I have always believed it was inappropriate to refer to other people as being “savage” because they don’t act or live exactly as we do in civilized society.

However, I never considered the idea that one or a few sociologists might responsible for creating my world view.

It’s got me thinking about how where some of my thoughts about this originally came from.

Harvard Review of Latin America volume VIII, Number 3,
spring 2009

Charles Darwin and Fuegians
by Theodore Macdonald

page 21

Darwin writes,” I could not have believed how wide was the difference between savages and civilized men.”

100 years ago the Fuegians were hunted by the whites and disappeared…

On the concept of the imaginative indulgence producing results of great value, it’s been noted that mathematics was produced by “ciilized” peoples but the aborigial have contributed MUCH more than “mythology” Consider the hyjacked knowledge of the world’s botanical phamacopia which produced the practical result of creating one of the richest industryies in the world.

I had to chuckle just now at the comment by the Native American woman who called and said she had been told to “Go back where you came from!”

Some years ago I saw a Native American comedian on the Leno Show. He said he had gotten into a verbal altercation with an Anglo who told him, “Why don’t you just go back where you came from?” Comedian said, “So I did. I found out where he lived and set up a tipi in his back yard.”

j

First break @ the 38 min mark? What’s going on with that?

Can someone be born a structuralist?

My son, since his earliest years (he is 18 now) was always interested in science, mathematics and linguistics – not for the language, the tone, the words themselves, but in the structure of language. At 12 he learned C++ to create an Elvish (the language of Lord of the Rings, a series of books that he ravashed by age 12, as well as other Tolkein works), just to create an Elvish to English word and phrase translater. He has excelled in physics, calc and stats. He is at UMASS now as a freshman receiving straight A’s in Physics, Calculus 3 and an elective, Linguistic Anthropolgy. He has even always eaten his meals, one food type at a time. His views on cold and hot civilizations are similar. Again I ask, can you be born a structuralist?

The world’s history has always been the destructive versus the creative forces. Is it just a long struggle? I don’t believe there is anything called progress, just different faces of people and civilization and the rehashing of things old with new colors. We create different-looking playing fields with what amounts to the same players with the same emotions and desires. There truly is nothing new under the sun.
I agree with the person who commented that much of the world’s “modern” knowledge of things was stolen from “primitive” people. That is an old story, too. The question of whether we will be able to destroy ourselves is not up to us–ironically. We will do what we do and struggle the way we struggle. The One who ultimately made the universe will know when to call it a quits and do something new

Great discussion helping us understand some of the roots of beliefs and assumptions, ours as well as others. Anyway you could have Professors Yalman and Joyce on the show again for further discussion?

Thanks for the show.

Listen to the man lecture.

Levi-Strauss Lecture: The Birth of Historical Societies (Hitchcock Lectures), 3 and 4 October, 1984, UC Berkeley (audio file)

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/VideoTest/levi.ram

I believe the guest, Nur Yalman, mentioned a book which provided an encompassing look at structuralism, starting in mathematics, physics and moving on elsewhere. Did anyone catch the name of the book and the author? Was it just “Structuralism?”

Piaget’s “Structuralism”.

Though there are probably better intro texts to turn to (ones published by Routledge, Oxford, Blackwell).

Hello: I sincerely am thankful for the guests you had on this important program relating to an larger then life man who question the world that white people were at the top of the scale of human beings and all the others followed down. I am an individual who has advanced degrees and has taught at different Universities here in the USA and as worked with native people all over the world from the Canadian Arctic Inuit to the Australian Aboriginal. I have also tried in my way to bring cultures together by teaching along with getting information out to Native peoples throughout the world. If you were to check the magazine Cultural Survival and this years May June issue concerning the great South Pacific Arts Festival that occurs once every four years at one of 27 Island countries in the Pacific you will find my name credited with assisting in this issue the magazine the Dr. Bayberry Louis started. I have been the this last one plus 6 before and will continue as long as I can to attend this great gathering of native peoples. While at this gathering I have for the last two organized a live one hour plus via Native American Radio 57 stations in North America and the people at this gathering. I expect to be doing that as long as I am able since this is one way of bringing native peoples together.
I would like to get a radio copy of this important program so that I can make sure native people who I visit can hear what occurred. I will not make a copy of this program for anyone yet as I say I really believe that this was a program an emence importance. Sincerely, David Kahn

Thanks for the show; although, within an hour? Not enough time to really delve into this man’s work.

