Structuralism and the Grammar of Culture

“Lévi-Strauss: 'The purpose of myth is to provide a logical model capable of overcoming a contradiction. Mythical thought is a form of bricolage, it builds up structured sets using the remains and debris of events.' [...] On the savage mind: 'It is not the case that savage thought is less rigorous or less logical than civilized thought. It is differently organized. It works through concrete images rather than abstract concepts, through particulars rather than universals. But the cognitive capacity is the same.' [...] Derrida's critique: 'Lévi-Strauss's structuralism needs a center, a fixed point outside the play of differences that anchors the structure. But there is no such center. The structure is always already a structure without center, and what looked like analysis of a universal grammar is actually the play of differences that never reaches a stable ground.' — Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (1958); The Savage Mind (1962); Derrida, 'Structure, Sign and Play' (1966); SEP 'Claude Lévi-Strauss'”