interview lévi-strauss 1988 eribon

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Lévi-Strauss Interviewed, Part 1

Author(s): Didier EribonReviewed work(s):Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 4, No. 5 (Oct., 1988), pp. 5-8Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland

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of Romanianshave been moved into the Szekler capital

Tirgu Mures (Marosvah6ly in Hungarian)in order to

change it into a Romanian town. Similar efforts are

being made to transform he Transylvanian apital Cluj

(Kolozsvar), where Hungariansnow account for only

one-third of the population. Even non-Romanian geo-

graphicalandpersonal names arenow forbidden.

A forced ideological industrialization rogramme,an-

nounced to the world by Ceausescu in a speech on 3

March,which replaces villages with industrial ocieties

in miniature, s one of the weapons used to assist in the

assimilation of national ethnic minorities. When vil-lages are destroyed, an area loses its local characteris-

tics, since the concrete tower blocks which replace

them can be found anywhere, and the inhabitantsare

not necessarilyrehoused n the same area. Communities

are sometimes dispersed. Thus architecture also

becomes a political weapon since, as Gavin Stamp

points out, it is easier to control an urbanized semi-

proletariativing in flats; the peasants are cut off from

theirhomes and from the land.

In the springof last year, Romaniapublicly attached

Hungary or 're-establishingHorthy'sfascist and chau-

vinistic thesis'. The reference was to A History of

Transylvaniain three volumes, which had just been

published.ZoltanSzasz, one of the co-editors,believes

the criticismwas an attempt o raisenationalistic senti-ment and to divertattentionfrom the economic decline

of Romania. Thus accordingto the latest information,

Kolozsvzar and Brasov, two large cities, are virtually

unlit at night, andtherewas a typhoid epidemic in Bra-

sov in Spring1987, due to the city's pollutedsewers.

The Hungarian authorities, for their part, have re-

sponded by breakingthe traditional silence regarding

the problemsof theirminorityin Romania. On 20 Au-

gust, the 950th anniversaryof the death of St Stephen,

founder of Hungary, Imre Pozsgay of the Hungarian

Politburo criticized Romanian policies as 'incom-

prehensible and idiotic' and 'a shame to socialism'.

Matyas Szuros, Secretaryof the CentralCommittee,has

denounced Romania's actions on Radio Budapest and

IsvanNemeskuirtywritesin Hungarian Quarterly: This

situation has become so distressingthat the Romanian

governmentmay sooner or later be accused of ... de-

liberate cultural genocide and forcible assimilation.'

The Hungarianauthoritieshave permitted and reported

public demonstrations uch as that which took place in

Budapeston 27 June 1988, which included a march to

the RomanianEmbassy. Ceausescurespondedby clos-

ing the HungarianConsulate n Cluj.

The conclusion of the InternationalHelsinki Feder-

ation for HumanRights ReportS.O.S. Transylvania s

thatthe Hungarianminority n Romania s the victim of

suppressionaimed at assimilation:The rights of the Hungarianminority n Romania,the most

numerous national minority in Europe, are assured notonly by the Helsinki Accords and the UN Conventions,but

also by the Romanianconstitution,bilateralagreementsbe-

tween Hungaryand Romania, and the Treaty of Paris after

the last World War. Because of this, the fate of the Hunga-

rians in Romaniais not simply a domesticRomanian mat-

ter.

TheEconomist, n a recent issue, points out that West

Germany, whose own ethnic minority in Romania is

badly affected, is the only westerncountryto have ob-

jected publicly.1 This is disgraceful. Anthropologists,

ethnologistsand folklorists must speak out if our gov-

ernments will not. The Economist believes that interna-

tional ridicule of Ceausescu, known for his vanity,

might have some effect in slowing down the process.

And Ceausescu is no longer young. Amnesty Interna-tional has found that its campaignsof letter-writingand

peacefuldemonstrationshave been effective in securing

the release of prisonersof conscience in many cases.

