"Jung and Levi-Strauss Revisited: An analysis of Common Themes" The Mankind Quarterly. Vol XXXI, No. 3. Spring 1991

Richard M. Gray

The relationship between the works of Jung and Levi-Strauss has been problematic for some time. The similarities between their fields of interest and certain of their conclusions is so striking that it has sparked accusations of plagiarism on the one hand, and what amounts to outright hostility on the other (D'Aquili 1975, Gardner 1985; Kugler , 1982, p. 39 ff.; Chan, 1986).

In the 1976 article "The Influence of Jung on the Work of Claude Levi-Strauss," Eugene D'Aquili attempts to show that Levi-Strauss borrowed directly from the works of Jung but failed to acknowledge his source. The alleged lack of acknowledgment sprang possibly from fear of association with the mystical, non-scientific leanings of Jung on the one hand, and an attempt to distance himself from a man accused of being in sympathy with the Nazi Party on the other (p.48).

D'Aquili begins with the observation that some knowledge of the work of Jung is necessary to Levi-Strauss because in two works, the Elementary Structures of Kinship and The Savage Mind, he attacks Jung's concept of the collective conscious ( p.42). Later, in the same article, D'Aquili notes that these books present a perspective on the collective unconscious that is, by the time of their publication, out of date by a factor of 15 years for the one and 30 years for the other. Based upon this time lag, D'Aquili suggests, as an alternate possibility, that Levi-Strauss' representations of Jung are set up as classic straw men; they only appear to suffer destruction in order to illustrate a point. For the remainder of the article D'Aquili develops a series of parallels which strongly suggest that Levi-Strauss owes Jung more than a passing debt of gratitude.

While it is not necessary to enter the fray as to direct influence, it is useful to note the similarities between the two. Whether the influence suggested by D'Aquili existed, or not, the possibility of parallel development is worth much more as a validation of the insights of both men.

The first significant treatment of parallelism between the two men relates to an extensive quote from Levi-Strauss' Essay "The Effectiveness of Symbolism (1958)." D'Aquili points out that the passage bears so striking a relationship to Jungian formulations, that it "could have been lifted directly out of Jung(p.44)." Indeed, a close examination of the passage finds it reflecting an almost Jungian unconscious characterized by foci which hold the power to 'crystalize emotion.' Without following his extensive quotation as a single unit, we will examine several shorter passages from the same segment.

On page 202 of Structural Anthropology, in the Essay noted, Levi-Strauss, discussing the nature of the psychoanalytic and shamanistic cures, points to the fact that:

... the traumatizing power of any situation... must... result from the capacity of certain events, appearing within an appropriate psychological, historical, and social context, to induce an emotional crystallization which is molded by a preexisting structure. In relation to the event or anecdote, these structures--or, more accurately, these structural laws-- are truly atemporal.

More apropos to the context than the text provided by D'Aquili, compare this classical passage from The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious where Jung notes that the archetypes exist:

... not in the form of images filled with content, but at first only as forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action. When a situation occurs which corresponds to a given archetype, that archetype becomes activated and a compulsiveness appears, which, like and instinctual drive, gains its way against all reason and will, or else produces a conflict of pathological dimensions...(para 99)

The parallel is striking and implies a similarity of perspective between the two that requires the existence of an unconscious organizer of perception and action. Moreover, the observations both require a presence for the structure throughout the species.

Proceeding with the passage identified by D'Aquili we find more striking parallels. On page 203 we read:

... the preconscious, as a reservoir of recollections and images amassed in the course of a lifetime, is merely an aspect of memory. While perennial in character, the preconscious also has limitations, since the term refers to the fact that even though memories are preserved, they are not always available to the individual. The unconscious, on the other hand, is always empty... As the organ of a specific function, the unconscious merely imposes structural laws upon unarticulated elements which originate elsewhere--impulses, emotions, representations and, memories. We might say, therefore, that the preconscious is the individual lexicon where each of us accumulates the vocabulary of his personal history, but that this vocabulary becomes significant, for us and for others, only to the extent that the unconscious structures it according to its laws and thus transforms it into language.

