turalism’s death at the very event, the Sciences of Man sympo-
sium, that was supposed to celebrate its arrival in America
(Signs 97 ).
Derrida argues that structuralism, like all of Western
philosophy, aims to enshrine “Being as presence in all senses of
this word” (Writing 279 ). For structuralism, Being takes the
form of a center that anchors and determines all: “The concept
of centered structure is in fact the concept of a play based on a
fundamental ground, a play constituted on the basis of a fun-
damental immobility and a reassuring certitude, which itself is
beyond the reach of play” ( 279 ).
In his speech at the Baltimore conference, Derrida plans
to shake this center, to render it permanently uncertain. He
also wants, in the process, to kill the father. The father in this
case is Lévi-Strauss, the renowned anthropologist from the
generation preceding Derrida’s and the most influential struc-
turalist of them all.
Derrida begins his critique of Lévi-Strauss in “Structure,
Sign and Play” by focusing on Lévi-Strauss’s treatment of the
distinction between nature and culture, a staple of philosoph-
ical thought since the ancient Greeks. There is one thing,
according to Lévi-Strauss, that troubles the nature-culture
division, since it is hard to assign to either category: the incest
taboo. The prohibition of incest seems to be shared by all
human societies. It is, as Lévi-Strauss puts it, “a rule [and
therefore cultural], but a rule which, alone among all the social
rules, possesses at the same time a universal character” (cited
inWriting 283 ). Instead of taking the baffling and paradoxical
character of the incest taboo, halfway between nature and cul-
ture, as a telling fact about the nature-culture opposition,
Lévi-Strauss simply accepts the fact that the taboo is universal.
Derrida takes him to task severely on this account, though
Writing and DifferenceandOf Grammatology 95