Chapter 19 Yin/Yang

Isaac Peed

English 308j

Professor Lee

November 4, 2010

"One image is worth a thousand words" (Shlain 179). These are the first words that appear on chapter 19. This chapter ultimately talks about the Yin/Yang symbol and how it portrays each sex equally. Shlain goes on to describe the Yin/Yang symbol as two fluid teardrops nestled head to heal, and how each half extends deep into the other half’s territory. Each side contains within it the seed of its reciprocal (Shlain 179). Shlain also goes on to describe what culture the symbol came from, Chinese, and also goes on to describe that culture for us. However, at first when Shlain describes the culture it does not seem as equal as the Yin/Yang symbol portrays.

Shlain first talks about how unequal the Chinese culture is in today’s society. Women really don’t have much say in anything, not like they used to anyway. For the better part of Chinese history, and especially in the last thousand years, the status of Chinese women has been abysmal (Shlain 179). During this time many men were able to have primary and secondary wives. The primary wives main responsibility were to have children, and not just any children, they had to have sons. The secondary wives main responsibility was to be really nothing more than a slave. Men treated them with such disrespect that they literally had to efface their own personalities. There were many things that a man could do as well that a woman couldn’t. A man could divorce his wife for anything that he so chooses. For example, talking too much, or being too loud. However, a woman could not divorce her husband for any reason. She could return to live with her parents but it considered a disgrace if she was to do so, and it reflected poorly on the family as a whole (Shlain 180). Overall the Yin/Yang symbol that the culture created for peace doesn’t really seem to be doing itself any justice.

However, things were not always as bad as they are now in this society. In later Chinese society women really were viewed of as equals to the male elites. In ancient myths and folktales it recalled that “people knew their mothers and not their fathers”. Women were also allowed to keep their own name, even after marriage. Families were built up from the symbol representing “women” and not men (Shlain 180). There are also many other different things that women were not only allowed to do, but things that related to women as well. In ancient written Chinese, the same character that meant “wife” also meant “equal”, which is far from what it would mean in today’s society. The male dominance of toady has even go so far as to try to destroy the evidence of past equality, just so they can prove that something like sex equality never actually happened, however they are false.

Shlain then takes a turn for conversation in this chapter and begins to describe the language of the Chinese culture, and how different it is from cultures like our own. In American culture we have our own set of “words” that we use to describe something. It may take an entire sentence for us to understand what the other person is saying. However, the Chinese language is consisted of “vocables”, none of which signifies a specific word. The English language consists of 500,000 distinct words; the Chinese equivalent would be between 400 and 800. There is no word for “word” in Chinese, since they do not have words in their language (Shlain 181). The oldest Chinese characters date back to 1500 B.C. which is the same date as the arrival of the alphabet in the western hemisphere. The Chinese were believed to get the same idea of writing as the Indo-Aryans and Semites. Chinese is also the oldest continuously used written language along with Hebrew (Shlain 181).

Written Chinese has no alphabet, no parts of speech and no complex rules of grammar like typical western languages. What the western languages refer to as nouns and verbs, the eastern culture refers to as “radicals”. There are only 216 basic radicals (Shlain 182). The Chinese form of writing is very different from ours. We use letters or a series of letters to describe something, the Chinese uses symbols or images. Even though the Chinese still read their writing in sequence just like the western cultures do. There is also no present, past or future tense in the Chinese language, something very common in our language. Despite the considerable differences between the world’s two dominant writing systems, Chinese calligraphy still greatly diminishes the role of the nonverbal component of speech (Shlain 184). There are many difference between the two languages, however many similarities as well.

The topic of language can really reflect to the first part of the chapter as well; and that would be the topic of gender. The snake, a female symbol, was cursed, crushed, and conquered in the alphabet cultures, yet it was beloved, and worshiped in the ideographic culture in the east. In the west dragons were dispatched by heroes. In the east, dragons portend to good fortune each New Year (Shlain 184-185). Could this be a reason for conflict in the gender battle? There are many important factors that can contribute to the problems with genders and what roles they play. However could speech really be one of those factors? “Like Yin/Yang, these two cultures are both opposite and complementary. Like the hemisphere of the brain, each has the missing input and outlook the other needs to achieve wholeness. This integration of west and east, and left and right awaits the next stage of human evolution.

Discussion Question: With the idea that Shlain talks about on pages 179 and 180 with the downfall of women in modern society and on page 184 and 185 with the sake being a female symbol loved in one society and cursed in another. Do you think that women have become more degraded in American or Chinese society? And do you think the difference of the languages (symbols and words) is a factor? If so, why?