Again, bypassing D'Aquili's example from Jung, we turn to Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, and the essay "On the Psychology of the Unconscious," first published in 1917.

We have to distinguish between a personal unconscious and an impersonal or transpersonal unconscious. We speak of the latter also as the collective unconscious, because it is detached from anything personal and is common to all men, since its contents can be found everywhere, which is naturally not the case with personal contents. The personal unconscious contains lost memories, painful ideas that are repressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose), subliminal perceptions, by which are meant sense perceptions that were not strong enough to reach consciousness and finally, contents that are not yet ripe for consciousness (para 103).

These striking parallels suggest that both men were observing the same structures from very similar perspectives. Both divide the unconscious into dual segments, one personal, and one impersonal. They also see the deeper, impersonal level as providing a content free infrastructure upon which content builds.

The next element of similarity to which D'Aquili points is the pattern of oppositions and their resolution. Levi-Strauss sees just such a dialectic as representing the underlying structure of the unconscious. From "The Structural Study of Myth" we quote the following:

... mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution... We need only assume that two opposite terms with no intermediary always tend to be replaced by two equivalent terms which admit of a third one as a mediator; than one of the polar terms and the mediator become replaced by a new triad, and so on (1955, p.188).

Patterns of opposing elements were, of course, central to Jung's scheme. The principle of oppositions is pointed out by Jung as an essential characteristic of conscious thought (1959, para 419). He notes that "There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites (ibid., para 178)." The following Quote, from Aion, reflects an oppositionally based dynamic that Jung saw at the heart of the psyche. Although it reflects Jung's view of psychic organization, it is, never-the-less quite similar to Levi-Strauss' own dialectic.

As opposites never unite at their own level (tertium non datur!), a superordinate "third" is always required in which the two parts can come together. And since the symbol derives as much from the conscious as from the unconscious, it is able to unite them both, reconciling their conceptual polarity through its form and their emotional polarity through its numinosity (1959a, para 280)

Following Staude in his treatment of Jung's doctrine of symbols, (1976, p.319) we reproduce the following passage from Psychological Types as another locus of dialectic mental activity:

From the activity of the unconscious there now emerges a new content constellated by thesis and antithesis in equal measure and standing in compensatory relation to both. It [the new "living symbol] forms the middle ground on which the opposites can be united... The ego, torn between thesis and antithesis finds in the middle ground its own counterpart, its sole and unique means of expression, and it eagerly seizes on this in order to be delivered from its division ( para 825 as cited by Staude, Ibid.).

We also note Jolande Jacobi's observations with regard to the dialectical development of the living symbol and its structural similarity to the pattern of oppositions propounded by Levi-Strauss (despite the dissimilarity of logical level).

A symbol is alive only as long as it is "pregnant with meaning," only as long as the opposites, "form" and the "raw material of imagery" (thesis and antithesis), combine in it to make a whole (synthesis) so that its relation to the unconscious remains effective and meaningful (1959, p.97)

Finally, D'Aquili cites at length Jung's analysis of kinship structures as an anticipation of Levi-Strauss' Elementary Structures of Kinship by more than 3 years. The similarity is striking but does not require repetition here (1975, p.47).

If we look carefully at these similarities, based upon D'Aquili's analysis, we find the following apparently common understandings. There lies at the heart of the psyche an unconscious element that structures behavior, but that in and of itself can never become conscious. It is common to all people and exists at the level of biology. Jung called it the collective unconscious, Levi-Strauss, the unconscious. Somewhat more closely allied to consciousness there exists a layer of contents which have been forgotten, repressed, or for some other reason remain below the level of consciousness. In general, these contents have been marked by use, tagged by social convention, or otherwise ordered so as to identify them with certain kinds of patterns that emerge between the interplay of consciousness and the unconscious infrastructure. This level was called by Jung the personal unconscious, and by Levi-Strauss, the preconscious. Both authors recognize that the ordering of the contents of the repressed/forgotten unconscious materials are by means of a dialectic between various levels of meaning and structure.

