The Structuralism Theory of Culture - Essay Example

The Structuralism Theory of Culture Introduction The structuralist theory is found in anthropology whereby it argues that the process of thoughts in all human beings is the same despite the different cultures they posses. It goes on to add that the thought process only exists binary opposite forms. For instance: male-female, hot-cold, raw-cooked and so on. The theory insists that the binary oppositions are found in all cultures and thus support the argument that the mental process is the same despite the different cultures. In anthropology, the thought process is defined by studying things like language, kinship ties and myth. Structuralists therefore argue that there is a hidden reality in all cultures. Thus they try to understand the mental process of humans as they believe they are expressed through their cultures. The theory further emphasises that it is important to understand all the cultural elements in relation to the whole system. It simply uses the thought that the whole is better than the small parts. It is evident that cultural ways are hard to explain but it is a fact that they form a meaningful part of the whole system. It therefore tries to study the structure of the thought process. R. Barthes' ‘Myth Today’ Roland Barthes was responsible in explaining the concept of myth as it contributed to the structuralist theory. He came up with the “Myth Today” concept whereby it defines myth as a category of speech. According to him, myth is not just any type of speech but also a means by which people use to communicate. Myth is a message that is sent to a particular group of people. According to the study therefore, a myth can not be perceived as an object, idea or concept but rather form and way of signification. For this reason, it is illusionary to discriminate other people’s myths. This therefore shows that there is no primitive, better or poor culture. It is important to note that anything can be considered to be a myth as it is a speech but depending on how it is conveyed. The strength of the myth is in how it is conveyed thus can not be defined as an object. Everything in this world is open to any suggestions from the society this is so because no laws exit in forbidding anyone to talk about things (John, 2002, pp.234-240). Objects can be used to come up with some mythical statements. The difference is that some objects are used for a while, others are not used at all and others are used for a very long time. A myth can be formed can survive for sometime and be forgotten as the mythical objects keep changing. The concept of myth is founded on history as it existed from a very long time. For this reason, the concept of myth has not evolved over the years. Myths generally exit orally though they can be in writings. Since they have a historical foundations, most of them are passed orally and rarely in writings. Today, myths can be supported through sport events, cinemas, publicity, shows and photographs. It is important to note that a myth it is impossible to define a myth by its material or object because of their arbitrary meanings. For example, interpreting a diagram or a picture depends on the consciousness of an individual. This makes it very hard to grasp the concept behind a myth. Thus myths use materials that can be understood easily. It is evident that people will prefer pictures than writings as they are more attractive to view than reading. More so, pictures can help individuals to immediately give meaning without any dilutions. The materials are simply used to ease communication as myths generally aim at sending various messages to people. As people give meaning to the pictures, they therefore turn in to meanings given through writings (John, 2002, pp.234-240). The concept and form of myth Mythology is a very ambiguous concept because sometimes it gives full meaning when in a particular situation but sometimes it is empty when one is faced with the same situation. It contributes to language as it involves individuals giving meaning whereby there is use of the sensory organ. One has to use the eyes to look at a photograph from that the eyes will send a message to the brain to understand and give meaning to what they have seen. This later leads to one uttering words to either confirm or share meaning to what has been observed. There is a complete use of the metal process a things are given names according to a rationality that totally relies on the metal process. Since myths have a historical existence, people find that they have adopted the meanings and once someone sees an object they immediately give it the historical meaning. For instance, the word lion has very many meanings due to the mythical statements attached to it. When one sees a lion, very many things come in mind due to the mythical statements that have been attached to it (John, 2002, pp.234-240). Roland Barthes aim in his essay, Myth Today, signs are highly used to communicate by use of myths. He used semiology which incorporated the model of signs by Saussure to study the products of culture in France. He concentrated on wrestling, car advertisements and how mankind evolved over time. This not only helped him to understand the ideological concepts but also the semiological concepts. This aided in the understanding of the economic and political leadership practised by the bourgeoisies. His goal was to explain the criticisms of Marx against capitalism. From this, it was concluded that ideology’s function is to transform reality to the image of the world. Myth