“The world began without the human race and will certainly end without it. What else has man done except blithely break down billions of structures and reduce them to a state in which they are no longer capable of integration?”
- Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes tropiques (1955)
On the one hand it would seem that in the course of a myth anything is likely to happen. […] But on the other hand, this apparent arbitrariness is belied by the astounding similarity between myths collected in widely different regions. Therefore the problem: If the content of myth is contingent [i.e., arbitrary], how are we to explain the fact that myths throughout the world are so similar?
- Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a giant of modern thought (a bit about Structuralism). He died today at the age of 100. Here's a roundup of some of the better obits I could find.
N.Y. Times
Bloomberg
Washington Post
Le Monde (french)
R.I.P.
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