interview lévi-strauss 1988 eribon
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7/28/2019 Interview Lévi-Strauss 1988 Eribon
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Lévi-Strauss Interviewed, Part 1
Author(s): Didier EribonReviewed work(s):Source: Anthropology Today, Vol. 4, No. 5 (Oct., 1988), pp. 5-8Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
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of Romanianshave been moved into the Szekler capital
Tirgu Mures (Marosvah6ly in Hungarian)in order to
change it into a Romanian town. Similar efforts are
being made to transform he Transylvanian apital Cluj
(Kolozsvar), where Hungariansnow account for only
one-third of the population. Even non-Romanian geo-
graphicalandpersonal names arenow forbidden.
A forced ideological industrialization rogramme,an-
nounced to the world by Ceausescu in a speech on 3
March,which replaces villages with industrial ocieties
in miniature, s one of the weapons used to assist in the
assimilation of national ethnic minorities. When vil-lages are destroyed, an area loses its local characteris-
tics, since the concrete tower blocks which replace
them can be found anywhere, and the inhabitantsare
not necessarilyrehoused n the same area. Communities
are sometimes dispersed. Thus architecture also
becomes a political weapon since, as Gavin Stamp
points out, it is easier to control an urbanized semi-
proletariativing in flats; the peasants are cut off from
theirhomes and from the land.
In the springof last year, Romaniapublicly attached
Hungary or 're-establishingHorthy'sfascist and chau-
vinistic thesis'. The reference was to A History of
Transylvaniain three volumes, which had just been
published.ZoltanSzasz, one of the co-editors,believes
the criticismwas an attempt o raisenationalistic senti-ment and to divertattentionfrom the economic decline
of Romania. Thus accordingto the latest information,
Kolozsvzar and Brasov, two large cities, are virtually
unlit at night, andtherewas a typhoid epidemic in Bra-
sov in Spring1987, due to the city's pollutedsewers.
The Hungarian authorities, for their part, have re-
sponded by breakingthe traditional silence regarding
the problemsof theirminorityin Romania. On 20 Au-
gust, the 950th anniversaryof the death of St Stephen,
founder of Hungary, Imre Pozsgay of the Hungarian
Politburo criticized Romanian policies as 'incom-
prehensible and idiotic' and 'a shame to socialism'.
Matyas Szuros, Secretaryof the CentralCommittee,has
denounced Romania's actions on Radio Budapest and
IsvanNemeskuirtywritesin Hungarian Quarterly: This
situation has become so distressingthat the Romanian
governmentmay sooner or later be accused of ... de-
liberate cultural genocide and forcible assimilation.'
The Hungarianauthoritieshave permitted and reported
public demonstrations uch as that which took place in
Budapeston 27 June 1988, which included a march to
the RomanianEmbassy. Ceausescurespondedby clos-
ing the HungarianConsulate n Cluj.
The conclusion of the InternationalHelsinki Feder-
ation for HumanRights ReportS.O.S. Transylvania s
thatthe Hungarianminority n Romania s the victim of
suppressionaimed at assimilation:The rights of the Hungarianminority n Romania,the most
numerous national minority in Europe, are assured notonly by the Helsinki Accords and the UN Conventions,but
also by the Romanianconstitution,bilateralagreementsbe-
tween Hungaryand Romania, and the Treaty of Paris after
the last World War. Because of this, the fate of the Hunga-
rians in Romaniais not simply a domesticRomanian mat-
ter.
TheEconomist, n a recent issue, points out that West
Germany, whose own ethnic minority in Romania is
badly affected, is the only westerncountryto have ob-
jected publicly.1 This is disgraceful. Anthropologists,
ethnologistsand folklorists must speak out if our gov-
ernments will not. The Economist believes that interna-
tional ridicule of Ceausescu, known for his vanity,
might have some effect in slowing down the process.
And Ceausescu is no longer young. Amnesty Interna-tional has found that its campaignsof letter-writingand
peacefuldemonstrationshave been effective in securing
the release of prisonersof conscience in many cases.
Meanwhile the destructioncontinues. In the last few
years 10,000 ethnicHungarianshave fled fromRoman-
ia to theirmotherland,he first time that one communist
country has accepted refugees on this scale from an-
other. LastyearHungarysigned a westernresolution on
minority rights at the Human Rights Conference in
Vienna. In the words of Laszl6 CardinalPaskai,Arch-
bishop of Esztergomand Primate of HungarianCatho-
lics: 'These villages are not just small settlements of
relatively few people. They also constitute an integral
part of a country.They are homes of unique national
values and of folk culture.'
