Pierre Clastres
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Pierre Clastres (; 17 May 1934 – 29 July 1977) was a French
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
, ethnographer, and
ethnologist Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Scien ...
. He is best known for his contributions to the field of political anthropology, with his
fieldwork Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct f ...
among the Guayaki in
Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...
and his theory of
stateless societies A stateless society is a society that is not governed by a state. In stateless societies, there is little concentration of authority. Most positions of authority that do exist are very limited in power, and they are generally not perman ...
. He mostly researched
Indigenous peoples of the Americas In the Americas, Indigenous peoples comprise the two continents' pre-Columbian inhabitants, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with them in the 15th century, as well as the ethnic groups that identify with the pre-Columbian population of ...
in which the power was not considered coercive and chieftains were powerless. With a background in
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
and
philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
, Clastres started studying anthropology with
Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...
and Alfred Métraux in the 1950s. Between 1963 and 1974 he traveled five times to
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
to do fieldwork among the Guaraní, the Chulupi, and the
Yanomami The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people of the Americas, indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. ...
. Clastres mostly published essays and, because of his premature death, his work was unfinished and scattered. His signature work is the essay collection '' Society Against the State'' (1974) and his bibliography also includes ''Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians'' (1972), ''Le Grand Parler'' (1974), and ''Archeology of Violence'' (1980).


Life and career

Clastres was born on 17 May 1934, in Paris, France. He studied at the Sorbonne, obtaining a
licence A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...
in
Literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
in 1957, and a '' Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées'' in
Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
the following year. He began working in
Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
after 1956 as a student of
Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...
, working at the Laboratory of Social Anthropology of the
French National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 engi ...
during the 1960s. He was also a student of Alfred Métraux at the
École pratique des hautes études The (), abbreviated EPHE, is a French postgraduate top level educational institution, a . EPHE is a constituent college of the Université PSL (together with ENS Ulm, Paris Dauphine or Ecole des Mines). The college is closely linked to É ...
(EPHE) in 1959. Clastres's first published article was released in 1962, a year before Clastres went into an eight-month trip to a Guayaki community in
Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...
with the help of Métraux. The Guayaki's study served as base to an article for '' Journal de la Société des Américanistes'', to his 1965
doctoral thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...
in
ethnology Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Sci ...
—''Social Life of a Nomadic Tribe: The Guayaki Indians of Paraguay''—, to "The Bow and the Basket", as well as to his first book, ''Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians'' (1972). In 1965 Clastres returned to Paraguay and he met the Guaraní—this encounter led him to write ''Le Grand Parler'' (1974). In 1966 and 1968 Clastres went into expeditions to the
Gran Chaco The Gran Chaco or simply Chaco is a sparsely populated, hot and semiarid lowland tropical dry broadleaf forest natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay, northern Argentina, and a portion o ...
region of Paraguay, where he studied groups of Chulupi people. This experience was used to produce the essays ''What Makes Indians Laugh'' and ''Sorrows of the Savage Warrior''. In his fourth expedition Clastres travelled to
Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...
, where he observed the
Yanomami The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people of the Americas, indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil. ...
people from 1970 to 1971, and wrote ''The Last Frontier''. He briefly visited the Guaraní which migrated from Paraguay to
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
in his last expedition in 1974. In 1971 he became
lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...
at the fifth section of the EPHE, and was promoted to director of studies of the religion and societies of South American Indigenous peoples in October 1975. That same year he left his office as researcher of the Laboratory of Social Anthropology—which he occupied since 1961—after conflicts over Lévi-Strauss's theories. In 1977 he took in part in the establishment of the journal ''Libre'' alongside the former members of
Socialisme ou Barbarie Socialisme ou Barbarie (SouB; "Socialism or Barbarism") was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed to Friedrich Engels by Rosa Luxemburg in the ...
Miguel Abensour,
Cornelius Castoriadis Cornelius Castoriadis (; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greeks in France, Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, sociologist, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, au ...
, Marcel Gauchet, Claude Lefort, and Maurice Luciani. Later that year, Clastres, aged 43, died in Gabriac, Lozère, on 29 July, in a car accident.


