PANDEMIC DIARY

AT THE BORDER OF EACH TRIBE

Claude Levi-Strauss

July 26, 2020

Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009) was a French social anthropologist credited as founder of “Structuralism”, and the development of “structural anthropology” or the study and analysis of cultural systems. His ideas were prescient at the time of his writings and still profoundly influential. What I particularly admire about Levi-Strauss is the contrast between his weighty insights and visionary foresight as contrasted with his simplicity of elocution of complex ideas.

“There cannot be a world civilization since civilization implies coexistence of cultures offering among themselves maximum diversity.”

Doesn’t he make the fatal…fascinating? Coexistence is the precise opposite scenario as exists today.
Want to continue down this rabbit hole with me…?"

Levi-Strauss asserts that, for the majority of the human species, and for tens of thousands of years…the idea that humanity includes every human being on earth never existed, does not exist at all…and that the designation (of a group) stops at the border of each tribe, linguistic group or sometimes even at the edge of the village.S

Some years back, Adele and I took the car and headed to “The Crooked Road” (TCR) in western Virginia. Between May and September, all along TCR are locales - barns, general stores, churches, Town Halls, and barber shops where local groups of fiddlers, violinists and singers gather to play Hillbilly, Blue Grass, and ‘Ol Time Music (as distinct from Country Music). This is authentic mountain and valley music played with extraordinary skill and utmost joy by young and old alike. The journey down and around TCR takes you through the backwaters and ‘hollers’ of the countryside. A ‘holler’ is a vernacular word for ‘hollow’. A hollow describes a depression, something dimpled or carved out.

This is Hattfield’s and McCoy’s country. Gorgeous rolling hills that dip deeply from pine hillocks down into teeming tributaries and stream, then curl around embracing the shack, the farm, the herd, and the garden all nestled in Mother Nature’s arms. This is heaven - a slice of salvation burrowed here on Earth. All that one sees is one’s own. Each cutout is a family settlement. No surveyor needed. No fence or posts or markers. The holler is defined by nature’s boundaries. The ‘crick’ to the South; the ridge to the East where the sun comes up; halfway into them woods to the West; and, twenty paces yonder behind the wood shed and on past papa’s tombstone to the North. Some folk have been born, gone to school, got married, had children and died in that there holler. That was their world. In fact, while staying at a Bed & Breakfast, I read passages from a book where it stated that the people of the western part of Virginia were the most undisturbed, original, and last indigenous folk in the whole of the United States, so isolated and, also protective of their perceived treasure were they.

Make no mistake, that cuddled land was a living thing - fresh running water, tall timber forest, food from squirrels and snakes and fresh water fish, and above all, privacy. The outside world did not exist. And, that’s the way they wanted it. You might as well have lived a continent away from those on the other side of the hill. Sometimes those folk were friends; sometimes not. Sometimes the ladies would help giving birth; sometimes the families would fight over marriages. Battles were more frequently than not about boundaries. But, when the greater area was threatened, there was no greater union. Families who fought and opposed one another became quick allies in an effort to repel any intimidation and peril.

Western Virginia is a mere microcosm of what Levi-Strauss is talking about. There is a limited capacity of population that can effectively be communicated to with the ability to maintain community unity, adherence and competence. After that, representatives are needed to reach far afield. At this point the system begins to break down. Your identity attaches to other small group and you have lost commonness with your origins.

Adding to the complexity of this social reality is the advent of the internet and social media. Levi-
Strauss was concerned in the 1950’s: “It is only through difference that progress can be made. What threatens us right now is probably what we may call over-communication--that is, the tendency to know exactly in one point of the world what is going on in all other parts of the world. In order for a culture to be really itself and to produce something, the culture and its members must be convinced of their originality and even, to some extent, of their superiority over the others; it is only under conditions of under-communication that it can produce anything. We are now threatened with the prospect of our being only consumers, able to consume anything from any point in the world and from any culture, but of losing all originality.”

Yvon Chouinard agrees, "The reason why we won't face up to our problems…is that we are the problem. It's not the corporations out there, it's not the governments, it's us. We're the ones telling the corporations to make more stuff, and make it as cheap and as disposable as possible. We're not citizens anymore. We're consumers. That's what we're called. It's just like being an alcoholic and being in denial that you're an alcoholic. We're in denial that each and every one of us is the problem. And until we face up to that, nothing's going to happen.”

So, is this a contradiction or do these somewhat contrary ideas meld into a unified theory? On the one hand, Levi-Strauss seems to say that humans are incapable of a worldwide, consolidated vision of humanity; and, on the other hand, he appears to be claiming that humanity is defined by differences necessary for progress. I think rather than thinking the theory flawed, he seems to be laying claim, 70 years ago, to what is happening in front of our eyes now. Americans believe in their exceptionalism and near infallibility. Our culture is more exclusionary that ever before. Cultural differences rather than being accepted and admired are viewed as threats to a prevailing dominant culture. Americans are more openly and blatantly racist and nationalistic in their claims to rights and privilege than ever before. Our consumerism makes us like those we despise. We want more, better, cheaper, faster and all without concern with how we get it or at what price to our fellow man. In this sense, we are not free. Worse, we give those with power the ability to suggest they are serving our needs while enriching themselves.

“Freedom comes at a cost. The cost of freedom is the willingness to think less of yourself and more for others.” David Roth

"There is a beginning and end to all life – and to all human endeavors. Species evolve and die off. Empires rise, then break apart. Businesses grow, then fold. There are no exceptions. I’m OK with all that. Yet it pains me to bear witness to the sixth great extinction, where we humans are directly responsible for the extirpation of so many wonderful creatures and invaluable indigenous cultures. It saddens me to observe the plight of our own species; we appear to be incapable of solving our problems."
Yvon Chouinard