VenetiaNewall
1. As we go to press, it
is reportedTimes,21
September)hat Britain
andthe USA have now
also protested o the
Romanian
Government. ditor.
Levi-Straussnterviewedby Didier Eribon - Part 1
We are pleased to publish
here two extracts inEnglishtranslation romDe Pres et de Loin (a
furthertwo extracts will bepublished in our December
issue), to mark the 80thbirthdayof Claude
Levi-Strausson 28November next. This is an
interview n bookformpreparedby Didier Eribon,
a journalist with LeNouvel Observateur,
publishedat 89F byEditionsOdile Jacob,
Paris, who have kindly
granted uspermissionto
D.E. Was your family very much involved with the
arts?C.L.-S. Yes, this was quite atavistic! My great-
grandfather, the father of my mother's father, was
called Isaac Strauss. Born in 1906 in Strasbourg, he
'made it' very young in Paris. He was a violinist and
had got together a little orchestra. He played a part in
making the music of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and
some others better known. In Paris, he worked with
Berlioz, who mentions him in his memoirs; and also
with Offenbach, for whom he wrote some of his fa-
mous quadrilles. We knew Offenbach by heart in my
family; his music lulled my whole childhood.
Straussbecame conductorfor court balls at the end
of the reign of Louis-Philippe.Then under Napoleon
III, organizerof the Casino at Vichy, which he ran for a
long time. Afterwards,he succeeded Musard in charge
of balls at the Op6ra.He was at the same time a sort ofCousin Pons, with a passion for antiques, in which he
traded.
D.E. Did your family keep any of them?
C.L.-S. There was a largecollection of Jewish antiq-
uities which is now in the Mus6e de Cluny. A number
of objects which passed through his hands were ac-
quired by benefactors who gave them to the Louvre.
Whateverremainedwas sold on his death or shared out
between his daughters.The remainder was looted by
the Germansduringthe Occupation.I still have a few
pieces of d6bris: such as the bracelet that Napoleon III
offered my great-grandmothero thank her for hospi-
tality at the Villa Strauss in Vichy. This Villa Strauss,
where the emperor stayed, still exists. It has become a
5
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baror a restaurant, don't rememberexactly, but it has
kept the name.
D.E. Was the memory of that past transmitted nto
family tradition?
C.L.-S. Certainly,for it was the family's most glori-
ous period: they were near the throne! My great-grand-
father used to visit Princesse Mathilde. My paternal
family lived amid memories of the Second Empire.
They also stayed close to it; as a child, I saw with my
own eyes EmpressEug6nie.
D.E. You have told me that your father was a
painter.C.L.-S. Yes, and two of my uncles as well. Prosper-
ous to startwith, my paternalgrandfatherdied a ruined
man. So that one of his sons - he had four boys and a
girl - had to work very hard to help his family.
My father was placed in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes
Commerciales.At the beginning of his active life, he
startedto work at the Stock Exchangein a humble ca-
pacity.There he got to know Kahnweiler[dealerfor the
leading cubists] and they became friends. As soon as he
could, he turned o paintingwhich he hadbeen passion-
ately fond of since childhood.
My father and my mother were first cousins. In
Bayonne [whereLevi-Strauss'smother was broughtup]
my mother's eldest sister marrieda painterwho had his
hourof celebrity,HenryCaro- Delvaille; anothersistermarrieda painter,GabrielRoby, who was Basque. For
him, life was even more difficult than for my father:his
health was fragile andhe died young.
Was it on account of their family relationshipor be-
cause of connections between paintersthat my parents
got to know each other?I don't know.
In any case, my motherwas living in Parisbefore her
marriage, or some of the time with the Caro-Delvaille
family. She learnt shorthand yping so as to become a
secretary.
D.E. Your father did not earn much money in his
careeras a painter.
C.L.-S. Less and less, as the tastes of the public
changed.
D.E. So your childhood was not thatof a son of the
Parisianbourgeoisie?
C.L.-S. It was, as regardsculture,for we lived in an
artistic milieu; my childhood was very rich intellec-
tually.But we contendedwith materialdifficulties.
