Rigor Mortis in Levi Strauss

1483 Words3 Pages

The incest taboo has long proved a problem for social scientists, and it is no different for Levi-Strauss. In numerous articles, Levi-Strauss attempts to reconcile nature and culture in the prohibition against incest. Although he does this effectively, and his conclusion seems valid, the way that he arrives at it opens his work, structuralism, and social science in general up to larger critiques. The critique of social science is not about the conclusions reached but about the seeming inability of the social scientist to overcome or even put through a rigorous and thorough examination the concepts inherent in their work. Before Levi-Strauss, there were three primary theories put forward to explain the incest. Some, like Westermarck and Ellis, believed that the prohibition derived from an instinctive horror of familial sex inherent in a person's psychology. Others argued that the prohibition was the result of an elementary understanding of eugenics, making people vaguely aware of the potential genetic problems of inbreeding. The third explanation is the closest to what Levi-Strauss eventually arrives at, advanced by Durkheim. He believed that intimate relationships with blood relatives were prohibited because of the connection between blood and the substantiality of the tribal or personal totem. A man engaged in sexual acts with a woman who shares his blood would be in danger of coming into direct physical contact with his own blood, the `substantial expression of his kinship with his totem' (p.20). ) These three approaches have basic defects. Westermarck and Ellis erred in believing that the universality of the incest prohibition was based on an equally universal sentiment (p.17). This sentiment is a variation of the phrase... ... middle of paper ... ...pposition). To continue on in his own project Derrida must rigorously analyze something that is not an inherited assumption, but what seems to be inherent in human thought - the differential nature of the world. If one is really to discard structuralism, it seems imperative to find some way of proving that not only is binary opposition a faulty way of thinking, it is also not necessary to thought. The basic problem of Levi-Strauss is his unquestioning acceptance of the usefulness of inherited perceptions, even when they have proven false. His is the example of a person who relies on an old center to calm anxiety when he sees an aberration. Derrida instead throws out the idea of the center, and challenges everyone to inflict his or her own consciousness on the unconscious structure that Levi-Strauss believes pre-determines all behavior- the structure of opposition.

Open Document