Claude Levi-Strauss
Claude Levi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theory of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982 and was elected a member of the Académie française in 1973. He received numerous honors from universities and institutions throughout the world and has been called, alongside James George Frazer and Franz Boas, the "father of modern anthropology"...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 November 1908
CountryFrance
I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.
Natural man did not precede society, nor is he outside it.
Civilization has ceased to be that delicate flower which was preserved and painstakingly cultivated in one or two sheltered areas of a soil rich in wild species ... Mankind has opted for monoculture; it is in the process of creating a mass civilization, as beetroot is grown in the mass. Henceforth, man's daily bill of fare will consist only of this one item.
Since music is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man.
Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor anyone in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe.
The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him.
Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.
The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.
The world began without man, and it will end without him.
Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.
The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.
Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor any one in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe.
These facts make the creator of music a being like the gods, and make music itself the supreme mystery of human knowledge.
I think that a society cannot live without a certain number of irrational beliefs. They are protected from criticism and analysis because they are irrational.