So my quotations tend to magnify what I found most useful from this article, but the selectivity is clearly an issue. On the other hand, and I forget who said this, if reading is always partial, like grazing, we all make use of the bits and pieces that stimulate us most, even if we lose sight of the whole…the confusing whole in this instance.

« within a century or so, when the last native culture will have disappeared … it [the point where it is considered that anything man-like have ceased to exist] will have become so remote … ».

But, if the last native cultures disappear (around 2066), and if these native cultures harbored (if I understand correctly) « the point where it was considered that anything man-like had ceased to exist », will that point exist anymore ? If every member of humankind is considered as human – because they are (/considered to be) just like westerners, or civilized people – , is there still any such a point anymore ?

Further, I don’t really understand why he wrote that the electronic computer will then be our only interlocutor. Or do I ? Was he in fact thinking about some kind of refined artificial intelligence which will allow for some human-like discussions ? Is it that kind of AI which will then constitute the « point where it is considered that anything man-like have ceased to exist » ? Is that why, in this case, the approach might not deserve to be called « anthropology » anymore ?
If Professor Levi-Strauss, by any chance, stumble upon this blog’s post, we might hope he will enlighten us.

The words that precede that quote are as follows: “anthropology’s traditional problems are assuming new forms while none of them can be said to be exhausted. The distinctive feature of anthropology among the human sciences is to look at man from the very point where, at each period of history, it was considered that anything man-like had ceased to exist. During antiquity and the Middle Ages, this point was too close to permit observation, since each culture or society was inclined to locate it on its neighbour’s doorstep.”

I am hoping that by “the same kind of approach” refers to a humanisitic approach to finding “man” where “it was considered that anything man-like had ceased to exist”…because if it does not refer to that the preceding paragraphs on physical anthropology, crop yields, and science versus the humanities, sheds little light on his meaning.