Works


''Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians''

Clastres's first book was originally published in France by Plon in 1972 under the title ''Chronique des indiens Guayaki: ce que que savent les Aché, chasseurs nomades du Paraguay'' (''Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians: The Knowledge of the Aché Hunter Nomads of Paraguay''). He was interested in Guayaki because there was little research on them since
Alfredo Stroessner Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan politician, army general and Military dictatorship, military dictator who ruled as the 42nd president of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 until his overthrow in 19 ...
's dictatorship forced them to live under territorial restriction and launched a pacifying campaign between 1959 and 1962. In the book, the author describes Guayaki culture with a focus on their cycle of life and their "daily struggles for survival." He describes their
mores Mores (, sometimes ; , plural form of singular , meaning "manner, custom, usage, or habit") are social norms that are widely observed within a particular society or culture. Mores determine what is considered morally acceptable or unacceptable ...
on
rites of passage A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. In cultural anthropology the term is the Anglicisation of ''rite ...
, marriage, hunting, warfare, and death, as well as their relation with non-Indian people and nature. In 1976
Paul Auster Paul Benjamin Auster (February 3, 1947 – April 30, 2024) was an American writer, novelist, memoirist, poet, and filmmaker. His notable works include '' The New York Trilogy'' (1987), '' Moon Palace'' (1989), '' The Music of Chance'' (1990), ' ...
, then a "penniless unknown", translated the book into English but it was only published in 1998 by Zone Books. Auster translated the work because he was fascinated by Clastres's prose, which "seemed to combine a poet's temperament with a philosopher's depth of mind." Although its literary qualities have been what attracted Auster, the work has been criticized as " romantic". Anthropologist
Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades&n ...
said Clastres had a " Rousseauian primitivism, the view that ' savages' are radically different from us, more authentic than us, morally superior to us, and need only to be protected, presumably by us, from our greed and cruelty." Bartholomew Dean, writing for the journal '' Anthropology Today'', declared, "Clastres' ahistoricism, rhetorical romanticism, and museumification sadly obscures the ongoing challenges facing indigenous peoples like the Guayaki." In opposition to Geertz and Dean, David Rains Wallace said it was an "unsettling" work because it "is not quite the nostalgic view of primitive life that now prevails in literary circles." Wallace asserted Clastres's "might have misinterpreted" the Guayaki's relation with nature because "he was predisposed to see stronger oppositions between culture and nature" as a Structuralist. However, he wrote "Whatever the validity ... of Clastres' interpretation of Guayaki thought, his evocation of their lost lives has great charm, an attraction that arises automatically from our civilized fascination with wild people who seem so strange at first, dodging naked through the forest, but who prove to be so much like us in feelings if not in thought and habits." In ''Anthropology Today'', Jon Abbink explained the historical context in which Clastres wrote the book and argued, "in presenting them as 'indigenes' with specific cultural values and identity, he has also tried to ground their presence and their historical rights". Abbink also refused the idea it had not a critical perspective; Clastres's focus on the problems Western society could bring to the Guayaki is against "the arrogant idea ... that they should be reformed in our image and respond to our models of social and economic life".


''Society Against the State''

Considered his major work for introducing the concept of "Society against the State", ''La Société contre l'État. Recherches d'anthropologie politique'' was first published by
Les Éditions de Minuit Les Éditions de Minuit (, ''Midnight Press'') is a French publishing house. It was founded in 1941, during the French Resistance of World War II, and is still publishing books today. History Les Éditions de Minuit was founded by writer and ...
in 1974. When it was first translated by Urizen Books in 1977 as ''Society Against the State: The Leader as Servant and the Human Uses of Power Among the Indians of the Americas'', however, it did not receive major attention. In 1989, Zone Books republished it as ''Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology''. It is a collection of eleven essays: "Copernicus and the Savages", "Exchange and Power: Philosophy of the Indian Chieftainship", "Independence and Exogamy", "Elements of Amerindian Demography", "The Bow and the Basket", "What Makes Indians Laugh", "The Duty to Speak", "Prophets in the Jungle", "Of the One Without the Many", "Of Torture in Primitive Societies", and the title article "Society Against the State".


