Introduction to Semiotics of Cultures, 2010

Claude Lévi-StraussStructural Anthropology 1:Chapter I, Anthropology and HistoryPart 2

Vesa Matteo Piludu

University of Helsinki

Malinowski (functionalism) vs. Boas

Bronisław Kasper Malinowski (1884-1942): complete different attitude to the field work Disdains study of any source material or regional bibliography before

going to the field Wonderful intuition Herodotage: curiosity for primitive eccentricities of man

In search of eternal truths about the function of social institutions The functions are often too biological

Lévi-Strauss: The critics of Lévi-Strauss about Malinovski are somewhat similar to

the Barthes’ ones about fake ethnographical films: exoticism and “natural” mythology

Who’s who?

Who’s who?

Pop Malinowski

Tales From The Jungle: Malinowski - Part 1 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f22VsAlOwbc

Young Indiana Jones and Bronislaw Malinowski http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucAsLa61mV8&feature=related

The young Indiana Jones met also Kafka, Pancho Villa, Freud…

Lévi-Strauss on history

Only the study of historical development permits the weighting and evaluation of the interrelationship among the components of the present-day society

Even a little history in anthropology is better than no history at all

To understand modern habits it’s necessary to known their cultural history:

The modern French apéritif should be connected with the values of spiced wines in the Middle age

Analyzing the Italian wine-cult (ure) should be considered the values of wine in Ancient Greece (wine as blood of Dionysus) and Christian faith (wine as blood of Jesus)

The relevance of beer in Nordic society should be connected with Viking or Finno-Ugrian cultic elements

We should compare modern dress with previous taste to understand the changes and continuity in fashion

Lévi-Strauss and the drinks’ long history …

Lévi-Strauss vs. functionalism

Say that a society functions is truism; but to say that everything in a society functions is an absurdity (Structural anthropology; p. 13)

Cultural institution haven’t only a primal, biological function (nutrition, defense, comfort, mating and propagation), but also a secondary, symbolic one

Certain characteristic are obviously universal (gardening): but the anthropologist should be able to understand the different meanings of gardening in different societies (Ancient Rome, Renaissance, English gardens, American gardens)

For Malinowski the anthropologist have no need to study the complicate symbolism of marriage, because marriage is only a public expression that two people enter in “a state of marriage” …

so the deep meaning of marriage is … marriage!

Why is necessary to travel to Melanesia, if all is so easy?

Anthro-truism

Lévi-Strauss vs. functionalism 2

For Lévi-Strauss is not so relevant the universality of the function, but the fact that customs are so varied

the empirical observation of a single society will not make possible to understand universal motivation

The Trobrianders’ complex ideas about the values of each sex are simplified by Malinowski in this way: “for the continuation and very existence of family, woman as well man is indispensable; therefore both sexes are regarded by the native of equal value and importance”

First statement: truism Second: false, the Trobrianders hold male superiority

Lévi-Strauss vs. Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead classified North American Indian tribes as competitive, cooperative, individualistic

Lévi-Strauss It seems a taxonomy of old zoologists grouping animals as solitary,

gregarious or social

Barthes has done the same critics to the Blue Guide’s writers taxonomy of Spanish types

Pop Mead

Tales From The Jungle: Margaret Mead - Part 1 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOa3ftAKnzo&feature=related

Anthropology and History: similarities

Same subject: social life Same goal: understanding of man Same methods: collection of sources and comparison

Both are concerned with societies that differs from the researchers’ one: remoteness of time or cultural heterogeneity

Same goal: the exact reconstruction of what happened requires skills, precision, sympathetic approach

The historian avoids mistakes comparing as much sources as possible

The anthropologist avoid mistakes comparing as much ethnographical texts as possible, from a certain number of different regions. Some groups are studied from different point of views and generation

The historian could also use ethnographical writings as sources

Anthropology and History: differences

Lévi-Strauss:

History organize its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life

Anthropology proceeds by examining the unconscious foundations of social life

Definition of Culture by Tylor

Culture: Complex whole wich include knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,

custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society

Unconscious elements of ethnic cultures

Lévi-Strauss: Few social groups are able to offer a rational explanation for any

cultural custom and institution

When the natives are questioned, they answer: The things have always been this way Such was the command of the gods Such was the teaching of ancestors

