Interview: Claude Levi-Strauss

Author(s): Claude Levi-Strauss and Peter B. Kussell

Source: Diacritics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 44-50
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/464559
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presents in abridged form the two roles open to the vides the narratives which every society seems to
narrator; next he is humiliated by Zverkov, then he need in order to live, but film-makers tell us stories
in turn humiliates Lisa; he is humiliated again by whereas writers deal with the play of words. The
his servant Apollo and again humiliates Lisa with typological remarks which I have just offered relate
still more severity. The narrative pattern is broken then, in principle, not specifically to literary narra-
by the enunciation of a different ideology, repre- tives, from which I drew all of my examples, but to
sented by Lisa, which consists in refusing the master- all kinds of narrative; they pertain less to poetics
slave principle and in loving others for themselves. than to a discipline which seems to me to have a
Once again, then, we see that individual narra- solid claim to the right of existence, and which could
tives exemplify more than one type of narrative be called narratology.1
organization (in fact, any one of them could have (Translated by Philip E. Lewis)
served to illustrate all of the organizing principles);
but the analysis of one of these types is more illumi- 'Key critical references for the preceding discussion in-
nating for the understanding of a particular text than clude: V. Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Bloom-
the analysis of another. We might make an anal- ington: Indiana University Research Center in Anthro-
ogous observation on a very different level: a narra- pology, Folklore, and Linguistics, 1958); Claude Levi-
tive analysis will be illuminating for the study of cer- Strauss, "La Structureet la forme," Cahiers de l'Institut
tain types of texts, and not for others. For what we de Science Economique Appliquee (series M, no. 7,
were studying here is not the text, with its own 1960), pp. 3-36; Claude Levi-Strauss, Mythologiques
(Paris: Plon, 1964 sq.) 4 vols.; A. J. Griemas, Seman-
varieties, but narrative, which can play either an
tique structurale (Paris: Larousse, 1966); Claude Bre-
important or a negligible role in the structure of a mond, "LaLogique des possibles narratifs,"Communica-
text, and which, on the other hand, appears both in tions (Fall, 1966), pp. 60-76; Claude Bremond, "The
literary texts and in other symbolic systems. Today Morphology of the French Folktale," Semiotica (Fall,
it is a fact that it is no longer literature which pro- 1970), pp. 247-276.

7 I O
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,1

The following interview is a translation of the integral

transcript,a shortened version of which was published
earlier this year in L'Express.

Q.- You are one of the greatest living ethnologists and limited areas, to circumvent this twofold obsta-
as well as the founder of structural anthropology. Do cle. Structuralism tends towards objectivity by con-
you consider the human sciences to be sciences? sidering preferably those phenomena which develop
L.-S.- I don't know if we must totally despair, but outside the disturbances and illusions of conscious
in any event, they are far from it. The physical and thought processes, and for which it is possible to re-
natural sciences have achieved this stage by succeed- strict oneself to a relatively limited number of vari-
ing in isolating for each type of problem a small ables which may explain the diverse forms that the
number of significant variables at the heart of quite same phenomena take on in different societies.
complex phenomena. We of the human sciences, or But, proceeding in this manner, one can only
those claiming such status, remain overwhelmed and hope for a little improvement in our understanding
submerged by the number of variables and all the of things which until then remained incomprehensi-
more so since, for us at the outset, this number is ble, still knowing well that neither we nor anyone
incomparably higher. else will ever fully understand them. After all, the
Besides, science studies objects, and it is par- only way to reduce life's boredom lies in our pursuit
ticularly difficult for man to agree to become an ob- of knowledge. That's our best, perhaps our only
ject for himself by making an abstraction of his sub- justification.
jective existence, since he is at the same time both Q.- What do you think of the vogue of structural-
subject and object. One can foresee that, as they ism?
progress, the human sciences, much more than their L.-S.- One always feels a little bit amused and
sister fields, will be constantly running into this ir- flattered by all of the attention one gets, even if it's
reducible antinomy. annoying to be sought after for all sorts of things
Q.- What significance do you attribute to your re- which have no justification whatsoever: such as formu-
search? lating a message, setting forth a philosophy, while I
L.-S.- What one calls, correctly or not, structural- feel I am devoting myself to specific craft-like tasks.