Works Cited:

Shlain, Leonard. “Yin/Yang.” The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. New York: Penguin / Compass, 1998. PP. 179-186

Yin and Yang child. Photograph. The one child family policy. 2003. Google. 3 November, 2010

Chapter 18 Birth/Death

Birth versus Death

Chapter 18

In this chapter Shlain talks about the creation of Buddhism, how it evolved, and then how it diminished away. First he starts off by talking about how rapidly Buddhism spread in India and how many people quickly joined this new religion, but by A.D 500 it was practically extinct. This new religion was quickly taken up by Siddhartha Gautama, a prince who was very observant of the outside world and the trouble caused to the ordinary people. Watching the troubled people made Siddhartha very sad, so in turn he decided to explore the outside world leaving his family behind. He traveled to a forest where he “encountered a group of ascetics” (Shlain 170). As soon as Siddhartha approached the group he asked a question but in order to get a response from the people he had to join the group. He decided to deprive his body even more than any other person to feel the full effects of how it felt to be in poverty. As the story proceeds he observes this endless cycle of “birth, pain, loss, and death” (Shlain 171). This cycle works on Siddhartha pretty hard and he decides to figure out a way to eliminate this type of suffering. One thing Siddhartha notices is that the ego is the main focus; it’s very selfish and demanding. He goes on to say that the “ego prevents one from combining the soul of the world within each of us with the soul of the world at large” (171). Siddhartha believed that the ego would need to be “awakened” if you wanted to see enlightenment. This is how “Buddha” came about also known as the “Awakened One.” Siddhartha (Buddha) believed that everyone lives a busy short-lived life and no one sees the real bliss in live and that is what he would to preach. He’d rather his people speak than write anything down, and have his words carried on through stories from their elders. Buddha also believed in non-violence, universal love way of life but failed to give any woman respect in it. He then goes on to give his Aunt, who raised him because his mother died during child birth, no status. She tries to join his group and he refused each time until finally Ananda a follower of his, decided to overrule Buddha and let her join their group. There were stiff rules she had to follow, and he made sure she and all other females were second class and were made to bow down to all monks.

I feel Shlain’s rhetorical appeal was mostly Pathos because he is telling this story about Buddhism and how it came about. It plays with your emotions in several ways. First it talks about how he starved himself to see how the other people lived. Then he has this awakening where he sees that the ego is all bad and makes you do selfish things. Following that he tries to say that child birth is the source of all pain when in most people’s mind it is all happiness and joy. I think Shlain makes some good points about this religion but he also degrades women a lot stating on page 176 “women could join, but they must accept second- class status.” To me I feel like every religion has this downgrade towards women and that somehow we aren’t good enough to be a head of any sort of religion.

Question: According to Shlain on page 174 he says that “Could birth, the quintessential female gift, really be the source of all the world’s pain?” Do you agree with Shlain or disagree with Shlain’s statement?

Shlain, Leonard. “Birth/Death.” The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. New York: Penguin / Compass, 1998. Pp. 168-178

Penitence Verse. Photograph. A Buddhist Journal. 5 Oct. 2007. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. .

CHAPTER 17 LINGAM/YONI, West over East

Hilary Petrokubi

Professor Lee

ENG 308J

October 28, 2010

“The word hemisphere, meaning one-half a sphere, has only two common uses: to describe the hemispheres of the brain and to describe the hemispheres of the planet.” (Shlain 159) The earth has two complimentary yet different cultures: East and West. These hemispheres mirror the functions of the left and right side of the brain. The West is outer-directed and dualistic, while the East is more introverted (159). The West’s characteristics embody the left side of the brain while the East characterizes the right. Shlain has talked much about western culture thus far, and Lingam/Yoni is the chapter where we will begin to explore the East, beginning with India.

India has many ancient rituals including sati, where a woman joins her husband’s corpse in the funeral, bride burning a practice a husband will use to obtain his wife’s dowry, female infanticide, and Purdah, the practice of segregating women from men. (Shlain 159). Before these customs there was Mohejo-Daro, a place in the northwest corner of India that was excavated in the 1920s. It shows a highly advanced civilization from2500 b.c. to 1500 b.c. with brick buildings, avenues, and more than 2500 inhabitants. (160) It belonged to the Harappan culture.

The culture came about 500 years later than the Egypt or Mesopotamia. The inhabitants were advanced with irrigation channels and grand palaces and temples. Like all India cultures, they had a deep reverence for all vegetation. Within the excavations were found the first Lingham and Yoni: abstract sacred stone images of a phallus and vulva that represent life force. (Shlain 160) Among the many found artifacts are those depicting the Mother Goddess, which suggests that Goddess-worshiping cultures thrived in India.