Meanwhile the destructioncontinues. In the last few

years 10,000 ethnicHungarianshave fled fromRoman-

ia to theirmotherland,he first time that one communist

country has accepted refugees on this scale from an-

other. LastyearHungarysigned a westernresolution on

minority rights at the Human Rights Conference in

Vienna. In the words of Laszl6 CardinalPaskai,Arch-

bishop of Esztergomand Primate of HungarianCatho-

lics: 'These villages are not just small settlements of

relatively few people. They also constitute an integral

part of a country.They are homes of unique national

values and of folk culture.'

VenetiaNewall

1. As we go to press, it

is reportedTimes,21

September)hat Britain

andthe USA have now

also protested o the

Romanian

Government. ditor.

Levi-Straussnterviewedby Didier Eribon - Part 1

We are pleased to publish

here two extracts inEnglishtranslation romDe Pres et de Loin (a

furthertwo extracts will bepublished in our December

issue), to mark the 80thbirthdayof Claude

Levi-Strausson 28November next. This is an

interview n bookformpreparedby Didier Eribon,

a journalist with LeNouvel Observateur,

publishedat 89F byEditionsOdile Jacob,

Paris, who have kindly

granted uspermissionto

D.E. Was your family very much involved with the

arts?C.L.-S. Yes, this was quite atavistic! My great-

grandfather, the father of my mother's father, was

called Isaac Strauss. Born in 1906 in Strasbourg, he

'made it' very young in Paris. He was a violinist and

had got together a little orchestra. He played a part in

making the music of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and

some others better known. In Paris, he worked with

Berlioz, who mentions him in his memoirs; and also

with Offenbach, for whom he wrote some of his fa-

mous quadrilles. We knew Offenbach by heart in my

family; his music lulled my whole childhood.

Straussbecame conductorfor court balls at the end

of the reign of Louis-Philippe.Then under Napoleon

III, organizerof the Casino at Vichy, which he ran for a

long time. Afterwards,he succeeded Musard in charge

of balls at the Op6ra.He was at the same time a sort ofCousin Pons, with a passion for antiques, in which he

traded.

D.E. Did your family keep any of them?

C.L.-S. There was a largecollection of Jewish antiq-

uities which is now in the Mus6e de Cluny. A number

of objects which passed through his hands were ac-

quired by benefactors who gave them to the Louvre.

Whateverremainedwas sold on his death or shared out

between his daughters.The remainder was looted by

the Germansduringthe Occupation.I still have a few

pieces of d6bris: such as the bracelet that Napoleon III

offered my great-grandmothero thank her for hospi-

tality at the Villa Strauss in Vichy. This Villa Strauss,

where the emperor stayed, still exists. It has become a

5

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baror a restaurant, don't rememberexactly, but it has

kept the name.

D.E. Was the memory of that past transmitted nto

family tradition?

C.L.-S. Certainly,for it was the family's most glori-

ous period: they were near the throne! My great-grand-

father used to visit Princesse Mathilde. My paternal

family lived amid memories of the Second Empire.

They also stayed close to it; as a child, I saw with my

own eyes EmpressEug6nie.

D.E. You have told me that your father was a

painter.C.L.-S. Yes, and two of my uncles as well. Prosper-

ous to startwith, my paternalgrandfatherdied a ruined

man. So that one of his sons - he had four boys and a

girl - had to work very hard to help his family.

My father was placed in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes

Commerciales.At the beginning of his active life, he

startedto work at the Stock Exchangein a humble ca-

pacity.There he got to know Kahnweiler[dealerfor the

leading cubists] and they became friends. As soon as he

could, he turned o paintingwhich he hadbeen passion-

ately fond of since childhood.

My father and my mother were first cousins. In

Bayonne [whereLevi-Strauss'smother was broughtup]

my mother's eldest sister marrieda painterwho had his

hourof celebrity,HenryCaro- Delvaille; anothersistermarrieda painter,GabrielRoby, who was Basque. For

him, life was even more difficult than for my father:his

health was fragile andhe died young.

Was it on account of their family relationshipor be-

cause of connections between paintersthat my parents

got to know each other?I don't know.

In any case, my motherwas living in Parisbefore her

marriage, or some of the time with the Caro-Delvaille

family. She learnt shorthand yping so as to become a

secretary.

D.E. Your father did not earn much money in his

careeras a painter.

C.L.-S. Less and less, as the tastes of the public

changed.