Another effort at reconciliation of the two theories was made by John Raphael Staude in his 1976 article "From Depth Psychology to Depth Sociology: Freud, Jung, and Levi-Strauss. The outlook of the essay is presented in an introductory comment:

The General problem that concerned Freud, Jung and Levi-Strauss was to discover and explain a hidden order in the mental and cultural life of mankind. Each of them assumed a universality and collectivity of human nature at its deepest, archaic levels that flew in the face of the historical and cultural relativism that prevailed in the social sciences during their lifetimes. Each of them sought to demonstrate the essential structure and pattern of human mental processes through an analysis of human cultural products such as art, dreams, music, mythology, and particularly language. (p.304).

Staude's perception of the designs of his subjects suggests that with common goals we should be able to find common answers, if not full agreement. In his analysis of Jung, he begins by pointing out Jung's debt to the French school of sociology from which Levi-Strauss ultimately sprang ( thus providing a root for possible similarities as well as a possible answer to some of D'Aquili's questions-see above). According to Staude, Jung is in wholehearted agreement with many of their observations with the exception of adopting a strategy that concentrated on the inner experiences of the individual (p.316).

Moving first to the theory of archetypes, Staude points to the similarities already noted above with regard to the existence of psychic structures capable of crystalizing emotion. He then proceeds to point to an apparently significant difference in perspectives between Jung and Levi-Strauss as to the nature of the unconscious, noting that for Levi-Strauss the unconscious was empty of content and contained only rules for the organization of memories and emotions.

We have already shown how Jung and Levi-Strauss seem to be in agreement as to the division of the unconscious into personal and transpersonal segments. Is there some agreement as to the content, or lack of content in the transpersonal arena?

It would appear that the source of this problem and many others with regard to the collective unconscious, is a failure to separate the collective unconscious from its expression in the other organs of the psyche. The confusion is understandable, as Jung often mixed logical levels and seems to have often fallen into non-linear thought patterns. His works are full of metonymy and metaphorical leaps that often leave the more analytic and linear scholar in the dust.

Jung's description of the collective unconscious progressed from a series of images in its earliest formulations, to a purely formal set of structural principles, devoid of content. In the classical passage from The Archetypes Of The Collective Unconscious he notes the following:

It is necessary to point out once more that archetypes are not determined as regards their content, but only as regards their form and then only to a limited degree. A primordial image is determined as to its content only when it has become conscious and is therefore filled out with the material of conscious experience. Its form, however ... might perhaps be compared to the axial system of a crystal, which, as it were, preforms the crystalline structure in the mother liquid, although it has no material existence of its own. This first appears according to the specific way in which the ions and molecules aggregate. The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a... possibility of representation which is given a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms...(Para 155.).

This definition is crucial to our understanding. It is the Jungian position that the archetypes are purely formal. They are not images, they are not filled with content. Content accretes about the archetype at a higher level of integration. They are structural dominants, and nodal points that organize psychic experience.

We compare this definition of the archetype to Levi-Strauss' discussion of the growth of myth, as follows:

... myth grows spiral-wise until the intellectual impulse which has originated it is exhausted. Its growth is a continuous process whereas its structure remains discontinuous. If this is the case we should consider that it closely corresponds, in the realm of the spoken word, to the kind of being a crystal is in the realm of physical matter.( 1955 p.193-4)

If the unconscious is the ordering factor to which this growth corresponds, we have an essential equivalence between the two formulations. There is, however, more.

As noted in the quote from Jung, the collective unconscious organizes the materials of conscious life, drawing them into the underlying order. Understanding that the myth is composed of preformed and predefined images that are arranged according to the dialectic processes of the unconscious, Levi-Strauss would appear to make a similar claim for his unconscious on the pattern of bricolage.

... the possibilities always remain limited by the particular history of each piece and by those of its features which are already determined by the use for which it was originally intended or the modifications it has undergone for other purposes. The elements which the bricoleur collects and uses are 'pre-constrained' like the constitutive units of myth, the possible combinations of which are restricted by the fact that they are drawn from the language where they already possess a sense which sets a limit on their freedom of manoeuvre (1962, p.19).