Unconscious elements of European cultures

Lévi-Strauss: Few social groups are able to offer a rational explanation for any

cultural custom and institution

In our European society there are cultural elements that are generally accepted, as:

Table manners Social etiquette Religious attitudes

This customs are generally accepted by everyone, although their real origin and function are not often critically examined

The Europeans think according to habit Resistance to departure from customs is due mostly to mental inertia

Modern thought

Lévi-Strauss admit that the Modern thought has favored that critical examination of custom

According to him, this is also a result of the development of anthropology

But at the same time he states that even secondary elaborations (modern theories) acquire an unconscious quality rapidly: psychoanalysis was accepted by popular culture with surprizing rapidity

Boas, language and unconscious culture

According to Lévi-Strauss, Boas was the first anthropologist able to connect properly unconscious, culture and language

According to Boas, the structure of a language became unknown until the introduction of a scientific grammar

The language is imposing conceptual schemes which are taken as objective categories

The linguistic classification never rise to consciousness

In ethological phenomena, although the same unconscious origins prevails, these often rise on consciousness (Boas’ opinion, not Lévi-Strauss)

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

Lévi-Strauss admires the Cours de linguistique générale (1916), which marked the advent of structural lingusitics

The structural linguist extract from words the phonemic « reality » of phoneme

The anthropologis should fsomething similar to phonems in culture

Something that is not immediately evident

Phonemes: is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances:

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

Saussure-comics

Lévi-Strauss

In culture there should be an imposing form upon contents

It’s necessary to grasp the unconscious structure underling each institutions and custom to obtain a principle of interpretation valid for other institution and other customs

By showing institutions in the process of transformation (in history) … it is possible to find out what remains the same …

The structure that remains permanent in the historical turmoil, in the succession of events

Example: dual societies

A structural theme existing and operating in different spatial and temporal context

The village is divided in two exogamic groups, they have a relation of both competition and cooperation:

Gifts, marriages, reciprocity

Village

Example: stability in instability

New Guinea: Mekeo, Motu and Koita

Seligman demonstrated that they have a highly complex organization constantly troubled by various factors: warfare, migrations, religious schism: some clans are destroyed and new groups emerged continuously

Even if the social units are constantly varying, the formal character of their relationship is maintained

Even if there are wars and exterminations, the cycle of reciprocal gifts exchange and marriages logic is restored as soon as possible with new groups and new partners

The identical social structure is not perceived easily, it must be isolated by constant observation through the years

Lévi-Strauss’ citation of Marx

“Men make their own history, but they don’t know that they are making it”

Marxadamus spoke again

Accumulate and eliminate

Anthropology couldn’t be indifferent to history and conscious expression of social phenomena

But the anthropologist should eliminate, by a backward course, the conscious elements (wars, instability) to find out the complete range of unconscious one (fixed social rules, restored after the chaos)

The unconscious possibilities are not unlimited

After the collection of an enormous amount of complex elements, the anthropologist should be able to simplify (bricolage)

History and unconsciuos

The unconscious element are useful also for historians, as they are not satisfied any more with chronology of dynasties, political history

Economical history is the history of unconscious elaborations

Thus any historical book should be saturated with anthropology

Lucien Febre in Le Probléme de l’incroyance au XVI siècle refers to psychological attitudes and logical structures

Same journey

The historian and the anthropologist travel together ”on the road toward the understanding of man”

But under “a different light”

Historian: transition from the implicit to the explicit

Anthropologist: from the particular to the universal

Same direction, different orientation: the historian is fixed on the concrete, the anthropologist goes forward “more and more into the unconscious”

the difference is in the organization of the data

Anthropology as Heart of Darkness

Sigmund Freud and in the uncanny world of unconscious

Written / Unwritten

Anthropology isn’t only the science of people “without” writing

Anthropology is also concerned with populations which possess writing: Ancient Mexico, Arab world, Far East

It in many cultures (Zulu) exist a strong tradition of oral history

Lévi-Strauss hoped for a deep collaboration between the two discipline

This “hope” is actually realized in many recent studies on oral history (memorials of war, for example)

After a lecture about Lévi-Strauss,the student is ready for his unconscious travel