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News of the death of the philosopher Richard Rorty on June 8 came as = I was=20 reading about a small Brazilian tribe that the French anthropologist = Claude=20 L=E9vi-Strauss studied in the 1930s. A strange accident, a haphazard = juxtaposition=20 =97 but for a moment this pragmatist philosopher and a fading tribal = culture=20 glanced against each other, revealing something unusual about the = contemporary=20 scene.
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The philosopher Richard Rorty. =
Mr. Rorty was one of America=92s foremost philosophers, who in = midcareer, after=20 devoting himself to the rigors of analytic philosophy, decided that = =93it is=20 impossible to step outside our skins =97 the traditions, linguistic and = other,=20 within which we do our thinking and self-criticism.=94 He argued that we = are=20 always dealing with multiple and conflicting claims of truth, none of = which can=20 be conclusively established. We choose what to believe based on what is = useful=20 for us to believe. For Mr. Rorty, the importance of democracy is that it = creates=20 a liberal society in which rival truth claims can compete and = accommodate each=20 other. His pragmatism was postmodern, tolerant to a fault, its moral and = progressive conclusions never appealing to a higher authority.
But the Caduveo of Brazil would not have welcomed that kind of = all-inclusive=20 embrace, and probably that embrace would not have been so readily = offered to=20 them. When Mr. L=E9vi-Strauss wrote about this dwindling tribe in = =93Tristes=20 Tropiques,=94 his fascinating 1955 memoir, he compared these =93knightly = Indians=94=20 with their =93aristocratic arrogance=94 to a deck of European playing = cards; they=20 even looked the parts of jacks, kings and queens, he wrote, with their = cloaks=20 and tunics decorated in red and black with recurrent motifs resembling = hearts,=20 diamonds, spades and clubs. The tribal queens, Mr. L=E9vi-Strauss noted, = even=20 seemed to trump Lewis Carroll=92s imagined Queen of Hearts with their = taste for=20 playing with severed heads brought back by warriors.
The Caduveo, in Mr. L=E9vi-Strauss=92s description, would never have = considered=20 for a moment that their beliefs and their society were arbitrarily = constructed.=20 The Caduveo had all the presumption and self-importance of royalty. They = tattooed their bodies with elaborate =93asymmetric arabesques=94 that = served as=20 coats of arms and signs of status. Their leaders removed every bit of = facial=20 hair, including eyelashes, and sneered at hairy Europeans. They even = intimidated=20 their Spanish and Portuguese conquerors.
They were, then, preliberal, premodern. In their midst every = principle Mr.=20 Rorty valued was violated. They provided their own transcendent = authority and=20 demanded its universal recognition. A neighboring, related tribe = essentially=20 became their serfs, cultivating land and turning over produce.
The Caduveo founding myth recounts that, lacking other gifts at the = moment of=20 creation, the tribe was given the divine right to exploit and dominate = others.=20 Mr. L=E9vi-Strauss once suggested that the Indian tribes of the Americas = were like=20 peoples of the Middle Ages, lacking the example of Rome; but the = Caduveo, in his=20 descriptions, are more like nobility from the 17th to mid-18th century, = lacking=20 the example of either the American or French revolutions.
But there was also something else about this tribe that drew Mr.=20 L=E9vi-Strauss=92s attention: =93It was a society remarkably adverse to = feelings that=20 we consider as being natural.=94 Its members disliked having children. = Abortion=20 and infanticide were so common that the only way the tribe itself could = continue=20 was by adoption, and adoption =97 more properly called abduction =97 was = traditionally implemented through warfare. The tribal disdain for nature = extended into its active denigration of hair, agriculture, childbirth = and even,=20 perhaps, representational art.
In all of this the tribe was proclaiming that while its dominance = derived=20 from nature and was beyond question, its superiority meant that nature = had no=20 further claim on it. Everything else was created by the tribe itself,=20 particularly the ornate and elaborate tattoos and paintings on = members=92 bodies.=20 In this respect the tribe was not countercultural but counternatural. It = refused=20 to defer to external forces or commands.
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