D.E. So your childhood was not thatof a son of the

Parisianbourgeoisie?

C.L.-S. It was, as regardsculture,for we lived in an

artistic milieu; my childhood was very rich intellec-

tually.But we contendedwith materialdifficulties.

D.E. Do you have precisememories of this?

C.L.-S. I remember he panics that could sometimes

arise when therewere no more commissions. Then my

father,who was a great handyman, nventedall sorts of

little crafts for himself. At one time, the householdem-

barkedon printing abrics.

We engravedlinoleum-blocks,we coated solids with

a paste that was spreadonto velvet so that multi-col-

oured metallic powders, scatteredon top of it, would

stick.D.E. And you took part n these activities?

C.L.-S. I even createdthe patterns!There was an-

otherperiodwhen my father made little tables in imita-

tion lacquerin the Chinese style. He also made lamps

with inexpensive Japanese prints stuck onto the glass.

Anything was all right so as to pay the monthly bills.

D.E. Have you kept some picturesby him?

C.L.-S. Few, because as a result of the plundering

that went on, my parents were left with nothing at the

end of the war;not even a bed...

D.E. You have spoken of the collection of Jewish

antiquitiesbuilt up by your great-grandfather. ad your

parentsmaintaineda religious commitment?

C.L.-S. My parents were complete unbelievers. But

my mother,the daughterof a rabbi, had grown up in a

differentatmosphere.

D.E. Did you know your grandfather, he rabbi?

C.L.-S. Very well. I lived in his house during the

first war. My mother and sisters had settled down there

with their childrenwhile their husbands were on active

service.

D.E. Apart from the short period when you lived

with your grandfather,you were brought up in a non-

religious atmosphere,but the Jewish traditionwas per-

haps present there in spite of everything?

C.L.-S. Not without hitches. My paternal grand-motherwas still a practisingJew. However, on that side

therelay dormanta touch of madness which showed it-

self sometimes tragically, sometimes comically. One

brotherof my father's, obsessed with biblical exegesis

and not quite right in the head, committedsuicide; that

was when I was three. Well before my birth, another

brotherof my father's had himself ordained as a priest

to take revenge on his parentsas a result of a quarrel.

For a time, the family counted among its number an

Abbe L6vi... I rememberhim much later, a junior em-

ployee of the gas company, always in his best bib and

tucker,with a blondcurled-upmoustache, smugly satis-

fied with his personand his condition.

On my mother'sside, my grandfatherhe rabbi was a

holy man of a self-effacing disposition, in whose houseone observedthe rites scrupulously.Three or four years

running, I attended all the festivals. As for his wife,

even theirdaughtersdoubted that she had the faith. At

Bayonne, she had them schooled in the convent be-

cause it was the best establishment.The elder daughter

preparedfor Sevres [an Ecole Normale Sup6rieure or

women] or even went there (I'm not sure which any

more) at a time when orthodoxpeople in the provinces

thought that S6vriennes were she-devils. The rabbi's

wife had broad deas!

Although unbelievers,my parentsstill remainedclose

to the Jewish traditionof their childhoods.They didn't

celebrate the festivals, but they spoke about them. At

Versailles, I was put through my barmizvah,without

any reasons being invoked other than not causing of-

fence to my grandfather.

D.E. You've never been worriedby religious feel-

ings?

C.L.-S. If by religion you mean a relationshipwith a

personalGod, never.

Below: an extract rom chapter16, 'Raceet Politique'

D.E. In 1952, with the text entitled Race et histoire,

you left the perspectiveof pure social anthropology o

position yourself at the level that can be called 'politi-

cal', which touched in any case directlyon contempor-

ary problems.

C.L.-S.It

was a commission.I

don't think I wouldhave written hat workmyself on my own initiative.

D.E. How did this commission arise?

C.L.-S. UNESCO asked a number of authors to

write a series of booklets on the racial question: Michel

Leiris was one, I was another...

D.E. There you affirm the diversity of cultures, you

put in question the idea of progress, and you proclaim

the necessity of 'coalition' between cultures...