''Le Grand Parler''

In France, ''Le Grand Parler. Mythes et chants sacrés des Indiens Guaraní'' was published by
Éditions du Seuil Éditions du Seuil (), also known as Le Seuil, is a French publishing house established in 1935 by Catholic intellectual Jean Plaquevent (1901–1965), and currently owned by La Martinière Groupe. It owes its name to this goal "The ''seuil'' (th ...
in 1974. The book was never officially translated into English; Moyn calls it ''The Great Speech: Myths and Sacred Chants of the Guarani Indians'', while ''The Routledge Dictionary of Anthropologists'' referred to it as ''The Oral Treasury: Myths and Sacred Song of the Guarani Indians''. Clastres had the help of Paraguayan ethnologist León Cadogan to come in contact with the Guaraní and to translate his ethnographic material. In the book, the focus was towards the "beautiful words" in the paeans they used to worship their gods.


''Archeology of Violence''

''Recherches d'anthropologie politique'', posthumously published in France by Éditions du Seuil in 1980, was first translated into English by
Semiotext(e) Semiotext(e) is an independent publisher of critical theory, fiction, philosophy, art criticism, activist texts and non-fiction. History Founded in 1974, ''Semiotext(e)'' began as a journal that emerged from a semiotics reading group led by Syl ...
in 1994 as ''Archeology of Violence''. The book collects the chapters of a work Clastres started writing before his death—the two last chapters of ''Archeology of Violence''—and Clastres's last essays. Ranging from articles about
ethnocide Ethnocide is the extermination or destruction of ethnic identities. Bartolomé Clavero differentiates ethnocide from genocide by stating that "Genocide kills people while ethnocide kills social cultures through the killing of individual souls". ...
and
shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...
to "primitive" power, economy and war, it is composed by twelve essays: "The Last Frontier", "Savage Ethnography", "The Highpoint of the Cruise", "Of Ethnocide", "Myths and Rites of South American Indians", "Power in Primitive Societies", "Freedom, Misfortune, the Unnameable", "Primitive Economy", "The Return to Enlightenment", "Marxists and Their Anthropology", "Archeology of Violence: War in Primitive Societies", and "Sorrows of the Savage Warrior". "The Last Frontier" and "The Highpoint of the Cruise" were originally published in ''Les Temps modernes'' in 1971. "Savage Ethnography" and "Of Ethnocide" were published in ''L'Homme'' in 1969 and 1974 respectively. For Flammarion's ''Dictionnaire des mythologies et des religions'' (1981), Clastres wrote "Myths and Rites of South American Indians". ''Interrogations'' was the journal in which "Power in Primitive Societies" was released in 1976. "Freedom, Misfortune, the Unnameable" was written for a 1976 scholarly edition of
Étienne de La Boétie Étienne or Estienne de La Boétie (; ; 1 November 1530 – 18 August 1563) was a French magistrate, classicist, writer, poet and political theorist, best remembered for his friendship with essayist Michel de Montaigne. His early political trea ...
's '' Discourse on Voluntary Servitude''. "Primitive Economy" was the title given to the preface Clastres wrote for the French edition of
Marshall Sahlins Marshall David Sahlins ( ; December 27, 1930April 5, 2021) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguishe ...
's ''Stone Age Economics''. "The Return to Enlightenment" was released in '' Revue Française de Science politique'' in 1977. Both "Archeology of Violence: War in Primitive Societies" and "Sorrows of the Savage Warrior" were published in ''Libre'' in 1977, and "Marxists and Their Anthropology" was published on the same journal in 1978.


