I stumbled on this book called the Alphabet versus the Goddess, by Leonard Shlain, which I admit I’m not entirely sure what to make of and how seriously to consider. Shlain’s work is primarily interested in decoding the ways in which visual versus literary perceptions impact our brains wiring and create differences in how we understand and make meaning of the world around us. He is particularly interested in how these modes of perception may be gendered. At the time of publishing this work, Shlain was a practicing surgeon who became fascinated by the idea that a consciousness shaped by images is meaningfully different than a consciousness shaped by words. Think hieroglyphics versus the Alphabet. He suggests that images offer a more holistic, simultaneous, synthetic, and concrete view of the world whereas the written form is highly linear, sequential and reductionist. The latter, Shlain suggests, is inherently hierarchical and patriarchal in form. To be clear I don't know what to make of this and yet I'm still invested and keep engaging him.
When reading sentences it appears that our brains mainly rely on textual comprehension and syntax to make sense of things and that cognition is necessarily dependant on a particular horizontal sequence in which grammatical elements appear. For Shlain, with the intervention of multimedia technologies, specifically film and images, is an invitation for both individual and cultural restructuring of knowledge creation and uptake to occur. To perceive things such as trees and buildings through images delivered to the eye, the brain uses wholeness, simultaneity, and synthesis. While making sense of alphabetic writing, the brain relies instead on sequence, analysis, and abstraction. For Shlain, most of Western culture, religion and language consistently rely on the latter. To quote “Of all the sacred cows allowed to roam unimpeded in our culture, few are as revered as literacy. Its benefits have been so incontestable that in the five millennia since the advent of the written word numerous poets and writers have extolled its virtues. Few paused to consider its costs. . . . One pernicious effect of literacy has gone largely unnoticed: writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially its alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and with them, women’s power in the culture”. For Shlain, feminine values = holistic perception. Problematic?
While this topic has been somewhat fascinating/perplexing for me to consider and probe, I found myself just questioning how and if different modes of experiencing perception may be meaningful for me to investigate. Say for example, watching a documentary about Bill Clinton versus reading his autobiography. Or perhaps more specifically, when I’m tucked in bed late at night why do I prefer to scroll through my instagram feed rather than read through all the New Yorker articles I’ve starred to read earlier that morning. My brain wants rest while it simultaneously seeks stimulation. I sense that there is some comfort in being exposed to images at an all-at-once manner that lead to a gestalt processing as opposed to the work required for my brain to make sense working through a long form op-ed.
Shlain points out that when a person reads a book their brain wave patterns differ significantly from those registered when that person is watching television. Watching T.V generates alpha and theta waves representing a “passive, receptive, and contemplative state of mind”, whereas beta waves typically register when the mind is focused on a task, say reading or writing. He suggests that these differences relate to hunter/killer (beta) vs. nurturer ( theta/alpha) roles in society. At this point part of me is pulling my hair out.
When referencing how with the rise of technology our culture is shifting towards embracing increasing amounts of visual stimuli as a primary means of communication and learning, I was reminded of our reading by Hodge. When overloaded by Big Data and exposed to an increasing economy of information, our brains would simply burst if we were subjected to the particulars of all this information. Perhaps what is so pleasurable about interacting in the field of images such as memes, selfies, Gif’s and other visual stimuli, is that we are offered the possibility of perception in a more passive and holistic nature. While of course it’s just as possible, if not probable, to get overwhelmed by the thickness of one’s instagram stream (should you fall down that rabbit hole) somehow images feel more friendly when tired. And still, I'm perplexed by this possible linkage of gender, or at least the valuing of specific learning styles, with reference to visual vs. literary stimuli.
In section IV of Hodge he quotes, W. J. T. Mitchell’s claim that “images are themselves gendered female by “default”—“not images of women, but images as women.” The context of this comment relates specifically to the notion that selfies as a genre has been usurped mainly by adolescent girls and women- and here, I pause to think about the role of images and gender. Something Hodge relates when he says “ it is difficult not to grasp the generic character of the selfie in the context of always-on computing itself as otherwise than normatively gendered as a young woman”. There is a strong case to be made here about the cultural and societal reasons for why this is the case. I realize that I've meandered through many different thoughts here. I guess you can say I'm trying to work this through.