C.L.-S. In general, I was seeking a way to reconcile

the notion of progresswith culturalrelativism. The no-

tion of progress implies the idea that certain cultures,at

given times or in given places, are superior to others,

because they have produced works which those others

have shown themselves incapable of. And culturalrela-

reproduce he extracts.Levi-Strauss pent

most of his childhood nParis in the 16th

arrondissement. he irst

extract,fromchapter1,

'D'Offenbach Marx',describeshis amily

background.We then

jump to part of Chapter

16, 'Race et politique',which ocuses on the

controversyn which

Levi-Strauss ecameinvolved n the 1970s as

an eminent ocial

anthropologist nd

influential ntellectual.

In the two concluding

extracts o bepublished

in December,we have

first a glimpse of

Levi-Strauss'sNew York

period duringthe

SecondWorldWar,and

secondlya discussion of

the structureand plan of

Mythologiques,

Le'vi-Strauss's mbitious

four-volumework on the

analysis of SouthAmericanand North

American ndianmyth.De Pres et de Loin

can be stronglyrecommended s a

whole..The three inal

chapterscover

Le'vi-Strauss'shoughtson literature,paintingand music.

ClaudeLevi-Strauss

was Professorat the

Collegede Francefrom

1959 to 1982, and sincethen has beenHonorary

Professor.His manyhonours nclude

membership f theAcademieFran(aise

since 1973 and

HonoraryFellowship of

theRAI,whichalsoawarded him theHuxley

MemorialMedal in

1965.

The translationofthese extractsis byJonathanBenthall.

? Editions Odile

Jacob, September1988.

6







tivism, which is one of the bases of anthropological

thought- at least in my generationand the one before

it (for it is challenged by some people today) - con-

tends that there can be no absolute criterion orjudging

one culture as superior to another.I tried to shift the

problem's centre of gravity.

If at certain times and in certain places, some cul-

tures 'move' while others 'don't move', this is not, I

said, because of the superiorityof the former,but be-cause historical or geographicalcircumstanceshave en-

gendereda collaborationbetween culturesthat are not

unequal (nothing permitssuch an evaluation)but differ-

ent. They begin to move by borrowingfrom one an-

other or by seeking to oppose one another.They fer-

tilize or stimulate one another mutually;Whereas at

otherperiods or in other places, cultures which stay iso-

lated, as if in a closed world of theirown, experiencea

stationaryife.

D.E. This text has become a classic of anti-racism,

and is even read in secondaryschools. Is it in reaction

against this vulgate that you prepareda second text in

1971,this time entitled 'Race et culture'?

C.L.-S. That also arose from a UNESCO com-

mission, for a solemn conferencedesigned to inaugur-ate an international earof struggle againstracism.

D.E. You have said aboutwhathappened, This'text

causeda scandal and that was its aim!'

C.L.-S. Which was perhaps a little strong... One

thing is certain:it did make a scandal,in UNESCO in

any case. Twenty years after Race et histoire, they

asked me to speak againaboutracism,probablyexpect-

ing thatI would repeatwhat I had alreadysaid. I don't

like to repeat myself, and above all, many things had

happenedduringthose twenty years,one of thembeing,

as far as I was concerned, a growing annoyance pro-

voked by periodic displays of good feelings, as if that

alone could be enough.

It seemed to me on the contrary irst that racial con-

flicts could only get worse, and second that, in theminds of the public, a confusion was being created

aroundnotions such as racism and anti-racism;andthat

by dint of widening them in an ill- considered way,

people were feeding racism instead of weakeningit.

D.E. You were speakingthis time of the differences

that separateand oppose cultures. Which ran against

the grainof yourearlierspeech.

C.L.-S. Not at all. People didn't read the earliertext,

or only half of it. One critic, writingI thinkin L'Huma-

nite [the French Communist newspaper], wanted to

prove that I had changed my position, and he quoteda

long passage from 'Race and culture' in support.Ac-

tually, this passage had already appeared n Race and

history. As it seemed well phrasedto me, I used my

own text again.

D.E. What was most shocking in 'Race and culture'

was perhaps he idea which you advanced, thatcultures

want to oppose one another.

