编辑:晔若春荣
年末专推
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慧新社理论部将陆续推出下属“马克思主义女性主义翻译小组”的重要译文,这些文章均为国内首译首发。若需转载,请注明来处。
作者简介:
列维·斯特劳斯是法国结构主义人类学家。20世纪40年代,斯特劳斯的人类学研究成果否定了母权制假说。他认为人类一开始就是父权制,在最早的母系氏族公社中就是父权制,女性遭遇的是“历史性失败”。斯特劳斯的这种观点对后现代女性主义理论影响深远。
本文是一篇关于斯特劳斯著作《野性的思维》的书评,作者伊芙琳·里德站在马克思主义的立场上批评了斯特劳斯的相关观点。斯特劳斯认为图腾是野性思维的演练,而不是某种社会制度的产物,是心理的而非社会历史的;他还把血缘氏族制的平均主义社会和贵族制的等级社会等同起来。在伊芙琳·里德看来,这些观点都是非马克思主义的。
译者简介:
马冰洁,毕业于中国青年政治学院,法学学士,慧新社顾问部成员慧新社顾问部成员。
19世纪人类学领域的开创者把图腾制度看作野蛮时代的主要制度。列维·斯特劳斯则从另一个角度阐述了图腾制度从未存在过。“在图腾制度的范畴下,异质信仰和习俗被任意的组合在一起。”
因此,几代学者辛勤的研究成果,如图腾制度起源的秘密、图腾制的演变、图腾制度的重要性都成了一种“图腾错觉”的牺牲品。对列维·斯特劳斯而言,弗雷泽四卷本的研究专著《图腾信仰与异族通婚》,与其说是搜集了大量关于图腾主题的真实可靠的研究资料,还不如说是作为史前理论指南的小说典范。
异族通婚
列维·斯特劳斯支持以人类学家博厄斯、戈登韦泽、洛维为首的反图腾学派,他也支持图腾制度不是一个社会历史现实的观点。他们认为在人类文明之前不存在一个有着基础性差异关系、阶级分化已经形成了的、原始的集体主义社会。例如,列维·斯特劳斯把一个贵族制的等级社会和一个血缘氏族制的平均主义的部落社会等同起来。(注:斯特劳斯把一个没有形成阶级分化的血缘氏族制的平均主义社会和一个贵族制的等级社会等同起来。在伊芙琳·里德看来,这种观点是非马克思主义的。
春秋社会的血缘宗族制
等级社会引起的冲突---法国大革命
除了图腾制度的其他特点,图腾制度与亲属关系的分类体系密不可分。历史上,在图腾的分类里,社会关系通过动物,植物和其他东西表达,是最早最基本的分类体系的形式。后来,社会关系摆脱了最初的外形,开始专门表达人类的亲属关系。但是这不是列维·斯特劳斯的观点,他在《野性思维》里研究了图腾制度的两种现象。
图腾体系形成过程中原始的意象
列维·斯特劳斯和那些持进化论的思想家不同,他反对把历史看成统一连续体的发展观。他属于那一派把历史看成是碎片式的人类学家。一个总体的人类史观是不可能的,它可能会导致“混乱”,正如列维所说,“只要历史追求本质就会导致混乱。历史必然去选择区域、时期、群体以及群体中的个体,并用它们来突出诸历史非连续性的形象,而不是选择一个仅仅足够用作背景的连续性的形象……历史不可避免的停留在局部,也就是说,历史是不完整的。”
从这样的角度看,图腾时代并不是最古老的社会历史时期,图腾的分类也不是社会关系的最早形式。他说,这些意味着物种中的分类模式是非常随意的,“也就是说自然物种是这样被建构起来的。”这表现了原始思维较为卓著的一面,它们可以在自然物种中做出精确和细微的区别,命名2000种动植物标本。
根据列维·斯特劳斯的观点,图腾制度仅仅是野性思维的逻辑演练,而不是我们未开化的祖先建立第一种社会组织形式的巨大成就的标志。这符合了他的观念:“人种学首先是心理学。”(注:斯特劳斯认为图腾是野性思维的演练,而不是某种社会制度的产物,是心理的而非社会历史的。在伊芙琳·里德看来,这种观点也是非马克思主义的。
奇怪的是,列维·斯特劳斯虽然宣称马克思主义是他思想的“起点”,并认为自己追求一种马克思很少谈及的上层建筑的理论。实际上,他非历史、非唯物主义的范式与马克思主义方法论相距甚远。
The nineteenth-century founders of anthropology who discovered totemism regarded it as a central institution of the epoch of savagery. Levi-Strauss, on the other hand, sets forth the thesis that totemism never existed. “Heterogeneous beliefs and customs have been arbitrarily collected together under the heading of totemism.”
Thus the several generations of scholars who have tried to decipher the secrets of its origin, evolution and significance were victims of a “totemic illusion.” Frazer’s four-volume study of Totemism and Exogamy is to Levi-Strauss more a monument to fiction than a reliable accumulation of data on the subject, as a guide to prehistoric theory.
原始图腾意象
Levi-Strauss sides with the anti-totemic school of anthropologists led by Boas, Goldenweiser, Lowie and others who have sought to dispose of the riddle of totemism by denying that it was a social and historical reality. This position corresponds to their denial that a primitive collectivist society, with fundamentally different relations, preceded the advent of civilization with its class-divided formations. For example, Levi-Strauss equates the castes of an aristocratic society with the kinship clans of equalitarian tribal society.
Apart from its other features, totemism is inseparable from the classificatory system of kinship. Historically, totemic classifications, in which social relations were expressed through animals, plants and other things, were the earliest, most rudimentary form of the classificatory system. Later, with the casting off of this original shell, social relations came to be expressed in exclusively human kinship terms. But this is not the view of Levi-Strauss, who deals with both phenomena in The Savage Mind.
Unlike the evolutionary thinkers, Levi-Strauss rejects any overall continuity of development in history. He belongs with the piece-meal anthropologists who sever history into fragments. A “total” history of mankind is impossible and would lead to “chaos,” he says. “Insofar as history aspires to meaning, it is doomed to select regions, periods, groups of men and individuals in these groups and to make them stand out as discontinuous figures, against a continuity barely good enough to be used as a backdrop... It inevitably remains partial - that is, incomplete.”
From such a standpoint the totemic period is not the most ancient stage in social history, nor are totemic classifications the earliest form of social relations. These represent, he says, only one arbitrary mode of classification among others, “namely that constituted by reference to natural species.” It was part of the remarkable capacity of the savage mind that they could make precise and even subtle distinctions among natural species, naming up to 2,000 specimens of plants and animals.
According to Levi-Strauss, totemism is simply an exercise in logic of the savage mind, not the mark of the colossal achievement of our savage ancestors in constituting the first form of social organization. This accords with his conception that “ethnology is first of all psychology.”
Curiously, Levi-Strauss claims that Marxism is the “point of departure” of his thought and that he aspires to a “theory of superstructures, scarcely touched on by Marx.” Actually, his non-historical and non-materialist approach is far removed from the Marxist method.
校对者: 莫莫
于闽梅
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