That this is the pattern employed by the Levi-Straussean unconscious is made clear from the passage already cited while discussing D'Aquili:

As the organ of a specific function, the unconscious merely imposes structural laws upon unarticulated elements which originate elsewhere--impulses, emotions, representations and, memories. We might say, therefore, that the preconscious is the individual lexicon where each of us accumulates the vocabulary of his personal history, but that this vocabulary becomes significant, for us and for others, only to the extent that the unconscious structures it according to its laws and thus transforms it into language.(op. cit.)

Although Staude sees Levi-Strauss' interpretation of the unconscious as providing a significant advance over the others he reviews, his analysis is faulted due to his mis-reading of Jung. In light of the above analysis we find the author praising Levi-Strauss for insights gleaned by Jung at least 25 years previously (p.326).

In his final pages, Staude notes that Levi-Strauss saw his signal contribution as the illumination of the patterns of mind without emotion or content. While no-one can deny the truth and the depth of Levi-Strauss' contribution, one cannot but wonder with Staude and Douglas whether the emphasis on form sans content or pattern has often been an over-emphasis.

Since their original publication, the works of D'Aquili and Staude, seeking a common ground between Levi-Strauss, have come under attack by M. Joseph Chang (1984). In his opening sortie, Chang makes the following statement:

Scattered allusions to influences by Jung on Levi-Strauss and to supposed similarities between their concepts and methodologies have in recent years been given a more elaborate presentation by D'Aquili, Staude and Gras. Unlike these authors, I contend that Levi-Strauss' theories of structural anthropology are very different from as well as inimical to, Jung's psychoanalytic theories. These attempts at a rapprochement between Jung and Levi-Strauss were prompted partially by a strange reification of the term "unconscious," and the consequent attribution of some necessary kinship between users of the term.... The three authors fail to see essential contrasts such as between Levi-Strauss' concept of a universal human unconscious and the Jungian concept of a biologically transmitted phylogenetic unconscious which differs from one group to another (p. 101).

Having defined his topic, Chang proceeds to define several of the niceties of the structural program. 1.) Levi-Strauss studies culture/symbolic systems, not for culture's sake, but in order to understand what lies beneath it and makes it possible. 2.) The infrastructure upon which these symbol systems build is the unconscious. 3.) The unconscious' sole function is to apply universal, formal laws to elements from outside of itself: it has no content. 4.) The laws of the unconscious operate on a binary pattern of oppositions and correlations.

In general, these points, with the exception of 1.), have been handled already in our discussions of the works of Staude and D'Aquili. As stated here they are broadly compatible with our previous observations.

That Levi-Strauss' ultimate aim is different from Jung's bears little weight if our interest lies in the similarity of findings. Whether or not Levi-Strauss holds contempt for religion or is attracted to anthropology as an amusement or, as a tool for improving the human condition; whether he is a materialist or mystic has no relevance to whether or not the data uncovered by the two systems are comparable.

Central to Chang's argument is that those authors who have sought similarities between Jung and Levi-Strauss have reified the unconscious. He gives precious little in terms of justification for this statement except to declare in summary, that D'Aquili, Staude and Gras have assumed that their common use of the term unconscious with Levi-Strauss' implies some commonalty of referent which he feels to be unjustified. Beyond the assumption of a common referent, he makes no further analysis.

Chang notes that Levi-Strauss sought to move away from consciousness as an undependable source of information about the roots of the human psyche. He therefore moved towards the empty and formal unconscious and its manipulation of the confused and random mass of data in the personal unconscious. This move away from consciousness to find the source of consciousness was undertaken because, according to Levi-Strauss, introspection was perceived to be an epistemological dead end that can never lead to objective knowledge. Consciousness, moreover could not be differentiated from the unconscious except insofar as it appeared as an external manifestation. Consciousness, in the end, is a function of language, an external and totalizing environment that is driven by laws below the level of consciousness.(Levi-Strauss 1962, p252; Chang 1984, p.103 ff.)

