If wc are lo understand how, and to what extent, the various human cultures differ from one another, and whether these differences confhct or cancel one another out or, on the con- trary, are all instrumental in forming a harmonious whole, the first thing to do is to draw up a list of them. But here we immediately run into difficulties, for we are forced to recognize that human cultures do not all differ from one another in the same way or on the same level. Firstly, we have societies co-existing in space, some close together and some far apart but, on the whole, contemporary with one another. Secondly, we have social systems that have followed one another in time, of which we can have no knowledge by direct experience. Anyone can become an ethnographer and go out to share the life of a particular society which interests him. But not even the historian or archeologist can have any personal contact with a vanished civilization; all his know- ledge must be gleaned from the writings or the monuments which it or other societies have left behind. Nor must we forget that those contemporary societies which have no know-, legde of writing, like those wich we call "savage" or "primi- tive", were preceded by other forms of society of which we can learn nothing, even indirectly. If we are honest in drawing up our list, we shall have, in such cases, to leave blank spaces, which will probably be far more numerous than the spaces in which we feel we can make some entry. The first thing to be noted is therefore that, in fact in the present, as well as in fact and in the very nature of things in the past, the diver- sity of human cultures is much greater and richer than we can ever hope to appreciate to the full. But however humble we may be in our approach, and how- ever well we may appreciate our limitations in this respect, there are other problems to be considered. What are we to understand by "different" cultures.^ Some cultures appear to qualify for this description, but, if they are derived from a common stock, they cannot differ in the same way as two societies which have had no contacts with one another at any 8 stage of their development. For instance, the ancient Inca Empire in Peru and the Kingdom of Dahomey in Africa are more absolutely different than are, let us say, England and the United States today, although these two societies also are to be regarded as distinct. Conversely, societies which have been in very close contact since a recent date give the impression of representing a single civilization, whereas in fact they have reached the present stage by different paths, which we are not entitled to ignore. Forces working in contrary directions operate simultaneously in human societies, some being conduc- tive to the preservation and even the accentuation of parti- cularism, while others tend to promote convergence and affinity. Striking instances are to be found in the study of language for, while languages whose origin is the same tend to develop differences from one another — e.g. Russian, French and English — languages of different origin which are spoken in adjacent territories developed common characteris- tics; Russian, for example, has developed differences from other Slavic languages in certain respects and grown closer, at least in certain phonetic features, to the Finno-Ugrian and Turkish languages spoken in its immediate geographic neigh- bourhood. A study of such facts — and we could easily find similar instances in other aspects of civilization, such as social insti- tutions, art and religion — leads us to ask whether, in the inter-relations of human societies, there may not be an optimum degree of diversity, which they cannot surpass but which they can also not fall short of without incurring risks. This optimum would vary according to the number of socie- ties, their numerical strength their geographical distance from one another, and the means of communication (material and intellectual) at their disposal. The problem of diversity does not, in fact, arise solely with regard to the inter-relations of cultures; the same problem is found within each individual society with regard to the inter-relations of the constituent groups; the various castes, classes, professions or religious denominations develop certains differences, which each of them considers to be extremely important. It may be wondered whether this internal differentiation does not tend to increase Avhen the society becomes larger and otherwise more homo- geneous; this may perhaps have been what happened in ancient India, where the caste system developed as a sequel to the establishment of the Aryan hegemony. It is thus clear that the concept of the diversity of human cultures cannot be static. It is not the diversity of a collection of lifeless samples or the diversity to be found in the arid pages of a catalogue. Men have doubtless developed differen- tiated cultures as a result of geographical distance, the special features of their environment, or their ignorance of the rest of mankind; but this would be strictly and absolutely true only if every culture or society had been born and had developed without the slightest contact with any others. Such a case never occurs however, except possibly in such excep- tional instances as that of the Tasmanians (and, even then, only for a limited period). Human societies are never alone; when they appear to be most divided, the division is always between groups or clusters of societies. It would not, for instance, be an unwarranted presumption that the civiliza- tions of North and South America were cut off from almost all contacts with the rest of the world for a period lasting from 10,000 to 25,000 years. But the great section of mankind thus isolated consisted of a multitude of societies, great and small, having very close contacts with one another. Moreover, side by side with the differences due to isolation, there are others equally important which are due to proximity, bred of the desire to assert independence and individuality. Many customs have come into being, not because of an intrinsic need for them or of a favourable chance, but solely because of a group's desire not to be left behind by a neighbouring group which was laying down specific rules in matters in which the first group had not yet thought of prescribing laws. , We should not, therefore, be tempted to a piece-meal study bf the diversity of human cultures, for that diversity depends less on the isolation of the various groups than on the relations between them. 10

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リンク

• レヴィ＝ストロー ス『人種と歴史』について
  

文献

• Race and history / by Claude Lévi-Strauss, [Paris] : Unesco , c1958 [1952]. - (Race question in modern science)
  

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