Thought


Structuralism, Marxism, and anarchism

Initially a member of the Union of Communist Students with influences from the libertarian socialist group
Socialisme ou Barbarie Socialisme ou Barbarie (SouB; "Socialism or Barbarism") was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed to Friedrich Engels by Rosa Luxemburg in the ...
, Clastres became disenchanted with
Communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
after the raising of
Stalinism Stalinism (, ) is the Totalitarianism, totalitarian means of governing and Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953), 1927 to 1953 by dictator Jose ...
and abandoned the
French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...
in 1956, seeking for a new point of view. In François Dosse's words, for Clastres and other adherents of Lévi-Strauss's Structural anthropology, "it was a matter of locating societies that had been sheltered from the unitary map of Hegelian Marxist thinking, societies that were not classified in Stalinist handbooks." Although initially adept of
Structuralism Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns t ...
, Abensour wrote that "Clastres is neither Structuralist, nor
Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...
." Similarly, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro declared ''Society Against the State'' and ''Archeology of Violence'' can be considered "the chapters of a virtual book that could be named ''Neither Marxism nor Structuralism''." For Clastres, in Viveiros de Castro's words, "both privileged economic rationality and suppressed political intentionality." According to Samuel Moyn, Clastres's first article, ''Exchange and Power'', "exhibited a vestigial structuralism" that he would abandon on subsequent essays. On "Marxists and Their Anthropology" Clastres criticised structuralist perspective on myth and kinship because it ignores their place of production—the society. He said that, for structuralism, kinship only has the function to prohibit
incest Incest ( ) is sexual intercourse, sex between kinship, close relatives, for example a brother, sister, or parent. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by lineag ...
. "This function of kinship explains that men are not animals, utdoes not explain how primitive man is a particular man." It neglects that "kinship ties fulfill a determined function, inherent in primitive society as such, that is, an undivided society made up of equals: kinship, society, equality, even combat." On myths, Clastres said, "The rite is the religious mediation between myth and society: but, for structuralist analysis, the difficulty stems from the fact that rites do not reflect upon each other. It is impossible to reflect upon them. Thus, exit the rite, and with it, society." With Structuralism's crisis in the later 1960s, Marxist anthropology became an alternative to it. Clastres, however, was critical of it because Marxism was developed on the context of capitalist societies and anthropologists were using it to analyse non-capitalist societies. On Clastres's perspective, according to Viveiros de Castro, "
historical materialism Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx located historical change in the rise of Class society, class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. Karl Marx stated that Productive forces, techno ...
was ethnocentric: it considered production the truth of society and labor the essence of the human condition." However, it is not true for primitive societies since they live in a
subsistence economy A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing and shelter) rather than to the market. Definition "Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself and family at a minimum level. Basic subsiste ...
, in which not only they do not have to produce an economic excess but they refuse to do it. In opposition to Marxist's
economic determinism Economic determinism is a socioeconomic theory that economic relationships (such as being an owner or capitalist or being a worker or proletarian) are the foundation upon which all other societal and political arrangements in society are based. T ...
, for Clastres, politics was not
superstructure A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships. Aboard ships and large boats On water craft, the superstruct ...
; instead it was ''
sui generis ( , ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind" or "in a class by itself", therefore "unique". It denotes an exclusion to the larger system an object is in relation to. Several disciplines use the term to refer to unique entities. ...
'', which enabled Amerindian societies to refuse power and statehood. Clastres wrote, In refusing both Structuralism and Marxism, Clastres, in Moyn's words, "presented his own ' political anthropology' as the more plausible sequel or complement to structuralist analysis." Because of his analysis of power and the State, several commentators say Clastres posites an "anthropological anarchism" or exhibits anarchist influences.


On power and coercion

In his 1969 article "Copernicus and the Savages", Clastres reviewed J. W. Lapierre's ''Essai sur le fondement du pouvoir politique'', in which he said primitive societies were societies without power based on
Max Weber Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
's " definition of power as the state-based monopoly on legitimate violence". Clastres, however, argued that power does not imply either coercion or violence, and proposed a "Copernican revolution" in political anthropology: "In order to escape the attraction of its native earth and attain real freedom of thought, in order to pull itself away from the facts of natural history in which it continues to flounder, reflection on power must effect a '
heliocentric Heliocentrism (also known as the heliocentric model) is a Superseded theories in science#Astronomy and cosmology, superseded astronomical model in which the Earth and Solar System, planets orbit around the Sun at the center of the universe. His ...
' conversion." In another essay, ''Exchange and Power'', he argued that South American Indigenous chieftains are powerless chiefs; they are chosen on the basis of their oratorical talent. And while they have the exclusive right to be
polygamous Polygamy (from Late Greek , "state of marriage to many spouses") is the practice of marrying multiple spouses. When a man is married to more than one wife at the same time, it is called polygyny. When a woman is married to more than one h ...
, they have to be generous and offer gifts to their people. However, it was not an exchange: they give and receive each independently; Clastres wrote, "this relationship, by denying these elements an exchange value at the group level, institutes the political sphere not only as external to the structure of the group, but further still, as negating that structure: power is contrary to the group, and the rejection of reciprocity, as the ontological dimension of society, is the rejection of society itself." Clastres then concluded that "the advent of power, such as it is, presents itself to these societies as the very means for nullifying that power." In ''Le Grand Parler'', he argued that "the society itself, not its leader, is the real site of power" and then they can avoid the concentration of power.