The Harappans spoke a form of Sanskirt, which means “sacred and pure”. They invented a unique form of writing with over 500 pictographic characters (Shlain 160). Because it was so complex it was difficult to use. When Aryan warriors invaded India with them they brought letters of the alphabet. The invaders adapted their alphabet to the Sanskirt in India, and thus the Brahmi script matured. (161) During this transition, Vedas, poems about religion and philosophy, carried on. The Aryans took these poems and superimposed their own values on the Harappans, taking egalitarian values and embedding patriarchal and militaristic values. (161)

In the Rig-Veda, the oldest poem, women held power and possessed rights to their own property, and many other freedoms. Although the Aryans changed their Veda creation story, the original still exists. The original Being was a fusion of a male and female and resembled “ a woman and a man closely embraced.” (Shlain 162) Through a series of copulating the being populated the world and said “I, indeed, am this creation, for I emitted it from myself.” (162) The female is coequal with the male.

The Vedas emphasize that all living things are manifestations of god, where in the West, everything is created by God. The Western God manifest Himself through logos, and the god-head of the Hindu appear everywhere in image. (163)

Within India there is also a caste system. The Brahmins, those who gained control over are and writing, controlled the education. Being a somewhat lower caste position before, they began to rise because they controlled all the information. With that many of the freedoms women had disappeared. Women were discouraged from being educated and Brahmins did not allow them to read or write. The practice of Purdah became to go into effect. The Brahmins enforced the first written civil code, the Laws of Manu. (164)

Although the Hindu culture suffered from many outside influences, it has still managed to retain many female characteristics. They still honor their goddess. Through Hindu art and the practice of Karma sutra, there are practices that celebrate sexual union between man and women.

Unlike, many of his other chapters where Shlain draws upon outlandish examples to support his thesis, I feel his logos is very strong in Chapter 17. I am beginning to see his correlations between the brain and the earth hemispheres; the West representing the left and the East representing the right. I think it is very interesting to see his theory thrive as the goddess is still very prevalent in Indian culture and a right/East culture. Where he fails, and where I begin to drift from Shlain, is the understanding of women’s rights in the Western and Eastern cultures. If the Harappans developed their practice of Purdah, essentially from the Aryans, a Western civilization, then why today are women still discriminated in India more so than in ANY Western culture?

Why do you think if Shain claims the Hindu culture is more successful in maintaining female characteristics then Western cultures, that women in India face a prevalent amount of adversity compared to those in Western societies?

Works Cited

"Bee-Hexagon - Vedas." Bee-Hexagon - Start, News. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2010. .

Shlain, Leonard. The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. Boston: Penguin (Non-Classics), 1999. Print.

Cadmus/Alpha

Chapter 13, Cadmus/Alpha, concerns itself with the beginning of literature in Ancient Greece. Shlain tells the Greek mythological story of Cadmus, a Phoenician prince who brought the alphabet to Greece. Cadmus was on a journey to find his sister Europa, the daughter of the Phoenician king of Sidon, who had been abducted by Zeus and forcibly raped. Cadmus came upon Zeus fighting with Typhon, a serpent, and helped Zeus win by distracting Typhon. Shlain reiterates his point of males slaying serpents, a totem of feminism, is an allegory for diminishing the female deities powers. Another version has Cadmus slaying the serpent himself and removing its teeth. Each tooth represented one letter of the alphabet, and Cadmus then planted these “letters”. However, instead of growing beautiful flowers, the planted letters sprouted warriors. Shlain argues that this is another instance of males destroying the image of Mother Earth; warriors sprang from her fields instead of nourishing plants. He also connects removing the serpent’s teeth to a male fear of vagina dentate. Shlain states, “In the Greek myth, the hero who brought the alphabet to Greece also extracted the dreaded fangs of the female’s totem.” I believe Shlain wants this to convey to the reader the sense that the alphabet slayed the female deity, as they were both brought about at the same time by the same masculine hero. Shlain also talks about the siege of Troy and how it was all about the image of women. The Trojan prince Paris abducted the wife of the Spartan chieftain Menelaus, effectively starting a war between Troy and Greece that lasted for ten years. Not only was the war about the Spartan’s wife, but during the war two Greeks, Achilles and Agamemnon, fight over what to do with a captured Trojan woman. To end the war, the Greeks created a massive wooden horse which is hollow and filled with warriors. Shlain argues that when the warriors came out of the wooden horse, “Instead of fetuses nourished within a mother’s womb, these are armed warriors who become agents of death upon their ‘birth’” (128). One can imagine he is arguing that this defiled the sanctity of the nurturing womb and was a blatant attack on women..