D.E. Do you have precisememories of this?
C.L.-S. I remember he panics that could sometimes
arise when therewere no more commissions. Then my
father,who was a great handyman, nventedall sorts of
little crafts for himself. At one time, the householdem-
barkedon printing abrics.
We engravedlinoleum-blocks,we coated solids with
a paste that was spreadonto velvet so that multi-col-
oured metallic powders, scatteredon top of it, would
stick.D.E. And you took part n these activities?
C.L.-S. I even createdthe patterns!There was an-
otherperiodwhen my father made little tables in imita-
tion lacquerin the Chinese style. He also made lamps
with inexpensive Japanese prints stuck onto the glass.
Anything was all right so as to pay the monthly bills.
D.E. Have you kept some picturesby him?
C.L.-S. Few, because as a result of the plundering
that went on, my parents were left with nothing at the
end of the war;not even a bed...
D.E. You have spoken of the collection of Jewish
antiquitiesbuilt up by your great-grandfather. ad your
parentsmaintaineda religious commitment?
C.L.-S. My parents were complete unbelievers. But
my mother,the daughterof a rabbi, had grown up in a
differentatmosphere.
D.E. Did you know your grandfather, he rabbi?
C.L.-S. Very well. I lived in his house during the
first war. My mother and sisters had settled down there
with their childrenwhile their husbands were on active
service.
D.E. Apart from the short period when you lived
with your grandfather,you were brought up in a non-
religious atmosphere,but the Jewish traditionwas per-
haps present there in spite of everything?
C.L.-S. Not without hitches. My paternal grand-motherwas still a practisingJew. However, on that side
therelay dormanta touch of madness which showed it-
self sometimes tragically, sometimes comically. One
brotherof my father's, obsessed with biblical exegesis
and not quite right in the head, committedsuicide; that
was when I was three. Well before my birth, another
brotherof my father's had himself ordained as a priest
to take revenge on his parentsas a result of a quarrel.
For a time, the family counted among its number an
Abbe L6vi... I rememberhim much later, a junior em-
ployee of the gas company, always in his best bib and
tucker,with a blondcurled-upmoustache, smugly satis-
fied with his personand his condition.
On my mother'sside, my grandfatherhe rabbi was a
holy man of a self-effacing disposition, in whose houseone observedthe rites scrupulously.Three or four years
running, I attended all the festivals. As for his wife,
even theirdaughtersdoubted that she had the faith. At
Bayonne, she had them schooled in the convent be-
cause it was the best establishment.The elder daughter
preparedfor Sevres [an Ecole Normale Sup6rieure or
women] or even went there (I'm not sure which any
more) at a time when orthodoxpeople in the provinces
thought that S6vriennes were she-devils. The rabbi's
wife had broad deas!
Although unbelievers,my parentsstill remainedclose
to the Jewish traditionof their childhoods.They didn't
celebrate the festivals, but they spoke about them. At
Versailles, I was put through my barmizvah,without
any reasons being invoked other than not causing of-
fence to my grandfather.
D.E. You've never been worriedby religious feel-
ings?
C.L.-S. If by religion you mean a relationshipwith a
personalGod, never.
Below: an extract rom chapter16, 'Raceet Politique'
D.E. In 1952, with the text entitled Race et histoire,
you left the perspectiveof pure social anthropology o
position yourself at the level that can be called 'politi-
cal', which touched in any case directlyon contempor-
ary problems.
C.L.-S.It
was a commission.I
don't think I wouldhave written hat workmyself on my own initiative.
D.E. How did this commission arise?
C.L.-S. UNESCO asked a number of authors to
write a series of booklets on the racial question: Michel
Leiris was one, I was another...
D.E. There you affirm the diversity of cultures, you
put in question the idea of progress, and you proclaim
the necessity of 'coalition' between cultures...
C.L.-S. In general, I was seeking a way to reconcile
the notion of progresswith culturalrelativism. The no-
tion of progress implies the idea that certain cultures,at
given times or in given places, are superior to others,
because they have produced works which those others
have shown themselves incapable of. And culturalrela-
reproduce he extracts.Levi-Strauss pent
most of his childhood nParis in the 16th
arrondissement. he irst
extract,fromchapter1,
'D'Offenbach Marx',describeshis amily
background.We then
jump to part of Chapter
16, 'Race et politique',which ocuses on the
controversyn which
Levi-Strauss ecameinvolved n the 1970s as
an eminent ocial
anthropologist nd
influential ntellectual.