ism constitutes precisely an attempt, in a few fixed Further, structuralism's momentary vogue has
certainly perverted its intention. Instead of search- tions, each expressing in its own way and its own
ing methodically for the real meaning behind con- language, by means of the particular form of its
sciously elaborated metaphors, people believed they leaves or its flowers, a fundamental truth common
could use it as a pretext for indefinitely substituting to the entire plant world. In other words, instead of
one set of metaphors for another. That gave birth to treating things as isolated realities, attention shifts
what I would call a "structuralism-fiction." to the relations uniting them, because these relations
There is no need to be surprised. To some de- are often simpler and clearer to understand than
gree the world over, though mainly in Paris, the the things one would want to describe and explain.
salons are extremely voracious; they need a new Q.- Do you feel you are a scientist or a philos-
feeding ground every five years. Since 1968, struc- opher?
turalism has become outmoded and things are much L.-S.- I am probably neither. If the human sci-
better that way. ences should one day merit the name of Science,
Q.- Did the events of May 1968 change anything which will probably never happen, they would come
for you? to be indistinguishable from the physical and nat-
L.-S.- Very little on the practical level, since for ural sciences. While we wait for this improbable
several years now my research facility has been func- stage, let's say that I consider myself as a man of
tioning as a participatory democracy, with meetings study devoted to a fleeting and uncertain body of
where all decisions, even budgetary ones, are made knowledge.
jointly by the entire membership from the reception- Q.- You have an advanced degree in philosophy.
ist right on up to the research directors and the pro- When a person has been trained as a philosopher,
fessor from the College de France. On a more the- why does he become an anthropologist?
oretical level, the May events appear to me to be a L.-S.- I am not the only one who has done this; it
further indication of the disintegration of western was once fairly normal, since anthropology was not
civilization; it no longer even knows how to secure taught as a full-fledged discipline in universities. I
that which non-literate societies know so well how soon found it unbearable to have to repeat the same
to obtain-even to the point where their proclaimed course year after year, and, moreover, I wanted to
ideal is often to remain perpetually identical with see the world...
what they are-I refer to the integration of new I went to Brazil as a professor of sociology (at
generations. the time this too was a branch of philosophy) at the
Q.- And for structuralism? University of Sao Paulo. Aside from brief stays in
L.-S.- There, yes. In the following months, I clear- Belgium, I had previously never left France. It was
ly sensed that the press and the so-called cultivated the beginning of 1934; I was 25 then. After the en-
public which had hailed structuralism-wrongly chantment of the ports of call-the mixed cargo
moreover-as the birth of a philosophy of modern vessels that my colleagues and I took spent entire
times turned abruptly away from it, with even a kind days loading up in small Spanish and African ports
of spite at having bet on the wrong horse. It's true, -my contact with Sao Paulo aroused my intellectual
the May youth proved to be far removed from struc- curiosity over phenomena which had the incarnate
turalism and much closer to positions, even though dimension of human beings.
old ones, which Sartre defined right after World Q.- Did you like Sao Paulo?
War II. L.-S.- It was an extraordinary city, still middle-
Q.- Are there deep differences between structural- size, but in complete upheaval, where you crossed
ism and existentialism? over within a few feet of each other from the Iberian
L.-S.- There is a fundamental difference in the world of the eighteenth century to the Chicago of the
manner of apprehending human phenomena. Struc- 1880's. The native Brazilians were mixed in with all
turalism seeks to grasp them prior to a person's con- sorts of foreign elements, mainly Italians but also
sciousness of them, by selecting as privileged fields central Europeans. I put my students to work on
for study very small orders of facts lacking any prac- their own city. We did monographs on districts,
tical implications, at least in appearance. Existential- sometimes on single streets. And then too, there were
ism, on the contrary, places itself initially at the level the market places.
where individual consciousness apprehends the Q.- In a sense, you were already on home ground
world, where individuals exist as a function of their then.
personal history and their insertion into a given L.-S.- Not completely, but the markets straddled
family, environment, class, society, and moment in the city and the countryside. Among the handcrafted
history. products, you could enjoy spotting the various Eu-
But all sorts of misunderstandings lurk behind ropean, African and Indian contributions. Indeed, it
this opposition. People wanted to see in structuralism was a real bath of ethnological culture. It was only
a radical shift in moral and even metaphysical per- a short step from there to the thinly populated
spectives, although it boils down to what I'd call in regions of the interior where some indigenous groups,
philosophical jargon an epistemological attitude to- highly acculturated in fact, were still living; I oc-
wards phenomena, not even necessarily human ones. casionally took that step on horseback with some col-
This is a very old attitude: it probably goes back to leagues when we came to the end of one of the few
Goethe. roads available at the time.
