The French Sociological Revolution from Montaigne to Mauss

There exists a longstanding tradition of French critical thought that has been bypassed in the recent importation of French theory, but which remains viable. ¹ I refer to the sociological revolution sparked by Montaigne’s 1580 essay on cannibalism, where he denounced certain European practices and behavior as undeniably more barbarian than any recounted by travelers who had observed New World “savages.” In this way, the New World served as foil to the old, prompting a scrutiny of social and cultural assumptions as well as practices. A central reason for promoting what Claude Lévi-Strauss has referred to as “anthropological thinking” is that it addresses the nature of cross-cultural contact by providing an alternative to the more familiar French versus America dichotomizations. The utopian textual space resulting from the comparative perspective allows for innovative critical thinking that is irreducible to the influence of any one group or society.