“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

In our male, linear fashion, the perspective Shlain proffers occurred, as mentioned by Cheri, from the viewpoint of a surgeon. This is how he 'sees'; how we all see from our respective places in life.

He talks about 'cones and rods' roles in our physical vision. His hypothesis about what caused the paradigm shift from full female participation and leadership in human societies, I understand to be one of rods. It has a valuable place in the collective scope of other scientific hypotheses that flesh-out our cone perceptions of the broader picture; increasing our ability to sort out and separate that which is a product of time and place of the thinker from what is encapsulated within.

Here we go with yet another metaphor and from the Bible of all places. The perspective in/from which we receive ideas, I see as the hull or chaff within which the usable substance is contained; from which it is rendered. By itself it has limited use potential. In this case, broad understanding. More grains, 'the whole being greater than a sum', from other parts of the plant and other plants can give us something for a recipe. Shlain is far from the only scientist trying to 'make sense' of the shift that occurred about 6,000 years ago +/-. Their perceptions, ideas and hypotheses also came wrapped-up in the packaging of their places and times.

Anyone vexed, as I've been for a lifetime, by our 'kind's' lethal dichotomy of extreme empathy and kindness on one hand and blood chilling savagery on the other, knows instinctively that something is very wrong. One cannot be victim of evil, perpetrator of it or anything between without the inner self crying out that life isn't what it ought to be. The human brain, however flawed or damaged it might be, is a different story. Since we each have one of these with a primary purpose of 'making sense' by processing information, isn't it rather safe to reason that it (both sides) exists for both integrative and independent use?

So far, I've only studied a few scientists of the many from different scientific disciplines that saw correlations between male usurpation of female roles and subsequent domination of females as a clue to our troubling shift. Please consider suggesting any with whom you are familiar that I have missed. For you, consider:

James DeMeo, Phd. In his work 'Saharasia, The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex Repression, Warfare and Social Violence, in the Deserts of the Old World', DeMeo asserts a climate-linked geographical pattern in human behavior.

Marija Gimbutas, Lithuanian Archaeologist with Phd. in Archaeology and Applied Sciences.
I'm still powing through her beautifully illustrated work 'The Civilization of the Goddess'.

Bronislaw Malinowski, Anthropoligist Phd. introduced the school of functionalism or social anthropology. He initiated a cross-cultural approach in 'Sex and Repression in Savage Society' (1927) where he demonstrated that specific psychological complexes aren't universal. His work as a functional anthropologist was done, with Trobriand Islanders and others, from the actual level of experience rather than what I see as the anthrocentric platform; also described as "off the verandah" a phrase the name of a documentary about his work.

Wilhelm Reich, M.D. As a promising student and later colleague of Freud, Reich fearlessly followed findings without allowing, as Freud did, socio-political interests to mitigate them. His findings via what he called 'functional thinking' led him to cross scientific categories, a taboo to this day. His discovery of and quantifying of Life Energy focused on symptoms of and possible cures for our self-imposed pathological existence on the platform. If not the most, he was and remains one of the most misunderstood scientists of any era.

Consider also having a 'nose-up' on an anthology titled 'Female Erasure', 'What You Need to Know about Gender Politics' War on Women, Gender Politics, the Female Sex and Human Rights', Ruth Barrett, anthology editor and contributor. It includes 48 voices addressing the topics.

Contributions to the body of human self-knowledge and understanding cannot be but human and therefore flawed by their containment but the rich content can be gleaned for advancement of cumulative seeing.

So many thoughtful' incisive comments and so little time to join-in until tomorrow.

I loved reading his book, The Alphabet Vs the Goddess. It was one of the pivotal books of my life. I think many of his points are spot-on. This lecture was a treat to watch; so sorry I never got to see him speak in person.
I think his ideas about dominant and non-dominant uses of the brain tie in very well with what some others have written, notably Jane Jacobs on differing moral stances in her book Systems of Survival. I agree with him that the proliferation of images since the invention of the camera has helped to democratize humanity in many ways. But there is always a downside, and I think our fascination with technology is leading us into some dark places. Our society unfortunately remains profoundly patriarchal, and the "elephant in the room" that he ignores is the change in pornography in the past 50 or 60 years, both in content and availabilty. Hate porn is our era's witch hunt against women.

This is a somewhat interesting hypothesis based on a lot of misinformation. There's nothing new here, so I can't really say that I learned anything.

He's a vascular surgeon who knows that the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body. However, he apparently doesn't know much about cognitive psychology or neurological physiology.

There are a lot of very loose associations in this speech none of which are provable, just some, kind of, interesting correlations.

I also think his Mastery of History might be a little off.

Shlain seems to conveniently forget that reading and writing were not universally available to the majority of people until the latter half of the 19th century, only to the elite, and yet misogyny existed and flourished anyway, and that when literacy flourished it was only then that feminism became popular and fought back.
He also seems to not notice that all writing systems are not alphabetically based, some are pictographic, such as in ancient Egypt and eastern Asia and yet the same pattern of male dominance rose up there to, based on simple "might makes right" sociology.

To me this seems a very dangerous path aimed at encouraging ignorance, demonising education and blaming feminist woes on "clever dick" (excuse the word play) men, when the very thing they are blaming is actually the fuel that drove the equality engine, literacy!

Very thought provokingly, I'll watch this again tomorrow, when more awake,!
Ty Silver