Q.- Why? Q.- Was this being a tourist or an anthropologist?
L.-S.- Because of his botanical works. They gave L.-S.- At first it was just tourism, but it soon led
him the idea of treating plant species, less as entities me into anthropological work which in itself has
irreducible from one to another, than as transforma- nothing touristic since in certain ways it is very

dicriCtics/Fall 1971
demanding, laborious and bureaucratic work. How- some secret and common function that we have to
ever, during these first excursions I was struck by a clarify. Later, I realized that this was anthropology's
nature still unhampered and unspoiled by man. primary concern, and this realization caused me to
Q.- What about your love for Sao Paulo? remain an anthropologist: on the one hand, you have
L.-S.- That may appear to contradict what I have an almost inexhaustible store of problems, coded
just said, but cities have long fascinated me as both messages to be deciphered; and on the other hand,
human and irrational creations, or rather, since it (though very difficult to arrive at), certain concep-
always comes back to the same point, their apparent tual principles which will account for what is ap-
irrationality composed of a multitude of individual, parently odd and meaningless. Kinship and marriage
independent decisions, conceals an order which no rules are fine examples of this. They serve to explain
one consciously desired, but whose mainsprings, how- customs which first seem capricious and unreason-
ever, can be determined. Once past childhood, I used able, but behind which simple and readable models
to take great pleasure in long strolls about the city, are concealed.
whose secret layout determined the route I followed, Q.- Are these customs the same in all societies?
like Jallez and Jerphanion in Jules Romains' novels. L..S.- No, of course not. In small societies where
While still attending the lycee back when all the all the members are united through real or imagined,
buses had an open platform in the rear, I stuck to close or distant, kinship ties, only certain relatives
an outer corner on the right or the left side so that can intermarry, others not. But the possibilities are
I could glimpse simultaneously one side of the street not the same for any two societies. Arab societies
and its reflection in the shop windows. When the bus prefer men to marry their father's brother's daugh-
approached the sidewalk, a normal street turned into ter; many non-literate societies would find this prac-
a narrow alley whose two sides threatened alarm- tice abominable since they permit cousins to inter-
ingly to merge together; and when the bus moved marry only if their respective parents are brother and
away, the same street opened up into an unexpected- sister, never two brothers or two sisters. They refine
ly wide avenue. But this urban magic, which I called this even further: one society will permit marriage
forth in this way, only served to enrich and transform only to the cousin who is a father's sister's daugh-
another magic which was real. ter, while another proscribes such a marriage as in-
Q.- Why did you break ties with the city later on? cestuous and will allow the man to marry if his
L.-S.- For two reasons. If, in order to study so- cousin is his mother's brother's daughter. There are
called primitive societies, we have recourse of neces- other much more complicated rules for more distant
sity to only 10 per cent history and 90 per cent relations.
anthropology, we must invert this proportion for Q.- Can you explain why this is so?
contemporary societies or for phenomena stemming L.-S.- In those societies where everyone is con-
from these societies. In spite of what is often said, I sidered interrelated, kinship constitutes a language
have a deep respect for history, which should be expressing the whole network of man's rights and
left to the historians. In such matters anthropologists obligations. Kinship, in a word, is the common de-
have a minor role to play. nominator of politics, law and economy.
Secondly, cities grow and multiply. Once a Marx and Engels had admirably understood
form of harmony between man and his natural this, despite the scarcity of available ethnological
milieu, they have become hideous monsters, preying data in their time. They make a distinction between
upon and destroying nature, often for incalculable our so-called historical societies, governed in their
distances around them, when once they only sought view by class relationships, and those which anthro-
to strike a balance with nature. A city seems to me pologists study where what they call old consan-
like an intolerable monstrosity if you can no longer guineous ties are prevalent.
set out on foot and within two hours reach the open Q.- You have just mentioned Marx. Marxists
countryside. Rousseau used to go hunting for wild sometimes call upon your work as reference. What
flowers every afternoon, starting out from his home do you think of this?
in the heart of Paris. At present, I would rather get L.-S.- I don't believe marxists claim me as a refer-
away from a city than study it. ence. It is rather I who in certain cases have referred
Q.- Your first works in anthropology had to do to Marx.
with the structure of kinship ties. How were you in- Q.- There was a period however when marxism
troduced to this? influenced your life.