We have, however already seen how Jung's differentiation between the collective and the personal unconscious are strikingly similar to Levi-Strauss' unconscious and preconscious. Jung, moreover, also saw consciousness as arising out of and requiring constant intercourse with the unconscious. It is not a far reach to link the Massa Confusa of Jung and the Alchemists with the seemingly random upwellings from the unconscious which Levi-Strauss used as the source of material for the Bricoleur's art.

As Chang continues, he provides an adequate, if uninspired overview of Jungian theory, heavily flavored with a Freudian structure, that does not characterize the bulk of the Jungian corpus after the split with Freud. He then takes on the more specific challenges of D'Aquili, Staude and Gras(pp. 105-107.).

The essential critique begins with the observation that all of the authors acknowledge that Levi-Strauss had criticized Jung on several occasions. This he deems to be proof positive that Levi-Strauss could never be similar to Jung. Chang seems to think that a criticism negates any possibility of influence. The same kind of thinking is displayed later in the paper when he criticizes Staude's attempt to provide a historical link between Jung, the French sociologists and Levi-Strauss (see below).

That his assumption that criticism is equivalent to absolute separation is further suggested by Chan's failure to observe the following possibilities with regard to Levi-Strauss' treatment of Jung. 1.) Levi-Strauss was incorrect in his characterization of Jung's mature position or; 2.) the critique was set up as a straw man as suggested by D'Aquili ( Op. Cit.). In fairness to Levi-Strauss we must assume that the problem proceeds from an early misreading that was never corrected by further investigation.

Chang next attempts to cover substantive issues but focuses almost solely on the idea of oppositions.

The doctrine of opposites appears on multiple levels in Jung. It is the method by which consciousness moves and grows. It expresses the essential complementarity between the conscious and the unconscious. It is the path whereby unconscious elements grow to conscious awareness. It is the heart of the symbolic process.

As opposites never unite at their own level (tertium non datur!), a superordinate "third" is always required in which the two parts can come together. And since the symbol derives as much from the conscious as from the unconscious, it is able to unite them both, reconciling their conceptual polarity through its form and their emotional polarity through its numinosity (1959a, para 280).

There is another dimension to the polarities in the psyche, expressed as the essential bi-polarity of the archetypes and the ease with which an element is transformed into its opposite. This was observed by Levi-Strauss when he noted:

The inability to connect two kinds of relationships is overcome by the positive statement that contradictory relationships are identical inasmuch as they are both self-contradictory in a similar way (Ibid., p. 180).

And similarly for Jung when he noted that "Every psychological extreme secretly contains its own opposite, or stands in some sort of intimate and essential relation to it. Indeed, it is from this tension that it derives its particular dynamism (cw 5, para 381)."

For Jung, as for Levi-Strauss, the psyche moves by comparisons and contrasts. Levi-Strauss has imagined them in several dimensions, but Jung adds the dimension of conscious/unconscious. According to Chan, this dimension does not exist for Levi-Strauss because the unconscious perfectly guides the conscious. One is led to believe, however, that this unanimity may be more a function of concrete cultures than of western cultures.

According to Jung, the very abstraction that differentiates the western culture from the primitive, has alienated the Westerner from unconscious realities. By contrast, a member of a concrete or neolithic culture, for whom all things are signs--things with purpose and place, not mere abstractions--may never know the anomie and alienation that characterize much of the West. The possibility of this crucial difference in orientation seems lost on Mister Chan.

Continuing, Chang fails to address the similarity in the structural dimension between Jung's collective unconscious and Levi-Strauss' non-personal unconscious, the similar identity between their personal unconscious and preconscious and the essential agreement as to the role of language in linear thought. He does not even consider an examination of the collective unconscious as he deems the concept unworthy of a scientist (p. 111). In his treatment of oppositions, he seems more concerned to refute the possibility of a teleological or meaning function in the dialectic than to acknowledge the similar and dialectic structure of both systems (pp. 107-109).

