"Loss" is a word commonly heard when someone dies, as in "a loss to us" or "the world's loss." But what about what we and the world have gained because someone has lived? This may be the more inspiring and pragmatic question to ask of everyone, but especially in noting the passing of two of the great 20th century intellectuals today as centenarians: Claude Levis-Strauss at 100, the French anthropologist and a founder of the widely influential structuralist school of critical analysis; and Francisco Ayala at 103, the paradigmatic anti-fascists sociologist and novelist. The following is less of a tribute than a well-deserved acknowledgment.
Trained as a philosopher in France, Claude Levi-Strauss taught in Brazil from 1935 and came to prominence with his landmark Tristes Tropiques
(trans. A World on the Wane), which has since become a classic. In it he proposed that so-called "primitive" mythologies are structurally analyzable in the same way as "civilized" ones, calling into question two centuries of "progressive" thinking. The work had a profound influence not only in anthropology, but also in sociology, philosophy, political science, history and literary criticism, among other fields. He became a member France's prestigious Academie, which rushed to pay homage to him today. Just recently, Levi-Strauss expressed contempt at dying in a world he "does not love," and remarked that the purpose of structuralism was a "search for unsuspected harmonies" by drawing parallels and analogies between otherwise unrelated thought and social systems. The next-generation of French intellectuals (including Jaques Derrida
and Michel Foucault) are often called post-structuralists because they focused on changes in structures over time, in deference.
The Spanish intellectual Francisco Ayala coincidentally followed a similar trajectory as Levi-Strauss, spending
his early career in South America before return to his home country, where accolades eventually followed. After receiving his doctorate in law from Madrid University in 1930, he went on a lecture tour in Argentina, when the fascist Franco took power back in Spain (1936). In Buenos Aires, he taught sociology and founded the literary journal Reality, where the works of Jorge Luis Borges were first published, among other literati. After moving to Puerto Rico in 1950, he taught at several premier university in the U.S. (including Princeton and the University of Chicago) before returning to Spain in 1975, the year Franco died. His key works include The Usurpers
and The Lamb's Head
, each of which critically examines the relations between individual consciences, social consciousness and the state. He was awarded the prestigious Cervantes Award in 1991 and the Prince of Asturias Award in 1998.
While it is safe to say that Levi-Strauss' influence on Western intellectual history is more pronounced than that of Ayala, the latter was a catalytic figure in Latin American literature and thought as well as the epitome of anti-fascist writers in exile. It is also safe to say that the worldwide intellectual landscape of the 21st century, of which I and we are all a part, would not be what it is without them. In death as in life, Levi-Strauss and Ayala are turning point current events that have brought us to a better understanding of the past and present so as to create a better future.