L.-S.- It was through reading, at Montpellier, right L.-S.- It still does. The notion that social con-
after the armistice, Marcel Granet's work on Matri- sciousness is always deceiving itself and that, behind
monial Categories and Blood Relations in Ancient the lie, the truth is revealed in the very same way in
China. It uncovered an area of social life where which the lie asserts itself, this notion is a precept
rigidly formulated rules (if not always carried out of Marx. It is also his teaching that the ideology of
in practice) called for rigorous interpretation, and any society becomes comprehensible only in light of
at the same time, it seemed to me that the solution the concrete relations which the men of this society
to these problems should be simpler than the un- maintain among themselves and with the world in
necessary complications Granet got entangled in as which they live and work. Marx, to whom we owe
he tried to explain them. the distinction between infrastructures and super-
There seems to be nothing more arbitrary than structures, concerned himself mainly with the for-
those rules that prescribe or forbid marriage between mer and at best only outlined the manner in which
this or that mating type from one society to another; the relations between them might be formulated. It
yet such rules exist everywhere. So they must possess is to this theory of superstructures, which Marx indi-
 41
cated rather than elaborated, that I am trying to result of having attended by chance a meeting of one
make a contribution. of Jakobson's seminars, I had become a somewhat
Q.- What role did you play in the clarification of naive convert to his method. That's not exactly true.
kinshipphenomena? During our years of exile in the United States,
L.-S.- Certainly not discovering their importance, Jakobson and I lived in close contact with one an-
since that was done by the American anthropologist other. We each attended the other's courses, we saw
Lewis Morgan, whose Systems of Consanguinity each other frequently, and we explored quite a few
and Affinity of the Human Family appeared in Chinese, Greek and Armenian restaurants together.
1871. Since then, instructional material published Q.- How does Marcel Mauss fit in here? You
for anthropologists and anthropological manuals yourself have stressed his great importance as a
have always stressed marriage rules and kinship sys- precursor.
tems. L.-S.- It's Mauss who pointed out the general role
Q.- Still, you further codified and systematized of exchange in the life of societies, a theme which I
what had remained very descriptive. have sought to use on the more technical level of
L.-S.- Instead of proposing a particular explanation marriage and kinship rules. But, as a latecomer to
for each type of rule, I looked for an interpretative anthropology, I knew very little about him and never
principle to integrate all of them. Each one would ap- attended his courses. Only through reading his work
pear as the enactment of the principle in terms of each did I come to realize how much anthropology, and
group's organization. Exchange appears to be the prin- I personally, were indebted to him.
ciple I was looking for: if I refuse to marry my Then too, perhaps on a practical level and
daughter or my sister because of the incest taboo, through my own error, I gained less from his in-
which is observed everywhere though in differing de- direct influence. While I was preparing my principal
grees, this means that I relinquish them to other expeditions in Brazil, the Museum of Man in Paris
groups. In exchange for this renunciation, some was in its formative stage, and Mauss had instilled
groups (and not necessarily the same ones) will re- it with a truly mystical reverence for the cultural
serve their daughters or sisters as possible mates for object. Not without reason, for he thought that if
me. This exchange, which involves families, or even one knew how to read it properly, the smallest object
larger groups-what we call clans or lineages-can might reflect in a microcosm the entire material and
occur between groups of two or more. It can be moral economy of a society. In the field, intimidated
reciprocal if you give to and receive from the same by the rules that had been laid down for me, I spent
group, or indirect if each group gives to another and much time collecting, studying and describing ob-
receives from a third. Finally, it can take place dur- jects and their production techniques, time which I
ing long or short cycles, since there are societies with now regret having taken away from studying beliefs
immediate, medium and long term exchange patterns. and institutions.
