Melancholic Tropics

Lévi-Strauss turned his South American adventure into a sociological work on civilization and human nature. There is no fanciful description of foreign lands, but through in-depth observations of Indian tribes such as the Kaduweo and Nambikwara tribes, it reveals the cruelty of the collision of civilizations - colonization and modernity are like "persistent infections", causing primitive civilizations to lose their authenticity in the accelerated disappearance. It not only criticizes the "toxic by-products" discharged by modern society in pursuit of "order and harmony", but also reflects on the contradictions of anthropological research: it is eager to record foreign cultures to preserve human diversity, but has to admit that it is difficult to escape the cognitive limitations of the society to which it belongs. The text is full of melancholy about the rise and fall of civilization: modern people's arrogance and confusion about their own civilization has caused towns in the new world to go from novelty to decay; travel memories are tampered with clichés and stereotypes; the value choices of different societies are inherently indifferent, but they become antagonistic due to imbalanced communication; how society imagines, defines, and treats death and the afterlife is essentially a projection of the current power structure, emotional connections, and cultural rules among the living, rather than an objective description of death itself. Now, adventure has become a business. The end of one civilization is the beginning of another Individual beliefs are learned from the group, Memory is life - but life of another nature - itself Usually, people regard travel as a transformation of space, but this concept is not complete enough. Travel is not only accompanied by changes in space, but also changes in time and social class structure. Washington is neither wild nor tamed, just distracted by being trapped in a cage of radiating streets. And St. Paul was still untamed at that time.

His thoughts on human civilization are also very profound, as the book says, "Every society develops its technology as much as possible under the existing cultural conditions." This sentence deeply inspired me and allowed me to better understand the differences between different cultures. I like the detailed description of primitive tribes in the book, and I feel like I am exploring in the jungle. It is recommended that you also read this book, you will definitely gain something different!

I love this book and I will read it.

Very well written, I recommend reading it carefully