gives out the image of reality because of the way people produce or use it. It therefore makes what was constructed by humans to become natural. Myths stand for all interpretations given to anything seen by man. By using this reasoning, he concluded that bourgeoisies take up some neutral events and give them meaning for the sake of uplifting their social status. The neutral events are used to portray meaning that goes beyond the overt meaning. Thus the reason for studying these ideological functions is to do away with it. Roland and Saussure differ in the fact that Saussure concentrates in linguistic while Roland on other types of signs. The main similarity is that they both acknowledge that signs are signified and are signifiers. According to Barthes, an object will have two semiological concepts unlike for Saussure whereby it becomes a sign as long as it can be interpreted. The signified meaning is simply the interpretation given to the object but then there can be a deeper meaning attached to the object thus supports the concept of myths. For example a rose will be given a simple meaning of a flower but with the passion attached to it like love will give it a deeper meaning. For this reason, objects are used in myths to signify human events such as passion, strengths and so on (John, 2002, pp.234-240). C. Levi-Strauss' ‘Incest and Myth Strauss contributed largely in the concept of structuralist theory. He like Roland used the works of Saussure in anthropology. He argued that the family in the concept of structural linguistics was a self contained entity that constituted of a husband, wife and children. These were the primary individuals in a family while people like nieces, nephews, aunts and the rest were put in the secondary category. He further argued that families as they depend on each other acquire their values in linguistics through their inter-relations. This led to the inversion of the anthropological concept as the secondary category of family came first by analysing the relationships between them and the primary family category. He put aside the study of relations within the primary family category. The study revealed that there were identities that formed by relating through inter-tribal marriages. This means that the relationship between a niece and an aunt is the same as that of sister and brother to husband and wife and so on. This means that if someone knows someone’s aunt, husband or wife, then they can predict the behaviour of a daughter. His main aim was to generalise and make the relations among members to be very comprehensive. For this reason it was easy to predict the behaviour of an individual fro a particular family (Peter, 2002, pp. 141-150). Like Roland, he considered a myth as a form of speech that could be used to identify a language. Thus to him, there was high similarity among cultures and for this reason he studied the fundamental characteristics of the concept of myths. This led to the belief that there is no one definite definition of the mythical concept. To him, myth developed from the same language. With this belief that there is no definite definition of a myth, he formed mythemes. He did it by breaking down every version in to sentences whereby they revealed the relationship between the subject and function thus giving numbers and bundling up those that had the same function. This revealed that the mythical concept had binary oppositions. This means that for very thing there must be its opposite. He concluded that human beings think using the binary opposition concept whereby they are responsible in bringing meaning to the objects and signs in the world. Therefore, myths use the binary opposition concept thus creating an illusion in a particular belief. This means that is full in some point but empty in another (Peter, 2002, pp. 141-150). According to Strauss, the study of the mythical concept is just but a paradox. This is due to the fact that the stories are very much unpredictable and wonderful. This makes it very arbitrary. The other opposite is that myths are very similar in different cultures. One of his major propositions was that universal laws were to be used to protect the thoughts of concerning myths. Though every myth seems to be outstanding and unique, the fact is that if studied well it is similar to another culture’s. Myths are therefore characterised by elements that contradict one another and the two still resolve the oppositions formed by them (Peter, 2002, pp. 141-150). Conclusion The structuralist theorists have contributed to the study of the human thought process by looking at the myth process. The works of both Strauss and Roland are very similar as they argue that myths are similar in the different cultures. For this reason then, cultures have a high similarity. The study also reveals that there is no primitive culture because all myths are similar. Though they are criticised on the methodologies of coming upon with their conclusion, it is evident that the structuralist theory used some scientific methods. The fact that there was observation of the different myths in different cultures makes the study scientific. To emphasise on it, Strauss breaks down the sentences and gives them numbers and bundles them up therefore coming up with conclusions. References John S., 2002. Roland Barthes’ “Myth Today” Concept: Cultural theory and popular culture, published by the University of Georgia. Pp. 234-240. Peter S., 2002. The key thinkers, Levi-Strauss, “Incest and Myth”: Cultural Theory, published by Routledge. Pp. 141-150. Read More