Claude Lévi-Strauss

(French (born in Brussels, raised in Paris), 1908-2009)

Anthropologist, Structuralist

Lévi-Strauss, “Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology,” pp.1-7; “The Structural Study of Myth,” pp.1-5—both in Structural Anthropology.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, born in Brussels to French parents, was raised in Paris, where he eventually attended the Sorbonne to study law and philosophy.  After a brief stint teaching secondary school, he joined a four-year French cultural mission to São Paulo, Brazil as a professor of sociology (his wife, a professor of ethnology, accompanied him); there, they studied several native tribes, including the Guaycuru, Bororo, Nambikwara, and Tupi-Kawahib Indians.  Returning to France to aid the war effort, Lévi-Struass was eventually dismissed from work due to his Jewish ancestry, at which time he fled France and was offered a position in New York at the New School for Social Research.  He published works to great success, returning eventually to France, where his success continued and he was named as a Chair in Social Anthropology at the Collège de France (1959) and eventually honored with an election into the Académie Française (1973) (not to mention numerous prizes and honorary doctorates).

Lévi-Strauss’ method of anthropology was the application of Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistics to case studies of cultural behavior and native tribes.  So, what is structuralism?:

Structuralism: primarily French theory and school of contemporary Continental philosophy primarily founded by Ferdinand de Saussure (also, importantly, Claude Lévi-Strauss) around the 1950’s that argued that meaning is structured and given to us by our involvement in language / society (not just reality itself); this meaning structure is also a structure of power.  (We can put Freud, by theory, not participation per se, in this category.)

Post-Structuralism: some argue this to be a continuation of Structuralism, some say it is its critique; primarily French theory and school from the 1960’s and 70’s; its main difference from the former is that it does not divorce these structures from us and posit them as self-sufficient, but that their rigidity is only dependent upon our re-enforcement of them, thus they change with us as they change us; another main difference is that most of post-structuralist writings are the practice of applying insights from recognizing these structures to try and reveal and/or undo them.  (Notable figures: Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, etc..)

The structure is mental, not in nature itself, but our minds impose this structure upon reality, forms reality in accordance with it—thus, reality (cultural, etc.) is a mental structure, as are the structures that explain reality.   There are the more blatant structures of reality, the “surface structures,” of which we can become more explicitly conscious, especially by coming to understand the “deep structures,” those that spring from the unconscious.  Myths are a predominate form of expression wherein these structures can be discovered. 

Lévi-Strauss’ work has three main components: alliance theory, human mental processes, and the structural analysis of myth:

Alliance Theory: the importance of ‘alliances’ in society, namely marriage (more important, even, than lines of descent).  The exchange of women in societies afforded social solidarity and, thus, greater chances for the survival of the community.  (Also relies upon the incest taboo, that we saw in Freud and Jung, since societies would be more rewarded by trading women with other tribes, as opposed to keeping them within one collective.)

Human Mental Processes: There is an universality (and unity) in the mental processes amongst all humans, born primarily from the biological. 

Structural Analysis of Myth:  There is also an universality in the unconscious regularity of the human mind that is demonstrated in the parallels of myth across cultures and times.  Myth is studied for its (a) surface and deep structures, (b) binary oppositions of culture and nature, and (c) mediation.

1. (a)surface and deep structures: the surface gives the narrative; the deep gives its explication.  Understanding the deep structures permits us to understand the surface structures; the deep are explored though identifying the myth’s binary oppositions.
   

 

2. (b)binary oppositions of culture and nature: these are dichotomies that we can see in nature and in the human mind; there are typical ones whose understanding can help render and explicate the story of myth and its meaning.
   

3. (c)mediation: when the binaries are identified, we can then find their solution or mediation, which is a coming to see that dichotomies only operate in conjunction, thus, they have to do with their other extreme, and thus include a mean.  If a binary is culture and nature, the mediation is that culture transcends nature; if a binary is life and death, the mediation can be that death becomes transformed into sleep. 
   