Shlain’s rhetorical appeal in this chapter is very logos-centered. He brings a lot of mythical history, which although is well-known to be fictional, is still held as a credible source to gain insight into the lives and thinking of ancient peoples. On page 122 Shlain goes into his spiel about slaying female snake goddesses and how this was a sign that men were re-writing history to be dominated by men. Shlain also goes into how bulls were regarded as a female totem as well as snakes, as looking at the head of a bull it resembles female internal organs. On page 125 he states that from a young age every member of ancient society knew what their internal organs looked like due to the fact that they slaughtered animals all the time. Shlain also tries an ethical appeal with the phalanx, and fails miserably. He says on page 123, “A single metal shield bears a striking resemblance to a single tooth--a row of abutting shields (as in a phalanx) resembles both a row of teeth and a row of letters.” Personally I cannot see why anyone would design an army formation to resemble teeth in any way, or even design gear to resemble teeth. The shields were shaped how they were to protect the warriors bodies, and putting them together was just plain smart to help protect the man next to you.

Question: Shlain spent a lot of time in this chapter trying to relate teeth to letters and other technological improvements of the time (phalanx). Do you feel Shlain pulled this off?

Works Cited
Shlain, Leonard. “Cadmus/Alpha.” The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. New York: Penguin / Compass, 1998. Pp. 120-131

. http://markelikalderon.com/2008/06/22/applescript-trojan-horse/

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 Adam/Eve

Paula Lieb

English 308J

Summary:

Chapter 12 attempts to explain the relationship between men and women by connecting it to passages found in the Old Testament. He makes connections that with the coming of the first text, the female was devalued, and cast into a specific role. Schlain claims that the stories through out the Bible attempt to give everyone in society a specific purpose, including slaves and women. Slain begins the chapter with the story of creation. Schain claims that in the story of creation, “Yahweh created woman only as an afterthought because Adam could not find a suitable “helpmeet” among the animals.” (Schlain 112). He continues to explain how the woman was created out of Adam’s ribs inferring that a “women’s function in life is to support a man.” (113). Slain continues to explain how the bible portrays the relationship between men in women by telling the story of the forbidden fruit. He explains how the serpent in the story in cast as a villain which cuts off an earlier notion that tied snakes to a symbol of power for Goddesses’ and devalues to women to “property” (114). Schlain explains how this story reversed associating women with life, and dubbed women as the reason for death. Schlain continues by claiming the “Yahmeh branded female curiousity the greatest sin.” (114). which in turn gives males a way to take power over women, with a “legitimate” claim.

Schlain continues to explain how the original sin created by Eve, caused God to punish Israelite nations that still worshiped Goddess’. He claims that Yahweh also performed “destructive miracles” (116) storms, floods etcetera which were meant to discredit any other male God which claimed to have these powers. Yahweh was attempting to establish his status as the only God.

This chapter continues with yet another story of how the Bible sets women at a status below women. Schlain explains that in Hebrew patriarchs there is a story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All three of these men married women who could not have children. The men decided to try for children with their handmaids and this was successful for all three men, which is interpreted that females are to blame when a couple can not produce children. Schlain interprets this as taking credit for child birth away from the female and giving it to the male.

The chapter continues by comparing the relationship between man and women to that of Yahweh and Israel. He explains how Yahweh let his chosen people suffer for 430 years before Moses was selected to guide Yahweh’s people to slavery. He makes the connection that Yahweh like a husband was “demanding, controlling, and capricious”(117), while Israel like the wife, was “long suffering, obedient, and loyal.” (117). Furthering the claims to gender roles in society.

Schlain finishes the chapter with the explanation that over time men are encouraged to turn to book instead of women for knowledge. He says “The aleph-bet broke the spirit of women and banished the Goddess.”(119).

Schlain uses strong appeals to pathos in chapter 12 due to his connection with the Old Testament which many people, especially Christians and Jewish people take very seriously. He uses famous biblical stories like the story of creation and the story of the forbidden fruit to draw people in because it is something they are familiar with, and then to get them to feel something, which in many females case would be negative feelings. He goes a good job of stirring up emotions in female readers because it breaks down into simple terms the diminishing of their power in society due to biblical texts. “women’s function in life is to support a man.” (113). This is likely to stir up emotion in many females due to the fact that many females believe that there is equal status between men and women. Schlain had strong appeals to ethos in that the chapter was well written. It made good points and Schlain seems to sincerely believe what he was writing. I feel that the logos was very weak. Schlain claims to get information from archeologists and archaeologists, as well as other “professionals” but fails to mention names, or organizations. He says "Archaeologist have recovered..." (115) but never provides information as to who these archaeologists are. Also his claims made from the bible is all personal interpretation and doesn’t provide good evidence just in that many religions have trouble agreeing on an interpretation of the bible. So what would cause readers to take Schlain’s interpretation as valid?

How do you think women interpret the bible’s message of a women’s role in society today? Should Christian women and men take these stories literally? Do you feel Schlain’s interpretation of these stories are correct? What is women’s role in society if it is not what Schlain claims scriptures say?