The analysis of these various logical possibilities en- Q.- Have you drawn from your research any im-
ables us to account through deduction for all the plications concerning kinship ties in our society?
bizarre rules I spoke about before which then turn L.-S.- In the majority of non-literate societies, we
out to be rational. are dealing with sufficiently or well-determined sys-
Q.- How so? tems. It isn't the same in our society where, subject
L.-S.- If group A constantly gives to group B, to the restrictions against marriage between close
which gives to group C, which gives to D, etc., which relations, all unions are proper. In other words, our
gives to group n which in turn gives to A, a very society falls back on a statistical game in order to
simple simulation of such a system shows that the insure the intermixing of biological families without
ideal mate for a man will always be his mother's which the social body would risk dismemberment.
brother's daughter. But if the direction of these But this isn't to say that the preliminary forms of
exchanges is reversed for each successive generation, systems don't tend to take shape without our knowl-
then the father's sister's daughter will represent the edge, at least in those rural or urban sectors where
preferable ideal mate, since in this case each group demographers uncover a certain coefficient of en-
will receive from the one owing it a wife a woman in dogamy. After the publication of The Elementary
compensation for the one it will have given up in Structures of Kinship I hoped to encourage research
the preceding generation. You could clear up other in this direction. I soon gave up those plans.
cases through these reconstruction techniques, but Q.- For what reasons?
I would add that this method has not been unan- L.-S.- Because the problems quickly become so
imously accepted. very complicated that the anthropologist gives up
Q.- You also used linguistics in constructing your any hope of resolving them with his small craft-like
method? techniques. One would have to draw on the help of
L.-S.- I took my inspiration from linguistics, but computers, attacking the intermediate systems first,
since it concerns a very different field of inquiry, I which do exist by the way in non-literate societies,
was constantly adapting and modifying its ideas in between the well-determined systems and the prob-
an extremely free manner. My encounter with Ro- abilistic systems in force in our enormous modern
man Jakobson, in 1941, showed me that what I was societies which will always defy analysis. You can
trying to do in the field of kinship had been done the more easily accept this fact since it is quite un-
successfully by linguists in their own field. I learned likely that these latter systems have any operative
much from that and especially gained encourage- value for insuring social cohesion. This cohesion is
ment along similar lines of my own. obtained by other means.
Once, it was rumored in L'Express that, as a Then again, I was appointed in 1950 to a

dicacritics/Fall 1971
 Chair, at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, for the com- ground, and in the other, dark spots on a bright
parative study of religions of non-literate peoples. background.To account for inverted celestial con-
So it was normal that my interestswould take a new figurationsthen, you tell the same story, but pre-
direction and that I would try to extend to religious sented with either the "inside" or the "outside"
matters the same procedures which had proved to showing.
be fruitful in the study of kinship. Thus, where once there appeared to be two
Q.- How did you go about it? totally distinct myths, there is now only one as a
L.-S.- The initial situation in both cases isn't very result of such an analysis. In this way you continue
different. Primitive religions present themselves as a gradual approachand instead of finding a host of
an enormous reservoir of representations,which fit insignificantand disordereddetails scattered before
together in various combinations,under the guise of the inquiring mind, you end up with fewer, but
rituals and myths that at first seem totally arbitrary. denser, more voluminous objects, each consistent
We are confrontedwith what seems like an immense within itself.
confusion of customs and beliefs. The question is Q.- Could you give us other examplesof myths?
how to know whether within it all there exists any- L.-S.- The Salish-speakingpeoples who inhabited
thing resembling an order or a coherence. Starting North America between the Rocky Mountains and
with the myths of central Brazil where I had lived the Pacific Ocean near the fiftiethparalleloften speak
and which I had studied, I thought I perceived that in their myths of a deceitful genie who, whenever a
although each myth taken by itself looked like a problem puzzles him, excretes his two sisters im-
bizarre account devoid of all logic, the relations prisoned in his bowels, whereuponhe demands their
between these myths were simpler and more intel- advice by threateningthem with a torrential down-
ligible than the stories each one told. But, while pour: they, being excrement,would disintegrate.The
philosophic or scientific thought reasons by combin- tale seems like a clownish farce without any basis,
ing and opposing concepts, mythical thought pro- defying all interpretationexcept, some would argue,
ceeds by means of images drawn from the tangible through psychoanalysis. But this wouldn't get you
world. Instead of formulating relationships in the very far for the simple reason that the storytellers'
abstract,it sets one element against another,sky and individualpsychic constitutionsare not a causal fac-
earth, earth and water, man and woman, light and tor. Rather, an anonymoustraditionhas thrust these
darkness,raw and cooked, fresh and rotten ... In this stories upon them.
