating something that is more like a religious framework for understanding the past. Not that I'm saying that that this is religion or aspiring to be religion, but sometimes I feel like say that I feel that something like the um the bicameral mind kind of it satisfies me. It satisfies me in ways that I might look to religion to satisfy me, and that it can it gives me a model upon which I might make sense of the

mysteries of the past. Yeah, it satisfies you because it's interesting and because it gives you a way of contemplating possible answers to two questions you you're probably never going to have a really solid evidential answer for, you know, that kind of thing. And that's why, you know, hypotheses like this and like the bicameral mind are interesting exactly

for this reason. They take a really big fundamental question or really big fundamental issue, offers some kind of radical solution to it, and then they range over all different types of subject matter and across different disciplines, drawing on different types of evidence to to answer it. And so for some reason that process is really fun. Like to engage in that game of solving the puzzle and ranging across all these different disciplines and going to all these

different places in history. It feels very good, at least to me, it does. It. It's very satisfying, an emotionally exciting journey. I'm not sure it necessarily provides the best, strongest explanations for things. Yeah, it's like you're looking for shape. It provides a shape. Is it the shape? Well maybe not, but it forces you to ask questions. So then why does this shape line up with at least certain aspects of realities we understand it? And that's where that's where

it becomes such a a fascinating internal exploration. Now, one way in which I would actually compare the b Cameral Mind favorably to this book is that I think that Bi Camera, I think that Julian James is actually a little bit more cautious than than Slayne is. I don't know if you'd agree with that, but I feel like he tends to take things slower and makes fewer broad generalizations. Yeah, yeah, I would say so. And uh, you know, Julian Jayes also was He seemed willing to say is this right?

I don't know this is? But what this is the model I'm presenting? You know, he would, well, and she Leyne does that in his opening He basically says, this whole book is a hypothesis. But then if you read sentence to sentence throughout the rest of it, he doesn't he doesn't continually acknowledge that. Well, but then again he is making an impassioned argument for it, and the kind

of right brained argument. Yeah, so you kind of and and I guess that's kind of a trap one risk falling into as a writer that you you become so passionate about the theory that you're not stopping every few

paragraphs to remind everybody that's a hypothesis. I should also point out in my saying this that I have read more of Julian Jayne's work, like from from different points in his career, and I have only read um this one work of Schlaine's, and he has written other books, So I don't know if this is I don't know to what extent he comes back and subsequent um um his subsequent writings and and sort of revisits any of this. Yeah,

I'd be interested to see that. I mean I I so I didn't find anything about this theory being picked

up in an academic context. I mean Slaine was writing for a popular audience, so he makes the argument in a in a popular kind of way, and I think that probably also gives him the freedom to take some license with making kind of broad generalizations when he talks like the Greeks were like this, and you know, the right brain is like this, and men are like this in every case, like the critical reader and me wants to put a big asterisk every time he says something

like that and be like, well, wait a minute, So you're saying, like, in what percent of the time is it like that? How this also sounds like a great framework for stand up comedy routine, the alphabet versus the goddess as stand up I like it. All Right, we're basically out of time here, but I do want to touch on one last topic, one last goddess, and that

goddess is goes Er. Well let's goes there. Yeah, So I am talking about the fictional entity from the the film Ghostbusters goes through the Gazarian, goes through the destructor, goes through the Traveler, et cetera, an entity of many names. I have a question is Goeser in Anna? I think should they say she's supposed to be Sumerian? She is described as being a Sumerian, so she's a She's a Type seven for starters. That's her like her spirit ranking

within the Ghostbusters um system. And we're told that it was worshiped as a goddess by the Sumerians around six thousand BC. That's significantly earlier than any Anana we know about, right, So the timeline is not going to perfectly line up with what we've been talking about here. For instance, we were talking about how Marduk worship began to to rise in sec etcetera. But anyway, I do want to ask everyone to consider consider the following in regards to Gozer.