On torture and war

On their struggle against the State, on keeping their society an
egalitarian Egalitarianism (; also equalitarianism) is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all h ...
one, however, they use violent methods:
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
and
warfare War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of State (polity), states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or betwe ...
. Moyn said that Clastres "reinterpret dthe violence in primitive society as internal and essential to its self immunization against the rise of the state" and "compare it favorably to the grandiose horrors of the statist, modern world." To the first topic, he dedicated "Of Torture in Primitive Societies"; Clastres did not think on it as cruel practice and using Soviet Union penal tattoos on Anatoly Marchenko as example, Clastres affirmed: "It is proof of their admirable depth of mind that the Savages knew all that ''ahead of time'', and took care, at the cost of a terrible cruelty, to prevent the advent of a more terrifying cruelty." Instead he argued torture in
rites of passage A rite of passage is a ceremony or ritual of the passage which occurs when an individual leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society. In cultural anthropology the term is the Anglicisation of ''rite ...
had the function of prohibiting inequality: On a similar fashion, Clastres argued that war could not be seen as a problem but that it had a political reason. He pointed it was not a constant state of war like the Hobbesian proposition but that it occurred only between different groups. He argued that internal war was purposeful and kept the group segmented, non-hierarchized; according to Viveiros de Castro: "perpetual war was a mode of controlling both the temptation to control and the risk of being controlled. War keeps opposing the State, but the crucial difference for Clastres is that sociality is on the side of war, not of the sovereign." Clastres stated:


On the State

For Clastres, primitive societies possessed a "sense of democracy and taste for equality," and thus intentionally discourage the rise of a State. That is why these societies are not merely characterized as societies without a State, but societies against the State. Viveiros de Castro explained the meaning of "Society against the State" as "a modality of collective life based on the symbolic neutralization of political authority and the structural inhibition of ever-present tendencies to convert power, wealth and prestige into coercion, inequality and exploitation." By affirming it, Clastres criticised both the evolutionist and Marxist ("especially Engelsian") notion that the State would be a necessity and the ultimate destiny in all societies. For him, the State does not emerge because of the complexification of productive or political forces but it rises when a community reaches a certain number of members. On the other hand, his vision of tribal societies without conflict was deemed "romantic" by critics such as Marcus Colchester and Samuel Moyn. Moyn wrote: "Many took Clastres's own words"—as in the affirmation that Amerindian societies "could predict the future" and avoid State—"to convict him of
primitivism In the arts of the Western world, Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that means to recreate the experience of ''the primitive'' time, place, and person, either by emulation or by re-creation. In Western philosophy, Primitivism propo ...
."