way mythical thought elaborates a logic of percep- As in the previous instance, one may well ask
tible qualities which it chooses and combines in himself if the apparentabsurdityof the motif is not
order to transmit a different message through each a result of our having arbitrarilyisolated it from
myth. a much larger ensemble in which it would represent
Q.- What particularly striking myths have you one possible combinationamong others produced as
studied? well, so that there would be no meaning to each one
L.-S.- When the fourth and final volume of my taken alone, but only in its relation to the others.
work on American mythology appears in a few Now, in Salish myths, the same genie creates for
months, close to a thousand myths will have been himself two adoptive daughters,out of raw salmon
enumerated, forming together what I think is a roe. When they'refully grown, he desiresthem. Test-
unique and coherent treatise. There's no reason to ing his position, he pretendsto call them by mistake
go over the same ground again, but here's an ex- "my wives" instead of "my daughters." They
ample: that two incestuous lovers can succeed in promptlytake offense and leave.
uniting only in death where their two bodies will be Finally, the Salish tell of a third pair of super-
dissolved into a single being is a story we are quite natural women. These women are married and are
prepared to accept because our own tradition, the incapable of expressing themselves in articulate
Tristan and Iseult story and Wagner's opera, has speech. They live at the bottom of naturalwells and,
made us familiar with it. It would not be the same upon request, send up dishes of hot, well-cooked
for another story, just as familiar in North America, food to the surface.
where at the instant of their birth, a grandmother These three motifs cannot be understoodapart
sticks a brother and sister together, thus molding a from one another.On the other hand, once you com-
single child. When this child reaches maturity, he pare them, you notice their common origin. All the
shoots an arrow straight overhead, which, falling women are related to water: either, as in the case
back upon him, splits him in two and reconstitutes of the well women, to stagnantwater, or to running
the duality of brother and sister who then promptly water for the two other pairs.
become incestuous lovers. As you might say, there's The latter are distinct from one another in
neither head nor tail to this second story. that the salmon-roedaughterscome from a positive,
Still, you only need compare the two accounts earthly source of water-salmon streams-and the
to ascertain that this latter one simply turns the excrement-sistersare threatenedwith destructionby
Tristan story on its head. Are we not dealing with a negative, heavenly source of water-the disinte-
the same myth in both instances, which different gratingrain. That's not all: the salmon-roedaughters
populations present in symmetrical readings? You and excrement-sistersare the products of either raw
can rest assured of it if you take a further step to (in the first case) or cooked (in the other) food,
observe that the first account explains the origin of while the well-women are themselves producers of
a constellation (into which the incestuous lovers are cooked food. Further,the well-women,if you permit
transformed),and the second accounts for sunspots: me, are "marrying-types"as wives and good cooks.
in one case you have bright spots on a dark back- The other two pairs are "non-marrying types,"
whether because they are labeled as sisters or be- day, or once existed on the surface of the earth,
cause they avoid incestuous marriage with their fos- constitute so many complete experiments, the only
ter father. Finally two pairs of women are endowed ones we can make use of to formulate and test our
linguistically: one for their wise counsel, the other hypotheses, since we can't very well construct or re-
because they catch on to a half-spoken, improper peat them in the laboratory as physical and natural
hint. In this way they contrast with the third pair, scientists do. These experiments, represented by so-
the well-women, who cannot speak. cieties unlike our own, described and analysed by
Thus from three meaningless anecdotes you ex- anthropologists, provide one of the surest ways to
tract a system of pertinent oppositions: water, stag- understand what happens in the human mind and
nant or moving, from the earth or sky; women cre- how it operates. That's what anthropology is good
ated from food or producing it themselves, raw or for in the most general way and what we can expect
cooked food: women accessible or opposed to mar- from it in the long run.
riage depending upon linguistic or non-linguistic Q.- And more immediately?