In dealing with Staude's attempt to provide a historical link between the French school of Sociology and the two thinkers, Chang casts off the possibility on the basis of Levi-Strauss having critiqued the members of the school. He fails to answer, or even consider Staude's attempt to forge a historical link, not on any substantive historical ground, but only on the ground that they were criticized or deemed outmoded (pp. 110-111).

It is unfortunate, that a writer of such energy as Chang should be so mistaken. As he has criticized D'Aquili for a faulty view of french sociology (based upon D'Aquili's apparent over-reliance upon Harris' text), so, he has made a similar error in relying perhaps more on anthropological hearsay regarding the theories of Jung than on the works themselves. Beyond one citation from the Collected Works, it would appear that his entire knowledge of Jungian psychology is secondary.

That there are significant differences in the approaches, methodologies and goals of Jung and Levi-Strauss cannot be denied. But a reasonable observer, not so beholden to a singular viewpoint as Mr. Chang seems to be, cannot help but see vast areas of agreement in their parallel discoveries regarding the objective structure of the psyche. One might suggest that Mr. Chan has failed through a very un-Levi-Straussian attachment to the emotionally charged content of the argument, not its structure.

Similarities based upon the interpretations of myth

Both Jung and Levi-Strauss were drawn to myth as primary data of human consciousness. For both, the similarities between the myths of all people identified them as providing special insights into the nature of mind. Like Levi-Strauss, Jung rejected the notion that myths are reflections or explanations of external phenomena. Unlike him, however, Jung saw myth as a projection of psychic processes onto the world of nature and society so that external myths and explanations reflect the structure of the psyche (1959 , para. 7 ff.). This differs from Levi-Strauss in that Levi-Strauss seems only to see the dialectic and its algebraic permutations as perhaps the sole formal constraint upon sensory data.

Jung believed that myth was a product of the unconscious. Indeed, He saw myth as a vital spring out of the unconscious depths from which consciousness drew its life-blood. For a primitive, living in a mythically vital concrete world, the world was seen to be replete with meaning and significance.

Myths and fairytales give expression to unconscious processes, and their retelling causes these processes to come alive again and be recollected, thereby re-establishing the connection between the conscious and the unconscious... (1959a Para. 280)

Jung, like Levi-Strauss, saw that myths were composed of constituent elements which were discrete from language though expressed by it on some level and that these elements had a grammar of their own. For Jung these elements were the motifs, or mythemes which reveal the archetypes and their various expressions. They were universals that appeared independently of cultural transmission. These centers of psychic organization took on for Jung a central structuring role in the psyche. As the archetype is projected on the material world, that world is categorized, separated, divided and known. If the work of the unconscious could be described in terms of bricolage, then the bricoleur's materials would be marked, for Jung, not by past uses so much as archetypally; by the pattern projected upon them from within. It is the archetypal dimension that ultimately determines their use and application.(1959, para 259 ff). Like Jung, however, Levi-Strauss saw the constituent elements as universals.

In accordance with what many authors found to be a frustrating and incomprehensible approach to the analysis of myth, Levi-Strauss held that the order of mythic elements and the composition of various versions were essentially arbitrary, and that the best analysis came from the analysis of multiple versions. Just so, Jung notes:

... The rule in Mythology is that typical parts of a myth can be fitted together in every conceivable variation, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to interpret one myth without a knowledge of all the others (CW5,para. 312).

That Levi-Strauss, like Jung has noted the appearance of consistent themes in mythical material is shown by his comparison of Myth and Music in the book Myth and Meaning. There he recalls that while listening to Wagner's Ring Cycle he noted the reappearance of a theme on three different occasions:

We can then notice that, on the three different occasions, there is a treasure which has to be pulled away or torn away from what it is bound to. There is the gold, which is stuck in the depths of the Rhine; there is the sword, which is stuck in a tree, which is a symbolic tree, the tree of life or the tree of the universe; and there is the woman Brunhilde, who will have to be pulled out of the fire. The recurrence of the theme then suggests to us that, as a matter of fact, the gold, the sword, and Brunhilde are one and the same...(p. 48).

