I want to pass on a clip from the epilogue of Jim Holt's 2012 book "Why
Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story" in which he
describes his attending a small ninetieth birthday celebration for
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) the . The master made the following brief comments:
“Montaigne,”
he begins, “said that aging diminishes us each day in a way that, when
death finally arrives, it takes away only a quarter or half the man. But
Montaigne only lived to be fifty-nine, so he could have no idea of the
extreme old age I find myself in today” - which, he adds, was one of the
“most curious surprises of my existence.” He says he feels like a
“shattered hologram” that has lost its unity but that still retains an
image of the whole self.
This is not the speech we were expecting. It is intimate, it is about death.
Lévi-Strauss goes on to talk about the “dialogue” between the eroded self he has become - le moi réel - and the ideal self that coexists with it - le moi métonymique.
The latter, planning ambitious new intellectual projects, says to the
former, “You must continue.” But the former replies, “That’s your
business - only you can see things whole.” Lévi-Strauss then thanks
those of us assembled for helping him silence this futile dialogue and
allowing his two selves to “coincide” again for a moment - “although,”
he adds, “I am well aware that le moi réel will continue to sink toward its ultimate dissolution.”
(This post appeared first on 8/23/24)
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