In the two concluding
extracts o bepublished
in December,we have
first a glimpse of
Levi-Strauss'sNew York
period duringthe
SecondWorldWar,and
secondlya discussion of
the structureand plan of
Mythologiques,
Le'vi-Strauss's mbitious
four-volumework on the
analysis of SouthAmericanand North
American ndianmyth.De Pres et de Loin
can be stronglyrecommended s a
whole..The three inal
chapterscover
Le'vi-Strauss'shoughtson literature,paintingand music.
ClaudeLevi-Strauss
was Professorat the
Collegede Francefrom
1959 to 1982, and sincethen has beenHonorary
Professor.His manyhonours nclude
membership f theAcademieFran(aise
since 1973 and
HonoraryFellowship of
theRAI,whichalsoawarded him theHuxley
MemorialMedal in
1965.
The translationofthese extractsis byJonathanBenthall.
? Editions Odile
Jacob, September1988.
6
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tivism, which is one of the bases of anthropological
thought- at least in my generationand the one before
it (for it is challenged by some people today) - con-
tends that there can be no absolute criterion orjudging
one culture as superior to another.I tried to shift the
problem's centre of gravity.
If at certain times and in certain places, some cul-
tures 'move' while others 'don't move', this is not, I
said, because of the superiorityof the former,but be-cause historical or geographicalcircumstanceshave en-
gendereda collaborationbetween culturesthat are not
unequal (nothing permitssuch an evaluation)but differ-
ent. They begin to move by borrowingfrom one an-
other or by seeking to oppose one another.They fer-
tilize or stimulate one another mutually;Whereas at
otherperiods or in other places, cultures which stay iso-
lated, as if in a closed world of theirown, experiencea
stationaryife.
D.E. This text has become a classic of anti-racism,
and is even read in secondaryschools. Is it in reaction
against this vulgate that you prepareda second text in
1971,this time entitled 'Race et culture'?
C.L.-S. That also arose from a UNESCO com-
mission, for a solemn conferencedesigned to inaugur-ate an international earof struggle againstracism.
D.E. You have said aboutwhathappened, This'text
causeda scandal and that was its aim!'
C.L.-S. Which was perhaps a little strong... One
thing is certain:it did make a scandal,in UNESCO in
any case. Twenty years after Race et histoire, they
asked me to speak againaboutracism,probablyexpect-
ing thatI would repeatwhat I had alreadysaid. I don't
like to repeat myself, and above all, many things had
happenedduringthose twenty years,one of thembeing,
as far as I was concerned, a growing annoyance pro-
voked by periodic displays of good feelings, as if that
alone could be enough.
It seemed to me on the contrary irst that racial con-
flicts could only get worse, and second that, in theminds of the public, a confusion was being created
aroundnotions such as racism and anti-racism;andthat
by dint of widening them in an ill- considered way,
people were feeding racism instead of weakeningit.
D.E. You were speakingthis time of the differences
that separateand oppose cultures. Which ran against
the grainof yourearlierspeech.
C.L.-S. Not at all. People didn't read the earliertext,
or only half of it. One critic, writingI thinkin L'Huma-
nite [the French Communist newspaper], wanted to
prove that I had changed my position, and he quoteda
long passage from 'Race and culture' in support.Ac-
tually, this passage had already appeared n Race and
history. As it seemed well phrasedto me, I used my
own text again.
D.E. What was most shocking in 'Race and culture'
was perhaps he idea which you advanced, thatcultures
want to oppose one another.
C.L.-S. At the end of Race and history, I emphas-
ized a paradox. It is the difference between cultures
which makes their meeting fertile. Now this interaction
brings about progressive homogenization: the benefits
which cultures draw from these contacts derive to a
great extent from their qualitative separation,but in the
course of theirexchanges, these separationsdiminish to
the point of disappearing.Is that not what we are wit-
nessing today? By the way, this idea that during their
evolution cultures tend towards a growing entropy
which results from their mixing - presented in a text
which you said just now had become a classic of anti-
racism, and that delights me - comes in a straight ine
from Gobineau, though he is denounced as a father of
racism. Which goes to show the disorder in people's
mindsat the presenttime.