On structuralism: I think we humans are wired to recognize, create, seek out and interpret patterns.

It is interesting to see how the concept of structuralism spread, originating in linguistics, moving into anthropology, then extending out into psychology, literary theories (based on earlier linguistic views of structure), even architecture, and on into an array of socio-cultural studies. Then came post-structuralism and deconstruction that has followed as a reaction to the deterministic components of structuralism…the nature vs. nurture argument has and invariably will always eventually permeate any theory/method of interpretation. Then, at some point, fortunately, many who are experts in their field, and who are interested in practical application, inevitably come to the conclusion that both can exist or one does not necessarily exist at the exclusion of the other.

I always found anthropology very interesting, how one culture can see another as savages, yet have equally savage normals in there own.

I never heard of Claude Levi-Strauss today but i enjoyed the show and will try and learn more about him.

Is most his work in French? or translated into English?

Maybe i missed it.

Thanks for the show

Michael – All his works are translated into English.

Intro texts:

http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Companion-L%C3%A9vi-Strauss/dp/0521608678

“Claude Lévi-Strauss is one of the major thinkers of the modern age. Regarded as a crucial figure in the development of structuralism, his writings are studied across a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, philosophy and literary studies. The Cambridge Companion to Lévi-Strauss presents a major reassessment of his work and influence. The fifteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume engage with the controversies that have surrounded his ideas, and they probe the concealed influences and clichés that have obscured a true understanding of his work. The contributors are experts drawn from a number of fields, demonstrating the durability and importance of Lévi-Strauss’s work in the academy. Written for students and researchers alike, these incisive, jargon-free essays will be essential reading for anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important thinker.”

http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Meaning-Routledge-Classics-L%C3%A9vi-Strauss/dp/0415253942

“In addresses written for a wide general audience, one of the twentieth century’s most prominent thinkers, Claude Lévi-Strauss, here offers the insights of a lifetime on the crucial questions of human existence. Responding to questions as varied as ‘Can there be meaning in chaos?’, ‘What can science learn from myth?’ and ‘What is structuralism?’, Lévi-Strauss presents, in clear, precise language, essential guidance for those who want to learn more about the potential of the human mind.”

http://www.amazon.com/Structuralism-Since-Levi-Strauss-Derrida-Books/dp/0192891057

Structuralism and Since: From Levi-Strauss to Derrida (Opus Books) (Paperback)
~ John Sturrock (Editor)

Brett – Both nature and nuture exist. There is no other possibility. Problem solved.

EC,
Yes, there is no problem! So we are in agreement. It is not nature vs. nurture, only nature and nurture. I hope you saw that is what I was saying.

Whenever a new concept hits the scene, at some point, that tired argument rears its head all over again, which is what I was talking about. It still gets debated in psychology and it still gets debated in post-structuralism and deconstruction.

Brett – No doubt, it gets debated all over the place (cognitive science, philosophy, consciousness studies, neuroscience, physics, etc). Yet, I see it as only debating the degree to which nature or nurture, determinism or free-will, rule our lives. New discoveries and theories keep chipping away at the nature, free-will, choice side. Nonetheless, I cannot succeed all the entire battlefield to them.

[...] They were talking about Levi Strauss last night on “On Point”. I think I should listen to it soon because I missed the first part. http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/11/claude-levi-strauss [...]

These guests weren’t very illuminating as to what Claude Levi-Strauss actually did. They seem better at making the simple complex than the complex understandable.

One question for the guests: If these other cultures are equally complex, where are their anthropologists looking back and studying us?

[...] Yalman and Joyce: on the legacy of social anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, WBUR On Point Radio. [...]