Lévi-Strauss révolutionnaire : Pour une critique structuraliste

Abstract

Abstract French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss kept his distance from the May ’68 events, saying twenty years later that they had “disgusted” him. Why such a rejection, coming from a former socialist? Rather than the jaded dismissal of an old reactionary, Lévi-Strauss’ reaction to May ’68 is better explained by the very tenets of structural anthropology, which rather than shying away from Marxism pushes its postulates further in an attempt to formulate a critical theory that is truly revolutionary. Instead of rehashing well-worn concepts, structuralism draws on Buddhism and indigenous worldviews to lay forth a non-dual, non-anthropocentric system of thought. Instead of glorifying man and its endlessly subjugating desires, Lévi-Strauss strives to replace the human in the broader network of interconnections of which we are but a link among others. Through works that are theoretical as much as practical, his brand of structuralism offers a pioneering way of comprehending reality which is time grounded in solid epistemological foundations. At a time when it is urgent to depart from the self-centeredness of which May ’68 was, after all, a symptomatic manifestation, a structuralist approach is more necessary, and more revolutionary, than ever.