Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010

Claude Lévi-StraussCritics

Vesa Matteo Piludu

University of Helsinki

Problem: from divinization to absolute criticims

From glory (Structuralism age)

To denigration (Post-structuralism, Post-modern theories): ‘80, ‘90

Today structuralism is not a dominating theory, so it’s possible to discuss more quietly about its heritage, without any necessity to “destroy the oppressive structures” … as they are out of fashion.

Positive critics

Lévi-Strauss is the most famous and referred anthropologist of the XX century

He is know in several academic fields

His books are popular and read also by non-specialist (common people)

A revolutionary works

Even if the structuralism failed to propose itself as a triumphant general theory …

The work of Lévi-Strauss was revolutionary in many fields:- Totemism- Parental systems- Symbolic analysis- South American studies- General Cultural theory

- Les structures élémentaires de la parenté (1949) was a fundamental text for anthropology

- The work of Lévi-Strauss was strongly connected with French cultural background

Style

Impressive erudition, good critics to previous cultural theories

Capacity to dominate different fields

Impressive writing style

Strong personality and personal thought, evident idealism, even if there are some deviation to megalomania and evident narcissism

Atypical anthropologist

Positive critics

No one consider the native people inferior or more simple

The discourse about the native culture passed from nature (functions) to culture and symbolism

Today no one consider marriage or parental systems “natural”

Positive critics

Problems of central importance:

Reciprocity, alliance, gift

Positive vision of social life: human sociability is unthinkable without alliances and gifts

VS: homo hominis lupus, theories of absloute competitions and survival

Other logics

Genres that were considered irrational (myths, art) are considered now to have their own narrative and symbolic logic

Study of variations

The study of variation of several versions of the same myths is now extremely popular folklore studies

The binaries oppositions (raw and cooked, naked and clothed) are still useful in many fields

Comparition

The analysis of Lévi-Strauss give space to comparison of both similar and different cultures: give a solution to the impasse of the total cultural relativism

The theories of Lévi-Strauss offer a great help to the fight against racist deviations in science

Negative critics: Homans and Shneider Marriage, Authority, and Final Causes

Polemic vs. the parental system

Marriage is based on emotional factors and individual preferences, not only on abstract symbolic systems

New boom of anymal symbolism

In recent times, the animal symbolism is again a subject of interest, not only in anthropology, but also in cinema and literature studies (cartoons, Zabor’s The Bear Comes Home)

Negative Crititics:Needham. Structure and Sentiment

Vs. general theory on reciprocity, incest …

Relativist

Two poles

General critics:

Only Complex Parental Systems (more free) and Simple ones (prescriptive): nothing in the middle

Lévi-Strauss hasn’t analyzed the Complex Systems

Marxist and feminist Anthropology

Problems of colonialism forgotten by Lévi-Strauss

The authority of the ethnologist seems to forgot the native’s own voice

The power relation between genders are also weak in L-S research: not all in the gender relation can be reduced to an exchange

Geertz: The interpretation of Cultures 1973

The structures are an ”infernal cultural machine” that destroy history and human feelings and substitutes the individual native minds with a Savage Mind present in every human being

The cultural meanings can’t be introduced from another culture (the Western one)

It’s necessary to analyze how the social actors interpret their own and other actions in their systems of norms and values (the native voice)

Doing ethnography, is necessary to take in consideration the values and interpretations of the so-called informants

Narratology

The narrator of myths has its importance: it can introduce relevant variations in oral culture

The listener (native or anthropologist) also is an active interpreter

Theory of actors and of cultural translation

Margaret Mead

It is absurd consider myths as completely independent from the society or the deformed and opposite representation of social facts

Intuitive

The methods of Lévi-Strauss changed often, and sometimes seems that is using more his own intuition that a clear method

Crystallized societies

Lévi-Strauss talk about history all the time but often he is anti-historical

His models are a bit too crystallized in an ancestral ideals

The societies studied by Lévi-Strauss were subjected to enormous cultural changes in the XX century

Unconscious culture

The idea of an unconscious collective culture, human spirit … governing individuals and their choices (the myths are thinking us) … seems a nightmare more suitable to fantastic literature (Borges) than science

The culture seems to be a very oppressive system, as in Barthes’ Mythologies: there is no space for freedom

Structures today

Today, if someone is using the word structure in science, it consider it only a scientific theory, not an ontological reality governing human minds

The systems are “open”, not universal laws

Interesting applications

Cinema studies has used the binaries oppositions to criticize Hollywood films

Eero Tarasti has used Lévi-Strauss to analyze classical music (Myths and Music)