This passage immediately recalls the 1967 statement with regard to the different material and sociological levels of analysis in the Myth of Asdiwil that:

... the levels cannot be separated out by the native mind. It is rather that everything happens as if the levels were provided with different codes, each being used according to the needs of the moment, and according to its particular capacity, to transmit the same message (Ibid., p.14).

The Wagner-inspired passage suggests that Levi-Strauss is open to the possibility of significantly more levels of significance than he has yet analyzed.

The central difference between these thinkers in their approach to myth analysis appears to be this: Jung is panchronic in his perspective; Levi-Strauss is strictly synchronic. For Jung, the Myth represents the ontogenetic and phylogenetic unfolding of personality. It reveals the past and holds out the hope of a goal of self realization. It is always personalized to the extent that it must carry meaning to the individual to whom it has been given. As revelation of the underlying patterns functioning in all the world of humanity, the myth carries personal meaning to each person with whom it comes into contact. The myth also is seen as a revelation of the diachronic and synchronic patterns that structure the psychic world. It is a map of otherwise unknown processes, potentials and strivings in the human psyche.

For Levi-Strauss, the myth is also an expression of the unconscious, but the unconscious conceived in an instant and viewed in cross-section. His approach embodies the linquistic requirement that synchrony be emphasized for true understanding. What he lacks in richness of detail and developmental logic, Levi-Strauss provides in structural precision that is often lacking in Jung.

Summary: The relevance of Levi-Strauss to the Theory of archetypes.

There lies at the heart of the psyche an unconscious element that structures behavior, but that in and of itself can never become conscious. It is common to all people and exists at the level of biology. Jung called it the collective unconscious, Levi-Strauss, the unconscious. Somewhat more closely allied to consciousness there exists a layer of contents which have been forgotten, repressed, or for some other reason remain below the level of consciousness. In general, these contents have been marked by use, tagged by social convention, or otherwise ordered so as to identify them with certain kinds of patterns that emerge between the interplay of consciousness and the unconscious infrastructure. This level was called by Jung the personal unconscious, and by Levi-Strauss, the preconscious. Both authors recognize that the ordering of the contents of the repressed/forgotten unconscious materials are by means of a dialectic between various levels of meaning and structure.

From a comparative viewpoint, there are some obvious similarities in their approach to myth. Both view myth as arising out of the unconscious. It is built of persistent structural units. It exists outside of time but interacts in dialectic fashion to assume its particular form in any given culture or for any given individual. A central portion of its structure on multiple levels is based upon opposition. The Myth has multiple layers of meaning, but always the same structure for similar myth groups.

The crucially significant differences in perspective between Jung and Levi-Strauss, seem to center about their material and their temporal approach to the material. Levi-Strauss abjures subjective data. Levi-Strauss saw conscious materials as unreliable. Even dreams, when filtered through the conscious memories were worthless as either the random orderings of the day's activities, or unreliable through the interference of conscious processes. For Jung, on the contrary, dreams, myths and the whole of human behavior provided clues to the structure of mind. Subjective experience was important data for the confirmation of the continuing formal patterns which he discovered at the roots of the human psyche.

The two are finally distinct with regard to their temporal approach. Levi-Strauss, in true structuralist fashion observes only the synchronic data. His perspective takes a slice of the phenomenon in time, observes with great logical precision the systemic relationships that order the elements, and reduces them to mathematical precision. It is linear, causal and reductive: a science of the concrete in the best sense of the word. Jung, despite a similar interest in synchronic analysis, moves his analysis into multiple dimensions. Although he shares the structuralist infrastructure with Levi-Strauss, it is overlaid with elements of affective organization, content specific variables, and a truly systems oriented panchronic perspective. These differences, however, represent different logical types and exist on logical levels of analysis apart from the similarities of infrastructure that is common to both. In contrast to the linearity of Levi-Strauss' constructions, Jung is acausal, non-linear and relies heavily on subjective data. His implicit systems orientation drives him to a dynamic rather than a static representation of the psyche and requires him to inhabit multiple levels simultaneously.

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