behavior. You arrive at what I'd call a "semantic L.-S.- Even in our historical societies there exist
field" which can be applied like a grill to all the small pockets of phenomena where things more or
myths of these populations, enabling us to disclose less function as they do in non-literate societies;
their meaning. consequently the same methods can be applied to
Q.- Namely? them. Such is the case for certain aspects of local
L.-S.- You realize that the Salish myths compose a life. For four years now, one of my laboratory's re-
vast sociological, economical and cosmological sys- search teams has been conducting a field study of a
tem establishing numerous correspondences between village in Northern Burgundy. I would extend this
the distribution of fish in the water network, the research to include certain areas, such as art, fashion,
various markets where goods are exchanged, their eating habits, where factors of conservation, creation
periodicity in time and during the fishing season, and and evolution are not completely geared to the con-
finally exogamy: for, between groups, women are scious demands of collective life. Due to their rela-
exchanged like foodstuffs. tive independence, these narrowly defined areas can
The enjoyment of a diversified diet functions bring into view, like an enlarging mirror, some sig-
in myths as a sign of how open each small society is nificant and profound aspects of our culture.
to the outside world, an indication of the degree to Finally, and this alone would suffice to justify
which these various societies are willing to engage its role, anthropology may well inspire us with a cer-
in marital exchanges, and thus to communicate with tain humility and instill in us some wisdom. Anthro-
one another. pologists are trying to point out that ours is not the
Q.- Can one say then that myths shift with the only possible way to live, and that other ways have
technical and economic level of societies? In what allowed and still allow groups of men to find happi-
way? ness. Anthropology invites us to temper our pride,
L.-S.- The myths I just referred to are the same to respect other life styles and do as Rousseau did
ones which in South America serve to account for when faced with surprising, shocking or repulsive
the passage from nature to culture, symbolized by practices: he preferred to believe from recent de-
the acquisition of cooking fires, to man's benefit. But scriptions that gorillas were men rather than risk
in these North American populations, which engaged refusing the attribute of humanity to what might
widely in intertribal exchanges, mythic imagery ac- have been only one more aspect of humanity pre-
centuates that aspect which, to them, constitutes the viously unknown.
distinctive trait of civilized life. Accession to culture I would add that the societies studied by an-
is no longer indicated by the simple art of cooking thropologists provide instructions which are that
meat, but by the founding of commerce, giving this much more worth heeding if you consider that these
term a social and economic sense. The rich and societies have succeeded in striking a balance be-
varied design of what we would call the housekeep- tween man and his natural environment, a balance
er's breadbasket takes the place, as it did for us whose purpose and secret are lost to us.
scarcely a century ago, of a simple call to prayer in Q.- But how can this balance be recaptured if our
thanks for our daily bread. world is moving towards something completely dif-
Q.- You once made a study of the Santa Claus ferent from what you are studying?
myth. L.-S.- Our world may be headed for a cataclysm
L.-S.- You're very generous to call it that. It was or an atomic war that will exterminate three fourths
a very superficial text on a recent mythology in our of the human race. If this happens, the remaining
society. But, to be precise, I endeavored to show that fourth probably won't find living conditions much
Christmas is a tender, almost nostalgic example of different from those of the societies we're studying.
an unrealistic mode of social life. The constraints But even barring this hypothesis, one may wonder
on exchange are lifted and the children become whether societies that continue to expand enormous-
symbolic of a humanity permitted to receive with- ly and look more and more alike do not re-create
out giving anything in return. within themselves differences along axes other than
Q.- All your work involves extinct societies or those of their similarities. The various hippie move-
those on the road to extinction. Listening to you ments, our generation gap, the sexual revolution
now, we would like to ask what practical use they might indicate that this is the way things are evolv-
can be for us today. ing. After all, at the same time that India was piec-
L.-S.- Your question suggests several possible an- ing together a sub-continental civilization it broke up
swers. First, the thousands of societies that exist to- into a caste system.

dicrfitiCS/Fall 1971
Q.- In your opinion, what role would or could the man feelings-which no longer have any significant
mass media play in this diversification? value apart from the rudimentary facts they pro-
L.-S.- It seems to me there is too much attention vide us about our organic integrity-become di-
given to their leveling effect without considering vorced from abstract thought, wherein lies all our
their part in enabling social groups or entire genera- hopes for intelligibility. This schism is light years
tions to create very quickly their own sub-culture. away from the world of our so-called "primitives"
Whereas a traditional culture filters slowly from one for whom each color, each texture, each fragrance,
generation to the next within the family unit, each each flavor is meaningful.
new generation has instantly at its disposal through Q.- But what about art?