Claude Lévi-Strauss, on the Amazon, 1936

“Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology,”

Structural Anthropology, pp.1-7:

After establishing that linguistics and anthropology are both essential social sciences and can beneficially, mutually aid one another, Lévi-Strauss explains how Structural Linguistics essentially helps anthropology.  He describes the four basic operations of structural linguistics (p.2):

(1) it shifts study from conscious linguistic phenomena to the study of their unconscious infrastructure;

(2) it rejects terms being independent entities, instead beginning from the analysis of the relations between terms;

(3) it introduces the concept of the system (showing how phonemics (perceptually distinct units of sound that differentiate one word from another, e.g.: bad, bat) are part of a system and elucidates this system);

(4) it aims at discovering general laws by induction (inference of a general law from particular cases) or logical deduction (the inference of particulars from a general law), thus showing them to be absolute. 

How does this aid anthropology? 

Lévi-Strauss argues that (a) kinship terms, like phonemes, are elements of meaning; (b) they both only acquire meaning if they are integrated into a system; (c) these systems are built by the mind on the level of unconscious thought; and (d) they both recur in these patterns across time and culture, which (e) show that they are general laws. 

Thus, he asks, “Can the anthropologist, using a method analogous in form (if not in content) to the method used in structural linguistics, achieve the same kind of progress in his own science as that which has taken place in linguistics?” (p.3). 

One additional point helps to clinch the fact that his answer to this question is yes: for both ‘old linguistics’ and ‘old anthropology,’ “it is solely (or almost solely) diachronic analysis which must account for synchronic phenomena” (p.3). 

Diachronic: how something has developed and evolved over time (linear)

Synchronic: how something is as it exists in one time (points)

Hence, he is saying that when we examine the synchronic, the separate points and events, the old way of doing these studies forces them into an account of how they develop and evolve over time.  “We thus meet with a chaos of discontinuity” (p.3).

There is an immediate difficulty, however, in exploring kinship terms exactly like phonemes—the linguistics break these down by distinctive features and then group them into several pairs of oppositions.  If the anthropologist were to do this, we may get an example like this: “father” means certain things to us concerning sex, age, and generation and does not have an immediate meaning of collaterality.  (The implied problem: sex, age, and generation tells us “father” links to son, daughter, etc., but does not tell us that the investigation should also contain the collateral, that is, how another individual has the same descent in a tree, but on another genetic line.) 

He explains that the general law must have objective existence from the psychological, physiological, and physical points of view; thus, it must be general enough so as to allow us to understand the many, many particular cases.  The preceding example would not tell us the ‘big picture.’ 

Why the failure?  We are being too literal in adherence to adopting the linguistic method.  “Kinship terms not only have a sociological existence; they are also elements of speech” (p.4).  We cannot apply the method to words themselves, but only those that have already been broken down into phonemes (“There are no necessary relationships at the vocabulary level” (p.5)—hence the notion of “fatherhood” is not related absolutely to the word “father,” or else “père,” the French for “father,” would mean something different than “fatherhood”).

In other regards, too, he adds, we should not be too literal in comparing the two studies—for instance, in the differences between phonemic charts and kinship charts (p.5).  He relates how linguistics knows the function of language (to communicate), but not the way by which it achieves this end, and yet anthropology knows the end of kinship lines (that they constitute systems), but not their function (why they do this, why have systems) (p.5).

There is a case where the analogy between the studies is most valid:

“Kinship system” comprises two distinct orders of reality (two systems):

(1) The system of terminology—expresses family relations;

(2) The system of attitudes—expresses how the relations feel in relation to these linkages.

Here, the anthropological is akin to what we know in dealing with linguistics (thus, the opposite of what we typically know in anthropology): “We can guess at the role played by systems of attitudes, that is, to ensure group cohesion and equilibrium, but we do not understand the nature of the interconnections between the various attitudes, nor do we perceive their necessity” (p.5-6).  This, then, rejects the previously held belief (namely by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown) that attitudes between the relations are nothing more than the expression or transposition of the terms onto the affective level—note how this is important for the greater study of gender as archetypal… the actual playing out of relations and expression of knowledge and belief are not a simple making affective the terminological meaning, but operates according to a different structure of meaning!

Further, we must, Lévi-Strauss argues, differentiate the two types of attitudes: (1) the diffuse, non-institutionalized and (2) the prescribed through ritual.