C.L.-S. At the end of Race and history, I emphas-

ized a paradox. It is the difference between cultures

which makes their meeting fertile. Now this interaction

brings about progressive homogenization: the benefits

which cultures draw from these contacts derive to a

great extent from their qualitative separation,but in the

course of theirexchanges, these separationsdiminish to

the point of disappearing.Is that not what we are wit-

nessing today? By the way, this idea that during their

evolution cultures tend towards a growing entropy

which results from their mixing - presented in a text

which you said just now had become a classic of anti-

racism, and that delights me - comes in a straight ine

from Gobineau, though he is denounced as a father of

racism. Which goes to show the disorder in people's

mindsat the presenttime.

The views of Gobineauhave, moreover,a very mod-

em tinge, for he realized that little islands of order can

form, by means of the effect thathe called - and this is

very modern too - 'a correlationin the different parts

of the structure'. He gave examples. These successful

equilibriabetween mixtures contribute,as he saw, tomilitateagainsta decline which he saw as irreversible.

What can be concluded from that, except that it is

desirable for cultures to maintaintheir diversityor for

them to be renewed in theirdiversity? Only - and this

is what my second text pointedout - one must agree to

pay the price: that is to say, that cultures attached to

their own respectivelife-styles and value-systemskeep

an eye on theirparticularities: nd that this disposition

is healthy, not at all pathologicalas some would have

us believe. Each culture develops thanks to its ex-

changes with other cultures. But each one must put up

a certain resistance, otherwise very quickly it would

have no more to exchangewhich belongedto it specifi-

cally. Absence of and excess of communication are

bothdangerous.D.E. How do you explainthatyour 1952 text was so

successful and not the second?

C.L.-S. The first was publishedas a little book; the

other,a lecture,has never appearedon its own. And if

the first was judged orthodox but the second book not,

I cannot help it: they form a whole. I would add that

the second text, where I tried to introduce the conclu-

sions of populationgenetics, is more difficult to read.

Alreadynow with Race and history, every year school-

children come to see me, write to me or telephoneme

saying 'We have an essay to write and we understand

nothing!'

D.E. What would you do if UNESCO were to ask

you today for a new lecture on the same subject?

C.L.-S. There's no danger!D.E. But newspapersand the radio often ask your

advice on the questionof racism and on the whole you

refuse to reply...

C.L.-S. I don't want to reply because, in this field,

there is total confusion, and because whatever I say

will, I know in advance,be misinterpreted.

