Claude Levi-Strauss Quotes

Any stigma will do to beat a dogma.

In America there is not one single element of civilization that is not made to depend, in the end, upon public opinion.

The conventional wisdom of the United States is not always the right conventional wisdom.

I think prejudice and tradition count for three-quarters in matters of religion.

Everything is arranged so that it be this way, this is what is called culture.

If you can believe in God, then you can believe in anything. It's a gang mentality.

Any stigma, as the old saying is, will serve to beat a dogma.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

In my estimation, the only thing that is more to be guarded against than bad taste is good taste.

A crowd always thinks with its sympathy, never with its reason.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

Ideologies, however appealing, cannot shape the whole structure of perceptions and conduct unless they are embedded in daily experiences that confirm them.

Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence. Civilization is the subordination of the latter to the former.

... in so many Muslim communities now, saving face trumps critical thinking and truth-telling. This is why reform from within Islam is so difficult.

In a society of ideological believers, nothing is more ridiculous than the individual who doubts and does not conform.

Culture is more important than politics.

Millions are spend annually on the cultivation and dissemination of science by the public authorities who will not give a penny for the advancement of astrology or sorcery. In other words, our society is deeply committed to beliefs about the nature of things, beliefs which are different from those to which the early Egyptian or Aztec civilizations were committed.

Culture is more important than politics and government.

Status quo just means that everyone's doing it. It doesn't mean that this was divinely ordained, and of course this is the right decision.

To be critical of television is almost like questioning the fact of God's existence.

All of us, whether we are ignorant of philosophy or professors of philosophy, find it easier to follow dogma than to think.

People tend not to want to question dogma. But I'm afraid of dogma.

There are many people for whom 'thinking' necessarily means identifying with existing trends.

While I think in principle people should not have irrational beliefs, I should say that as a matter of fact, it is people who hold what I regard as completely irrational beliefs who are among the most effective moral actors in the world, in many respects. They're among the worst, but also among the best, even though the moral beliefs are ostensibly the same.