Tuesday, February 05, 2008

i am a musical female computer user who reads Chinese


Simply reading the amazing Leonard Shlain's amazing "The Alphabet Verses the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image" (see also his seminal "Art and Physics"), and putting his two and two together made it obvious to me that the demographic most open to what God is doing in this current postmodern reformission...or whatever "this weird moment in history" is to be called....would have to be:

Musical female computer users who read Chinese.


Huh?

This of course may be a fallatious argument, based on the obsolete model of modernity/Newtonian world: linear thought, adding up of rational principles (which indeed is part of the point).

But many studies would suggest...especially in the fastest growing Christian harvest on earth in
our day (and maybe the fastest growing since the early church)..I hit a bingo. Expecially factoring in the underground and house church movement. Have you seen the wonderful DVD "The Cross," documenting the incredible revival birthed by a musical female who reads Chinese (don't know if she has a computer). The whole episode is online here,


Back to Shlain, who concludes that (p 182) languages that are read vertically actually rewire ones brain to provess in a more holistic, image-based, right-brained way...which post-Newtonian physics has shown is the "way" wired into life and the universe; and also (not coincidentally) happens to be the preference of our postmodern age.
There's the Chinese culture being in some sense closer to a Kingdom worldview than others.
(I am reminded of David Crowder's hilarious story; and I wish Alan Hirsch would unpack the meaning of all this).

Computers? Well, the first Reformation was fueled by the printing press, decidedly the most important invention in the last two thousand years..

..until now, with not just computers, but most specifically Google,
deseminating our theses. Leonrad Sweet says we have gone from the Gutenberg Galaxy to the Google. Shlain:

The computer "mouse" liberated the right hand's need to stay within confines...Computer-literates use a hand-eye coordination more spatial than linear...(and)..the computer's unique word-processing programs added still another right-brained talent. The geographical moving about of phrases (etc)..increased the right hemisphere..And there are no
pages to turn in a computer, which further discourages linear thinking. "Scrolling"...is more akin to deciphering vertical Chinese ideograms than reading horizontal alphabet text. (417)

"Reading" computer, like reading Chinese, retrains us to think and feel in a manner startling akin to the way life "should" flow.

The female advantage? They are considerably more right-brained than us no-brain..uh, left-brain men. And check this: Shlain suggests that "writing of any kind will realign the gender politics of any culture." Even though Chinese culture may seem sexist and patriarchal in ways, "Chinese men chose to construct their patronymics upon the spine of a maternal symbol...An ancient Chinese character for "wife" also meant "equal." (180)

Music? Right-brained...and if Len Sweet's succinct summary of string theory is at all accurate, "The universe is at base, music," them cultures with a bias towards music will find God's voice prints quicker than the rest. Cioran, a professed agnostic who "knew" music (notably, Bach) was evidence of God, must be read (try reading him in Chinese!)Not just in music, but "Chinese writing is emphasis on form...Content supercedes form in the West, form is an indispensable adjunct to content in the east. One must be artistic to read Chinese well." (Shlain, 183).

Insightful studies such as "The Mozart Effect" are telling here; see also "This is Your Brain on Music" which offers compelling evidence that those who listen to music...and especially those who create it...literally experience the connecting and merging of otherwise disparate parts of their brain.

I can't help but wonder why the most effective evangelist in postmodern Japan (although not female) is...

Bach (check this)!

And my question for Scottis: what might be the implications for Oriental jazz (since evertone knows that jazz is right-brained and all that other Godstuff (see
HOW JAZZ CAN BREAK THE HERESY OF WHITE CHRISTIANITY)

--

I feel kickstarting my right brain and mind into praying/singing something like,

"Lord, make me as much as possible

a musical female computer user who reads Chinese..

(sans the sex-change, please)...

Amen

and

A
M
E
N

Later note: Here's a sequel




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Hey, thanks for engaging the conversation!