As a social anthropologist, am convinced thatracist

theoriesare both monstrous and absurd.But in making

the notion of racism commonplace, in applying it at

random, people empty it of content and risk ending up

at a result which is the opposite of what they want. For

what is racism? A precise doctrine, which can be

summed up in fourpoints. First, that a correlationexists

between genetic heritage on the one hand and intellec-

e:i

- ~~~~~~1

Claude Levi-Strauss,

photographedrecentlyby Louis Monier.

ClaudeLe'vi-Straussn

Oxfordto receive anhonorarydoctorate, 6

June 1964.

7







tual aptitudes and moral dispositions on the other. Sec-

ond: that this heritage on which the aptitudes and dis-

positions are held to depend is common to all the mem-

bers of certain human groups. Third: that these groups

called 'races' can be hierarchized in terms of the

quality of their genetic heritage. Fourth: hat these dif-

ferences authorize those 'races' held to be superior to

command and exploit others, maybe to destroy them.

The theory and the practice are indefensible for a num-

ber of reasons which, following other authors or at the

same time as them, I set out in 'Race and culture' with

as much vigour as in Race and Histoiy. The problem ofrelationships between cultures is situated on another

level.

D.E. So that, in your eyes, hostility felt by one cul-

ture towards another s not racism?

C.L.-S. Yes it is, if it is active hostility. Nothing can

authorizeone culture to destroyor even to oppressan-

other. Such negation of other people has inevitably to

rely on transcendentreasons: those of racism, or equi-

valent reasons. But it is a fact which has always existed

that cultures, while respecting one another, can feel

more or less affinity with one another. That is a norm

of human behaviour. In denouncing it as racist, one

risks playing the enemy's game, for many naive people

will say to themselves 'Well, if that is racism, I am a

racist'.You know how attracted am by Japan.If in Paris,

in the underground, see a couple that seems to be

Japanese, I will look at them with interest and sym-

pathy, readyto do them a service. Is that racism?

D.E. If you look at them with sympathy, no; but if

you had told me 'I look at them with hatred'I would

have replied, yes.

C.L.-S. And yet, I based my reaction on physical

appearance,behaviour, the sound of the language. In

daily life, everyone does the same to place an unknown

person on the geographic map... A lot of hypocrisy

would be needed to try andoutlaw this kind of approxi-

mation.

D.E. Are therephysical appearanceswhich generate

antipathy n you?

C.L.-S. You mean ethnic types? No, certainly not.They all include sub-types, some of which seem attrac-

tive to us, others not. In some Indian communities in

Brazil,I felt surrounded y beautifulindividuals;others

seemed to offer me the spectacle of a degraded hu-

manity. The Nambikwara women seemed to me in

generalmore beautifulthan the men; the opposite was

the case with the Bororo. Making such judgments,we

apply the canons of our culture.But the only valid ca-

nons in the circumstancesare those of the people con-

cerned.

In the same way, I belong to a culture which has a

distinctivelife-style andvalue-system,so thatvery dif-

ferent culturesdo not attractme automatically.

D.E. You don't like them?

C.L.-S. That would be saying too much. If I studythem as a social anthropologist, do it with all the ob-

jectivity and indeed all the empathyof which I am ca-

pable.That doesnit preventcertain culturesfromhitting

it off less easily than otherswith my own.

EngenderingnowledgeThe politics of ethnography Part 1 - to be concluded)

PATCAPLAN

This artic e is based on

the secondAudrey

RichardsMemorial

Lecture deliveredat

Rhodes House, QAford,

on 18 May. We are

publishingit in two

parts, of which the

second, largely

concerned withanthropologyand

feminism,will appear in

the December issue.

Dr Caplanstarted by

saying that Audrey

Richards(1899-1984)

had been a 'living proof

for women studentsofher generationthat

'women could be and

weregood

anthropologists'.ShementionedRichards's

presidentialaddress to

the AfricanStudies

Association in 1967,whichrecalled what it

Ethnography

A poem written by R.D. Laing captures the mood of

the postmodemist,reflexive era:

The theoreticaland descriptive diom

of much research in social science

adoptsa stance of apparent 'objective'neutrality.

But we have seen

how deceptivethis can be.

The choice of syntaxand vocabulary s a political act

that defines and circunmscrbes the manner n which facts'

are to be experienced.

Indeed, in a sense

it goesfurther

and even creates the acts that are studied

The 'data' (given) of research

are not so much given

as taken

out of a constantlyelusive matrixof happenings.

We shouldspeak of captaather than data.

Thequantativelynterchangeablegrist

that goes into the mills

of reliabilitystudiesand ratingscales

is the expression

of a processing that we do onr-eality

not the expression

of theprocesses of reality.(inWeaver 973)

Within anthropology,much attention s currently o-

cused upon ethnographyand definitions of it as a form

of knowledge. Roy Ellen suggests that it has many

meanings- at one and the same time, it is something

we do/study/use/read/and write (1984:7). Ethnography

lies at the boundary of two systems of meaning and

raises the question, how do we translateanotherculture

through the vehicle of our own language?This in turn

takes us back to the oft-debatedquestion- what is cul-

ture itself? Increasingly,it has been seen as manufac-

tured, both by informantsand anthropologists,and in

the process, as contested. The protagonists n this con-

test are the ethnographer, he subjects/informants, nd

the audience/reader. shall deal with each of these in

turn.

How do we represent another culture - can we?

should we? What is the ethnographer?Archivist, trans-

lator, midwife, writerof fiction, trickster,bricoleur,in-

quisitor, and intellectual tourist (see various contribu-

tors to Clifford 1986) are just some of the recent sug-

gestions. The standardmonographwhich has charac-

terizedBritish and American social anthropology or so

many years has come in for some heavy criticism.

Aside from the fact that,as many have pointedout, it is

usually extremelyboring,it also fails to include the ob-

server in its analysis: the ethnographerappearsbriefly

in the preface, as if to establish the authorityandcredi-

bility of having actually 'been there',but thenpromptly

disappearsfrom the main text. This means that his or

8





interview lévi-strauss 1988 eribon

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