Nice to see you posting again chaz!!
On Nov 7, 10:04 am, chazwin <[email protected]> wrote:
> For me this event seems to represent the passing of something greater.
> His generation of Frenchmen and those that followed him such as
> Derrida, Foucault, and others.
> In the post war period France was seized by an anti-authoritarian zeal
> that is wonderfully expressed by Derrida's concept of the tyranny of
> the text, and an extreme reaction to the sort of logical positivist
> certainty that had justified the extreme ideologies of the early part
> of the century that had enslaved the earth and occupied France.
> This in turn informed the post-structualist and post-modern approaches
> to social theory.
> But what of now. Social theory is now emasculated by feminism, but
> worst by toleration and consensus.
> Any attempts at a radical approach has been muted by the tyranny of
> inclusion.
> That worst fear of the linguist turn and post-modernism was a hopeless
> relativism has now been superseded by something much worse. Now we
> have inclusiveness. History has accommodated Church History. THe
> Enlightenment, once portrayed as anti-religion is now the a religious
> phenomenon.
> Forst we had the enlightenment - a group of French philosophers deists
> and materialists. Then we had the Scottish E, then the Dutch E, then
> we have the Christian E. Hume gets ejected from the Scottish E just as
> Rousseau gets ejected from the French E. Then, once church history has
> colonised the Enlightenment, why append the adjective Christian at
> all? Now the 5 volumes of Blair's Sermons is now heralded as the
> greatest achievement of the Enlightenment. So how did we get from an
> atheist and deist materialist philosophy to a firebrand Calvinist
> minister who rejects materialism, deism and the struggle for liberty
> in the US and France - in 15 years?
> It is political Correctness gone mad. Religion continues to colonise
> the terminology of the past and present to justify its existence.
>
> On Nov 3, 6:51 pm, nominal9 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> >http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5A24HT20091103
> > French anthropologist Levi-Strauss dies at 100
> > Tue Nov 3, 2009 1:22pm EST
> > Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+] By Estelle
> > Shirbon
> > PARIS (Reuters) - French intellectual Claude Levi-Strauss, the
> > founder
> > of structural anthropology, has died at the age of 100, his
> > publishing
> > house Plon said on Tuesday.
>
> > Levi-Strauss, who was known to a wider public thanks to his 1955
> > memoir and masterpiece, "Tristes Tropiques," died on Saturday. He
> > would have turned 101 on November 28.
>
> > "He was France's greatest scientist," said writer Jean d'Ormesson,
> > fellow member of the Academie Francaise which brings together the
> > elite of the country's intellectual establishment.
>
> > A brilliant student who excelled at geology, law and philosophy,
> > Levi-
> > Strauss was posted to Brazil as a professor in 1935. It was there
> > that
> > he found his vocation for anthropology.
>
> > He conducted several expeditions into remote areas of the Amazon
> > rainforest and the Mato Grosso to study the customs of local tribes,
> > starting to develop theories and methods that would later have a
> > profound impact on his field.
>
> > He returned to France and was drafted into the French army at the
> > start of World War Two. After the defeat of France by the Nazis, he
> > realized that being Jewish had now become dangerous and he moved to
> > the United States until 1944.
>
> > Over the following years, he held a number of prestigious scientific
> > posts in Paris and New York and started to churn out his influential
> > scientific volumes.
>
> > "I HATE VOYAGES"
>
> > In particular, he used tribal customs and myths to show that human
> > behavior is based on logical systems which may vary from society to
> > society, but possess a common sub-structure.
>
> > These findings, which challenged the notion that Western European
> > culture was somehow unique or superior, resonated with the ideas of
> > opponents of colonialism and Levi-Strauss gained a following beyond
> > the circle of professional anthropologists.
>
> > He argued that linguistics, communications and mathematical logic
> > could be used to reveal fundamental social systems.
>
> > Exceptionally erudite, Levi-Strauss was not the most accessible of
> > thinkers and many of his works are impenetrable to laymen, but he
> > managed to transcend the esoteric bounds of science with "Tristes
> > Tropiques."
>
> > A detailed account of social behavior among Brazilian tribes,
> > "Tristes
> > Tropiques" was set apart from the author's other writings by its
> > autobiographical content.
>
> > While the work's opening sentence -- "I hate voyages and explorers"
> > --
> > was hardly designed to win the approval of his scientific peers,
> > lovers of literature considered it a triumph.
>
> > The academy that awards France's most prestigious literary prize, the
> > Goncourt, announced the night before making public their choice that
> > year that they regretted being unable to choose "Tristes Tropiques"
> > because it was not a novel.
>
> > He achieved France's highest recognition for a scientist in 1973,
> > when
> > he was elected to the Academie Francaise. He also received numerous
> > honors from foreign universities and governments, including Brazil.- Hide
> > quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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