the news media, records and television, a wide array L.-S.- I have nothing against art, but all the same,
of elements to choose from and arrange in original it's a pretty dull and narrow affair compared with a
combinations, thus distinguishing itself from the world-view in which all of nature spoke to man.
older generation. Q.- Should we take it that you oppose scientific
Q.- Is it possible to foresee the day when anthro- knowledge?
pology will succeed in renewing our knowledge of L.-S.- By no means! Clearly, science represents a
man, making it more open, more "human"? type of knowledge with absolute priority over all
L.-S.-I'd be extremely gratified if it were so, but others, and I myself take great pains to work sci-
I dare not hope! entifically. But at the same time I can't help think-
Q.- But what if you could? ing that science would be more appealing if it had
L.-S.- Auguste Comte had formulated a law of no practical use. In what we call progress, 90 per
three states. According to the law, humanity had cent of our efforts go into finding a cure for the
passed through successive stages: religious, philo- harms linked to the advantages brought about by the
sophical, and positive or scientific. Anthropology remaining 10 per cent.
may teach us something similar, despite the fact that Q.- You maintain that history is purposeless.
the content and meaning of each conceivable state L.-S.- If it does have a purpose it is not a sound
may differ from what Comte himself imagined. one; the way in which mankind shapes its history
We now know that people considered very is not the one best suited to insuring its own happi-
primitive, having no knowledge of agriculture or ness.
animal husbandry, weaving or pottery, people who Q.- What might mankind do to find happiness?
live by food-gathering and foraging are not gripped L.-S.- Once I was speaking to an eminent colleague
all day long by the fear of starvation, nor by the in geography of a period in France's not so distant
problem of survival in a hostile environment. Their past when her population was 25 million. He stopped
small complement of men and their prodigious me and said, "That's a luxury we can't permit our-
knowledge of natural resources provide them with selves anymore." The finality of his remark struck
something less than an abundant food supply from me. Indeed, it was an extraordinary luxury, for the
our point of view. But, be that as it may, three or only real problem facing civilization today is the
four hours of work per day are enough to provide population explosion which theoreticians of the past
each family with its subsistance. So it would be wrong 50 years neither forecast nor even envisaged. It's
to believe that the physical world and the natural the source of all the rest of our troubles. Michel
environment have a direct hold on them. Much to Debre was surely correct when he told L'Express re-
the contrary, their freedom and independence allow cently that it would be absurd to want less French-
them to devote a large part of their lives to imagina- men because there are already too many Chinese
tion, putting between themselves and the outside and Indians. Still, it is no less true that, if the world's
world all sorts of small buffers made of beliefs and population continues at its present rate of growth,
dreams. none of us will want to be in our great-grandchil-
Let's suppose that the human race lived in a dren's shoes. But it is wishful thinking to imagine
comparable way for hundreds of millenia. We might that the nations of the world, inspired by supreme
then say that it only slowly emerged from such a wisdom, will one day know how to work together
state by steadily linking itself up with reality. More- to limit their respective populations, and use the
over this link-up was still occurring indirectly, in the technical advances they've already achieved to do no
period that Marx describes, through "relays" in which more than provide an average but adequate standard
ideology still played an important role. The means of living for everyone. Gobineau had already toyed
of production and exchange, already determinant with the idea of such a utopia, only to realize at
factors, were still man's creation, the expression of once that it was impracticable.
his history midpoint between necessity and freedom. Q.- What you're saying sounds quite "reactionary."
The world we step into today is something else en- L.-S.- The words "reactionary" and "revolutionary"
tirely-a world where humanity runs up against pro- have meaning only in terms of conflicts which pit
gressively more abrupt and harsh determinants, the one group of men against another. Today, however,
results of enormous populations and limited quanti- the great peril to mankind does not stem from the
ties of open space, fresh air, and unpolluted water actions of any one regime, party, group or class.
available to satisfy its biological and psychic needs. Rather, it is the family of man itself which poses
Q.-Is achieving this third phase linked to scientific that threat, exposed as its own worst enemy and at
progress? the same time, alas, as the worst enemy of the rest
L.-S.- Materially, it is of course; but spiritually as of creation. If there is to be hope of saving mankind,
well. With the appearance of science and the un- mankind must first be convinced of this.
challenged supremacy of scientific knowledge, hu- (Translated by Peter B. Kussell)