(1) the diffuse, uncrystallised, non-institutionalized attitudes—the reflection and or trans-positioning of the terminological meanings onto the psychological level;

(2) the stylized, prescribed attitudes—sanctioned by taboos or privileges and expressed through a fixed ritual; these are not automatic transfer of terminological meaning and more often appear as secondary elaborations that serve to resolve the contradictions and overcome the deficiencies inherent in the terminological system. 

These systems are not entirely distinct; they have a necessary interdependence wherein the latter system is “a dynamic integration of the system of terminology” (p.6). 

--this is critical, too, for the study of gender as archetypal… for example, do we want to put the archetypal meanings on the level of the terminological system and the personal inhabitation and dealing with the archetypal on the level of the attitudinal level?  Or, have the terminological independent and place the collective on the level of the diffuse attitudes and the personal adaptation of them on the prescriptive level?  How the levels are thus composed will affect where we say the material that can be used for bias comes from… if it is on the deepest structure of meaning or the superficial level alone, thus indicating no essential differences between the genders.  How this interplay works is crucial, too; what is the degree of dynamism?  How constantly we reinforce the meanings may suggest how difficult it will be to alter them, and whether this is stable enough to last, dependent upon where they come from initially… etc.

“The Structural Study of Myth,”

Structural Anthropology, pp.1-5:

After beginning with the complaint that anthropology has increasingly ignored the scientific study of religion, and, by consequence, the field has been left “chaotic,” Lévi-Strauss lays out some of the primary, competing explanations of myth (all of which he will have a problem with):

Myths have been interpreted as:

Collective dreams,

Outcome of aesthetic play,

Basis of ritual;

Mythological figures are considered as:

Personified abstractions,

Divinized heroes,

Fallen gods;

All of the above reduce mythology to “idle play or to a crude kind of philosophic speculation” (p.1).

More elaborately, Lévi-Strauss differentiates:

One group that claims that myth expresses fundamental feelings universal to humankind (e.g., love, hate, revenge, etc.),

Another that claims that myth provides explanation for phenomena they don’t otherwise understand (e.g., astronomy, meteorology, etc.) (his critique to this is ‘why? All these societies have empirical capacities to investigate the unknown?),

Another (the psychoanalysts) claims that if a mythology prominently focuses on a figure (e.g. the evil grandmother), then that society will actually believe such (e.g., that grandmothers are evil), thus that myth reflects the social structure and social relations and (especially if cases prove this to be not the case) that myth provides an outlet for these repressed feelings (of course, a rather ‘straw man’ argument for psychoanalysis, but getting a core thread of truth in the Freudian interpretation).

The student of myth is confronted with a seemingly contradictory problem:

Myth seems entirely open and unpredictable (anything can happen, it obeys no logic); on the other hand, there is astounding similarity between all myths around the world.  Thus… “If the content of a myth is contingent, how are we going to explain the fact that myths throughout the world are so similar?” (p.2). 

But … the problem leads us to a solution.  The same was faced with ancient philosophy’s examination of language: certain sequences of sounds seemed fixed to certain meanings, but these sounds appear in other languages linked to different meanings, so how does the linkage work?  (Hearkening the previous excerpt:) “The contradiction was surmounted only by the discovery that it is the combination of sounds, not the sound themselves, which provides the significant data” (p.2). 

So… “… myth cannot simply be treated as language … myth is language: to be known, myth has to be told; it is part of human speech.  In order to preserve its specificity we must be able to show that it is both the same thing as language, and also something different from it” (p.2).  Simply: myth is language, but it is also distinct from language in that it is and does something else besides. 

How is it similar and different?  Lévi-Strauss directs us to Ferdinand de Saussure’s distinction between langue and parole. 

In French, there are three main nouns used for “language:” Le langage, La langue, and La parole.  Typically, le langage means the system of style of language and the ability to speak (that is, the inherent faculty and universal human construction of language for communication); la langue means a particular language; and la parole means speech as a faculty, a possibility, and word.  Ferdinand de Saussure, however, and most all of Structuralism (and Post-Structuralism) largely ignore le langage.  Thus, la langue functions as the totality, it is language as a system of signs that we share, it is social and outside of the individual, even as the individual can use it, that is to say, it is the system of language that precedes and makes possible speech.  And, la parole is used to mean speech, the individual, personal language used by linguistic subjects. 

