Left, Right and Wrong
In Religion, Politics, Sport, Folk Lore, and much more
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Chapter Five
The Right
Reason is our Soul’s left hand, Faith her right. (John Donne, To the Countess of
The OED gives its first definition of right as: the standard of permitted and forbidden action within a certain sphere such as law; a rule or cannon. It devotes nearly sixteen pages to the many uses of the word right and its derivatives whilst left can summon up only four; at twenty percent of the combined total it is still in excess of the proportion of lefties in the population. In the 1970s, the Canadian political scientist Jean La Ponce looked at thirteen other dictionaries covering some twelve countries. They all show a similar imbalance of coverage for left versus right.
The power and main of the right-hand
Right-handedness according to Carlyle in his Journal of
Like many institutions the dominance of right-handedness is taken for granted and the reasons for its dominance rarely discussed.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
In all human societies the right is dominant. For about fifty centuries about ninety percent of the world''s popuation has been right-handed. Throughout history the left hand and arm has been regarded as inferior in power, dexterity and dignity.The book discusses the causes of left-handedness and the penalities (and sometimes) benefits of spending ones life with a dominant left hand. It looks at the dominance of the right in religion, politics and superstition. Half of the book deals with some 800 of the most famous and infamous left handers throughout history. It includes many lesser known facts and fallacies about a very important minority who have achieved much in spite of the sinister interpretation that has sometimes been placed on the fact that they favor their left hand
About the Author
This is Roy Pateman''s seventh published book. Other books have been biographies of the composer Richard Wagner, the writer B. Traven and accounts of the history and politics of