Claude LÉVI-STRAUSS / Signed autograph letter / Rousseau / Social contract

  

Autographed letter signed "Claude Lévi-Strauss" [to Thierry Maulnier] Paris, November 12, 1985, 1 p. 1/2 large in-4°, in blue ink. Header of the Collège de France." Marks of folds inherent to the original mailing.

Slight smudge at the upper right corner, tiny tears on the right margin, skillfully restored tear on the upper margin [Chamber of Social Anthropology] redacted by Lévi-Strauss. A brilliant critique by the philosopher of Le Dieu masqué, the essay by Maulnier published in 1985. Like "Les Vaches sacrées," "Le Dieu masqué," which I have just finished reading, captivates with the richness, variety, and depth of ideas.

Some, expressed more happily than I could, strike me with the correspondence that can be read between our two thoughts. Thus the idea that modern science tends to join myth (81), and that a contradictory dualism reveals itself in the overly common use of biological teachings (170). In 292, you resolve in a snap, in a way that I believe is decisive, a problem posed by "Le Contrat social" on which all of Rousseau's political philosophy fails; Rousseau, whom you seem not to like much (796), yet whose terms you exactly recall regarding the origin of languages (694)! Doesn't 513 also apply to the Commune?

And 529, even better than to socialism, to Islam? One is thus constantly inclined to borrow your words as tools to extend reflection. This is a reason for recognition from your readers. I express mine to you and ask you, dear Sir, to believe in my admiring and very faithful feelings.

A universal skepticism in his masked God allows Maulnier to turn established propositions about religion, the human condition, evolution, and the state on their heads. Through moral reflections and metaphysical analyses, the author examines the tension between individual freedom and collective constraints, as well as the internal contradictions of the thinking being confronted with a world where meaning falters. The essay was published on October 23, 1985, by Gallimard. It is concluded that Maulnier promptly sent it to Lévi-Strauss, who produced a striking critique less than three weeks later.