Quotables from the Text
Here are some quotes from the The Alphabet Versus the Goddess:
On the Reformation:
Unlike the many territorial wars of the preceding centuries, the conflicts of the Reformation (1517-1648) were characterized by the murder of neighbor by neighbor…Visitors to the court of the “savage” Mongol emperors in the fourteenth century reported, with astonishment, that all religions were tolerated there…Muslims never engaged in the volume and the degree of internecine doctrinal bloodletting that soaked the soil of Germany, France, and England. In China, India, and Japan, such large scale religious fratricides were unknown. The “primitive” natives of the New World did not engage in widespread religious torture and murder. The factor unique to European culture was a massive injection of a left brain-enhancing method of communication. Europe, alone among the world’s many cultures, experienced a logarithmic rise in alphabetic literacy rates. {page 363}
On the European Witch Killings:
Witch hunting was woman hunting. A chronicler in 1600 wrote, “Demons take no account of males…and among a hundred witches, there’s scarcely a man to be seen.” Over 80 percent of accused “witches” were female; in German speaking lands the percentage was often close to 100 percent. Historians have been at a loss to explain this bizarre episode. {page 364}
Before 1454, hardly any women were lashed to the stake for witchcraft. Then, in the very midst of the great Humanist Renaissance, at nearly the precise moment the printing presses began to churn, the madness began. In 1460, a few miles and and six years distant from Gutenberg’s Frankfurt plant, twelve “sorceresses” were burned in Heidelberg’s public square. In 1468, the papacy, in an extraordinary legal ruling, declared witchcraft a crimen exceptum, a crime for which those accused could be officially tortured prior to trial. {page 365}
“Hysteria” is an unmanageable fear expressed by emotional excess. It is a type of behavior many men associate with women; the word itself derives from the Greek hystera, meaning womb. But no superstition that any group of women has ever believed has come close to the level of credulity and psychosis that seized the most educated male elite during the witch craze. As if in deep hypnotic spell, men accepted as fact a phantasmagoria that defies comprehension - that little girls in pigtails, pregnant women, and weak, elderly widows posed a mortal danger to society. The witch craze was an example of masculine hysteria and gullibility without a parallel in any other culture. In the light of such evidence, lexicographers might well consider coining a new word to accompany “hysteria” - “testicularia” would be appropriate. {pages 370-371}
It is impossible to conceive of the irreparable damage done to the women who survived this protracted reign of terror. No woman alive in the Western world could have been unaware of what was happening. Anyone who actually witnessed a burning would have been severely traumatized. No friendship between women was safe. If a friend was arrested, there could be no guarantee against betrayal under duress of torture. {page 374}
On the Ascent of the Iconic Age
It was not mere coincidence that the most explosive feminist movement in the five-thousand-year history of patriarchy occurred during the first television generation. Certainly the birth control pill, with its power to disconnect sex from pregnancy, played an important role, but the advent of the pill does not explain why so many young men of the era were inclined to support their sisters’ and girlfriends’ aspirations. Boys who spent many hours of their childhood engrossed in the Howdy Doody show grew up to become the first generation of men that included many who applauded the gains of the women’s movement. And what a movement - bold, courageous women of every age, color, and class altered the gender equation permanently. The meteoric rise of the image, resulting in an infusion of right brained values into culture, was like a booster rocket that propelled the women’s movement into stable orbit. {page 411}
For hundreds of years in America, African Americans tried in vain to emulate the looks of Caucasians. Since the advent of television, Caucasians increasingly try to emulate African Americans by emulating their slang, styles of dress, and musical forms, because they have intuited that African Americans are closer to their tribal ancestry and therefore better guides to this preliterate wisdom than are any of the European American print people. {page 426}
Reading and writing are such valuable tools in world culture that virtually all governments want their citizens to acquire them. The benefits of alphabet literacy are magnificent and life-changing. Even when we become aware that literacy has a downside, no reasonable person would throw out the baby with the bathwater and recommend that people should not become literate. Instead, we seek a renewed respect for iconic information, which in conjunction with the ability to read, can bring our two hemispheres into greater equilibrium and allow both individuals and cultures to become more balanced. {page 429}
Long before there was Hammurabi’s stela or the Rosetta stone, there were the images of Lascaux and Altamira. In the beginning was the image. Then came five millennia dominated by the written word. The iconic symbol is now returning. Women, the half of the human equation who have for so long been denied, will increasingly have opportunities to achieve their potential. This will not happen everywhere at once, but the trend is toward equilibrium. My hope is that this book will initiate a conversation about the issues I have raised and inspire others to examine the thesis further. {page 432}