Legacy

In Moyn's opinion: "Clastres's romanticized vision of society against the state not only failed to fulfill the primary need of his (but not only his) time—a theory of democratization in which society and state are complementary—but imposed an obstacle to its fulfillment." First, his arguments implied in "a kind of paralyzed mourning" because his "primitivist nostalgia" made people distant from reforms in the present. "In this way, Clastres's anti- but not yet genuinely post-Marxist perception that the state in all its forms is corrupted by a 'neo-theology of history with its fanatic continuism' prevented him from presenting a viable stance for those who are unable to escape the circumstances of Western modernity—which is to say, in a globalized world, everyone." According to Moyn, another consequence was that it provided a base for thinkers like Marcel Gauchet, who openly do homages to Clastres's work. Clastres was also a major influence for French philosophers
Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze (18 January 1925 â€“ 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes o ...
and
Félix Guattari Pierre-Félix Guattari ( ; ; 30 March 1930 – 29 August 1992) was a French psychoanalyst, political philosopher, Semiotics, semiotician, social activist, and screenwriter. He co-founded schizoanalysis with Gilles Deleuze, and created ecosophy ...
's ''
Anti-Oedipus ''Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' () is a 1972 book by French authors Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, the former a philosopher and the latter a psychoanalyst. It is the first volume of their collaborative work ''Capitalism and Sch ...
'' and ''
A Thousand Plateaus ''A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia'' () is a 1980 book by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and the French psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. It is the second and final volume of their collaborative work '' Capitalism and Schizop ...
''. His view that
totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public s ...
was a constant danger in modern societies "makes the security of freedoms against the state the only realistic achievement in a politics without illusions." On the other hand, his effect on left thinkers was that it gave rise to the belief that democracy is primarily a matter of civil society and thus prompted a dichotomy between society and the state, overshadowing the role of the state in the development of an active civil society. While Moyn considered Clastres had "an important role in the rise in contemporary theory of the importance of civil society", his theory "not only forced an excessive burden onto civil society alone as the locus of freedom; it also neutralized a theory of the state, condemned and feared in all its forms". Differently, Warren Breckman concluded Clastres's view on State helped the antitotalitarian current of 1970s French thought. James C. Scott's ''
The Art of Not Being Governed ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...
'' proposes that Zomia inhabitants were intentionally "using their culture, farming practices, egalitarian political structures, prophet-led rebellions, and even their lack of writing systems to put distance between themselves and the states that wished to engulf them". His thesis sparked some controversy and although he affirmed he made "bold claims" none of them were totally original, attributing some of them to Clastres. Scott commented on how Clastres influenced him: "The reason it was useful for me... is that he was the first person to understand that modes of subsistence are not just grades on some evolutionary scale--from hunting and gathering to swiddening, foraging, agriculture, and so on--but rather that the choice of a mode of subsistence is in part a political choice about how you want to relate to existing state systems". The influence of Clastres on the philosophers Divya Dwivedi and Shaj Mohan in their philosophical and political writings has been noted. Dwivedi and Mohan have interpreted the political thought of M. K. Gandhi through the works of Pierre Clastres in their book ''Gandhi and Philosophy: On Theological Anti-politics''. They propose that Gandhi's concept of non-violence requires the formation of the state as per Clastres, "We will need to make a detour through the great anarchist anthropologist himself – Pierre Clastres – in order to find the steps which will lead us unto the Gandhian temple of non-violence". Permanence of war in primitive societies holds off the formation of the state and the appearance of the concept of violence. Following Clastres they argue that it is the state that makes the distinction between good force and bad force. Dwivedi and Mohan also note that for Clastres the state is the recording apparatus of memories which does not allow any deviation from the state's version of the past. They say that new possibilities for politics are to be found behind the curtain of the state according to Clastres: "At the beginning, in the days spent without records of memory, lost behind the obscure curtain before which the state arrives, lies an epoch without functional isolations: the reign of pure polynomia which grants all possibilities with no realizations. All homologies here remain revealed as nature is pure voluptuousness without any spans to reach it."


Selected works

*''Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians'' (''Chronique des indiens Guayaki''), 1972 *'' Society Against the State'' (''La Société contre l'État. Recherches d'anthropologie politique''), 1974 *''Le Grand Parler. Mythes et chants sacrés des Indiens Guaraní'', 1974 * ''Archéologie de la violence. La guerre dans les sociétés primitives'', 1977 * ''Archeology of Violence'' (''Recherches d'anthropologie politique''), 1980


See also

*
Endemic warfare __NOTOC__ Ritual warfare (sometimes called endemic warfare) is a state of continual or frequent warfare, such as is found in (but not limited to) some tribe, tribal societies. Description Ritual fighting (or ritual battle or ritual warfare) pe ...


References


Notes


Citations


Sources

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Further reading

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External links


Full text of ''Society Against the State''


{{DEFAULTSORT:Clastres, Pierre 1934 births 1977 deaths 20th-century French anthropologists 20th-century French essayists Anarchist writers Anti-Stalinist left Academic staff of the École pratique des hautes études Former Marxists French anarchists French anti-communists French communist writers French ethnographers French ethnologists French expatriates in Brazil French expatriates in Paraguay French expatriates in Venezuela French explorers French male essayists French political philosophers Latin Americanists Road incident deaths in France University of Paris alumni Writers from Paris Anarchist anthropologists