introduction to semiotics of cultures, 2010 claude lévi-strauss critics vesa matteo piludu...
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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)