Chapter 7

Chapter seven is about Claude Levi-Strauss and his structuralist perspective. Strauss believes in his theory of the structural analysis of linguistics, cybernetics, communication theory, and the theory of games (these are all derived from myth). The basis of these ideas is that the mind works through form. Any experience that a person may have is considered unconscious because it is in a structured form in their mind. These forms are always in pairs that are opposite of each other, but yet are always balanced. Strauss states that there are three different types of social communication: kinship (rules for transferring women), economy (transfer of goods and services), language. I do not really understand this chapter, because these concepts are really confusing. Clearly it's about transferring ideas that are balanced unconsciously. Levi-Strauss myth's structures are different than everyday language because they are separate units and do not have any meaning by themselves.

Mary Douglas is a very important social anthropologist that studied Strauss. She claims that meaning is relational and that the meaning of a term comes from its place in a sentence and "the meaning of anything is dependent upon the context in which we find it." Everything comes in pairs of opposites. If there were not opposites in this world, then some terms would not even exist. For example if stop was not a word, then go  or proceed would probably not be a word. This is the same with the words dark versus light and rich versus poor. Structuralism is a perspective that "analyzes phenomena in terms of their basic units and the way these units are assembled." Basically, opposites are essential to our society and they need to be discovered. The way things are related are very important to society. The way we think and the way we act can be more clear if we can understand these underlying structures.