Word: levying
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Most Anglo-American criticisms of structural anthropology attack the nature of its evidence. Levi-Strauss's most energetic critic, David Maybury-Lewis, points to inconsistencies, even manipulations of traditional ethnographic data to fit the structural schema. But Levi-Strauss would argue the definitions of social fact must be reevaluated. The functionalist anthropologist's notion that social fact is simply observable social action is too narrow. Structural anthropology expands the definition by trying to observe societies at both their conscious and unconscious levels...
...regardless of the debate over evidence, it must be recognized that Levi-Strauss has made a major, perhaps pivotal, contribution to the way we perceive the world. The implications of structuralism outside anthropology are only beginning to be explored. What is needed most right now is not more obscure criticism of obscure ethnographic details, but a clearer understanding of what Levi-Strauss is trying...
Edmund Leach's Claude Levi-Strauss has been published this year in the Modern Masters series that includes works on Wittgenstein, Marcuse, Guevara, Chomsky, Joyce and others. Concerned primarily with bringing together some of the major themes in contemporary thought, the series (edited by Frank kermonde) has been written by scholars for the general reader...
Leach has been a critic of structural anthropology for nearly twenty years and under Levi-Strauss's influence developed his own theories of structural analysis. His book is concise and summarizes when possible, but it is not a popularization-he remains honest to the complexities of Levi-Strauss. Blending the old and new anthropology in his approach to structuralism, Leach presents Levi-Strauss as a uniquely important if not over-zealous, thinker...
STRUCTURALISM is best introduced by examining the social theories outside anthropology that shaped Levi-Strauss's early development. Both Marxism and psychoanalysis demonstrated to him that understanding consists in reducing one reality to another; "that the true reality is not the obvious reality." As Leach makes clear, these same assumptions underpin Levi-Strauss's claim that there are universal structures that apply to all societies, though they are frequently hidden. The job left for the structuralism is the refinement of his method with new and broader applications aimed at new ways of handling cultural data...