Lévi-Strauss explains this by saying that langue is the structural side of language, whereas parole is the statistical side (think of particular uses of language).  He adds, that langue belongs to reversible time, whereas parole belongs to nonreversible time. 

He goes on to argue, then, that if we can differentiate these two, we can also discern that myth uses a third referent (in terms of time) that combines aspects of the other two.  Thus, myth, on the one hand, refers to alleged events that happened long ago; on the other hand, myth describes a pattern that is timeless, that is, it operated in the past and operates in the present and will operate into the future. 

He offers an example from politics: The French Revolution.  On the one hand, it happened in a particular time, with a start and end point.  On the other hand, it is invoked as exemplar of a timeless pattern that can be detected in the present social structure (providing a clue to understand the present) and point towards the future (providing a lead to infer future developments) (p.3). 

To examine this in myth, Lévi-Strauss uses the example of the Oedipus myth:

He emphasizes that he is not trying to get at the meaning of the myth, but to use it to illustrate the method of analysis of myth.

He begins by treating it like “an orchestra score,” with the task of arranging its parts correctly.  He demonstrates this numerically on a chart where he takes a given sequence of numbers and puts them in rows as given but under columns that only have that number.  A briefer version of his: 124235

1

2

4

2

3

5

Now, that he has sketched out his model, he is going to do this operation on the Oedipus myth so as to try to determine the several arrangements of the mythemes (an eternal, unchanging element in a myth) until he finds one with the proper harmony. 

His chart contains ten rows and four columns. Lines in parenthesis after

First column:

Cadmos seeks his sister Europa, ravished by Zeus (1);

Oedipus marries his mother, Jocasta (8);

Antigone buries her brother, Polynices, despite prohibition (10);

Second column:

The Spartoi kill one another (3);

Oedipus kills his father, Laios (5);

Eteocles kills his brother, Polynices (9);

Third column:

Cadmos kills the dragon (2);

Oedipus kills the Sphinx (6);

Fourth column:

Labdacos (Laios’ father) = lame (?) (4);

Laios (Oedipus’ father) = left-sided (?) (5);

Oedipus = swollen-foot (?) (7).

Thus, we see that the line numbers give the narrative’s chronology of events and the columns group the events in the narrative according to shared themes, here, suggesting family relations that are over-emphasized, murders of people that suggest family relations under-emphasized, murders of mythic monster-enemies, and etymological insights.  In other words, to tell the myth, we read it by lines; in order to understand the myth, we examine the columns. 

Closer examination of the two last columns:

Column Three: slaying monsters—the dragon must be killed to permit humanity to be born from the Earth; the Sphinx must be killed to permit humanity to keep living on Earth; thus, this common feature here is the denial of the autochthonous (indigenous) origin of humanity.  This helps us to understand the meaning of the fourth column (i.e., when we first emerge, we cannot walk or stand straight)

Column Four: etymological insights—this column is unique—a benefit of this method of myth analysis allows the myth to provide its own context for etymologies, so that we do not need to establish universal meaning of the names, but just see the names given having a pattern of meaning unique to their instances, here: they refer to difficulties in walking straight and standing upright.  The third column helps us to understand this to mean that when we first emerge, we cannot walk or stand straight, thus, the common feature here is the persistence of the autochthonous (indigenous) origin of humanity. 

Thus, he says, the relation of column four to two is as the relation of column one to two. 

He then turns back to the myth to see what this “orchestration” tells us about its meaning.  “The myth has to do with the inability, for a culture which holds the belief that mankind is autochthonous … to find a satisfactory transition between this theory and the knowledge that human beings are actually born from the union of man and woman” (p.5).

The problematic cannot be solved.  So, myth provides us with a logical tool by relating the original problem (born from one or born from two) to the derivative problem (born from different or born from same).  Thus, the overrating of blood relations is to the underrating of blood relations as the attempt to escape autochthony is to the impossibility to succeed in it.