So Gozer is a world destroying traveler, yet despite her worship in ancient times, she did not lay waste to the ancient world. Why not? Well, uh, let's let's remember what we know about how Gozer functions. So Gozer's form is chosen by the mortals it encounters our heroes and ghostbusters. Imagine it is a Imagine it as a seemingly harmless yet masculine corporate logo, and it's still rampages. Oh the marshmallow. Yeah.

The ancient Sumerians, however, chose the form of a goddess, one attended to by a pair of demi gods representing each gender, both the vins Clortho the key Master and Zul the Gatekeeper, and they seem to share equal footing in their service to Gozer. Oh man, I'd say, if anything, Zul is more powerful than Vince clarthough I don't know. Well, it's hard, Well, can Evince Claro can do is just

run around saying your parish in flames. Here, you're thinking of the of potential um complications based on their mortal hosts. So yeah, Sigourney Weaver's character clearly the more powerful human host that was chosen. Well, I'm sorry for jumping me on. I will wait for the sign. Okay. So this is my theory. Gozer does not destroy the ancient world because it manifested during a time of goddess worship and was bound to a form, bound to a form by a

right brain culture rather than a left brain culture. So the true way to avoid extinction at the hands of gozer Uh is to choose a form that emanates from right brain qualities, or at least a more balanced mind state. The modern brain, especially the modern male brain, is so dominated than by the left brain the alphabet and infected patriarchal energy that that even a cartoon marshmallow Man can be nothing but a force of conquest in mass slaughter.

And perhaps I'll even go so far as to say maybe that's Gozer's true purpose, to wipe left brain dominated species from the cosmos, because right brain dominated species are going to see it as a goddess. Now there is actually a great idea for a sci fi fantasy story. You've got like a hemispheric lateralization culture where one side brain culture fears being taken over by the other side brain culture and they create a memetic weapon to destroy it. Yeah,

look at that. And we're giving it away for free right here. We're not giving it away. You can't use it. But but but yeah, inevitably, in talking about gods and goddesses, I can't help but come back to fictional entities in uh books and movies, and uh, it's really it's really given me a new respect for Ghoser, not that I ever disrespected Gozer. To be clear, anyway, you should tune into our upcoming fictional podcast, The Ancient brain Bomb. I mean it is telling to that Gozer is then defeated

in Ghostbusters by a pack of men with phallic lightning swords. Yeah, so predictable. And hey, I'm gonna say it here. As funny as the movie is, as much as you love the character, is that Binkman, he's not a nice guy. He's no, he's he's a patriarchal jerk. Yeah, And so that you have it a little bit of Ghostbusters to cap off an exploration of the alphabet versus the Goddess. Now, I think we should try to come back to some of the more interesting questions raised by this book in

the future. I want to come back to the idea of visual perception styles affecting the perception of time, uh, the way that the way that our media really do shape us. I mean, I'm sure there's all kinds of research on how on how keyboard driven communication is changing

the what people communicate. Yeah, indeed. Plus there's so many just little, you know, brief moments in the book where he touches on this culture or that or or For instance, there's a bit where he talks about the Sistine Chapel and I realized, oh man, there are a number of kind of cool uh reads on the Sistine Chapel that have come out over the years. Would be neat to

corral them all into a single podcast. He's got a really interesting and really fun chapter on Dionysus and the mine Ads and and that kind of stuff in ancient Greece. I actually think it doesn't help his art, doesn't help his overall argument all that well, but it's just interesting

to revisit his treatment of it. On its own and again if you want to check out the book and its entirety, I will I'm going to include a link to it on the landing page for this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com, as well as a link to the homepage for it, which has a wonderful timeline for the hypothesis as well listing out various historical UH moments and UH technological achievements that line up

with his hypothesis. And while you're at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, you can check out all the episodes of the podcast. You can check out links to our various social media accounts and UH. As I've been saying, if you want to support this podcast, a great way to do it is to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. Big thank you as always to our

wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you would like to get in touch with us directly to let us know feedback on this episode or any other suggest a topic for the future, UH, to share your thoughts with us on anything you think we might be interested in, or just to say hi, you can always email us at blow the Mind at how stuff Works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, does it, How stuff works? Dot Com, The biffer Ma