The views of Gobineauhave, moreover,a very mod-
em tinge, for he realized that little islands of order can
form, by means of the effect thathe called - and this is
very modern too - 'a correlationin the different parts
of the structure'. He gave examples. These successful
equilibriabetween mixtures contribute,as he saw, tomilitateagainsta decline which he saw as irreversible.
What can be concluded from that, except that it is
desirable for cultures to maintaintheir diversityor for
them to be renewed in theirdiversity? Only - and this
is what my second text pointedout - one must agree to
pay the price: that is to say, that cultures attached to
their own respectivelife-styles and value-systemskeep
an eye on theirparticularities: nd that this disposition
is healthy, not at all pathologicalas some would have
us believe. Each culture develops thanks to its ex-
changes with other cultures. But each one must put up
a certain resistance, otherwise very quickly it would
have no more to exchangewhich belongedto it specifi-
cally. Absence of and excess of communication are
bothdangerous.D.E. How do you explainthatyour 1952 text was so
successful and not the second?
C.L.-S. The first was publishedas a little book; the
other,a lecture,has never appearedon its own. And if
the first was judged orthodox but the second book not,
I cannot help it: they form a whole. I would add that
the second text, where I tried to introduce the conclu-
sions of populationgenetics, is more difficult to read.
Alreadynow with Race and history, every year school-
children come to see me, write to me or telephoneme
saying 'We have an essay to write and we understand
nothing!'
D.E. What would you do if UNESCO were to ask
you today for a new lecture on the same subject?
C.L.-S. There's no danger!D.E. But newspapersand the radio often ask your
advice on the questionof racism and on the whole you
refuse to reply...
C.L.-S. I don't want to reply because, in this field,
there is total confusion, and because whatever I say
will, I know in advance,be misinterpreted.
As a social anthropologist, am convinced thatracist
theoriesare both monstrous and absurd.But in making
the notion of racism commonplace, in applying it at
random, people empty it of content and risk ending up
at a result which is the opposite of what they want. For
what is racism? A precise doctrine, which can be
summed up in fourpoints. First, that a correlationexists
between genetic heritage on the one hand and intellec-
e:i
- ~~~~~~1
Claude Levi-Strauss,
photographedrecentlyby Louis Monier.
ClaudeLe'vi-Straussn
Oxfordto receive anhonorarydoctorate, 6
June 1964.
7
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tual aptitudes and moral dispositions on the other. Sec-
ond: that this heritage on which the aptitudes and dis-
positions are held to depend is common to all the mem-
bers of certain human groups. Third: that these groups
called 'races' can be hierarchized in terms of the
quality of their genetic heritage. Fourth: hat these dif-
ferences authorize those 'races' held to be superior to
command and exploit others, maybe to destroy them.
The theory and the practice are indefensible for a num-
ber of reasons which, following other authors or at the
same time as them, I set out in 'Race and culture' with
as much vigour as in Race and Histoiy. The problem ofrelationships between cultures is situated on another
level.
D.E. So that, in your eyes, hostility felt by one cul-
ture towards another s not racism?
C.L.-S. Yes it is, if it is active hostility. Nothing can
authorizeone culture to destroyor even to oppressan-
other. Such negation of other people has inevitably to
rely on transcendentreasons: those of racism, or equi-
valent reasons. But it is a fact which has always existed
that cultures, while respecting one another, can feel
more or less affinity with one another. That is a norm
of human behaviour. In denouncing it as racist, one
risks playing the enemy's game, for many naive people
will say to themselves 'Well, if that is racism, I am a
racist'.You know how attracted am by Japan.If in Paris,
in the underground, see a couple that seems to be
Japanese, I will look at them with interest and sym-
pathy, readyto do them a service. Is that racism?
D.E. If you look at them with sympathy, no; but if
you had told me 'I look at them with hatred'I would
have replied, yes.
C.L.-S. And yet, I based my reaction on physical
appearance,behaviour, the sound of the language. In
daily life, everyone does the same to place an unknown
person on the geographic map... A lot of hypocrisy
would be needed to try andoutlaw this kind of approxi-
mation.
D.E. Are therephysical appearanceswhich generate
antipathy n you?
C.L.-S. You mean ethnic types? No, certainly not.They all include sub-types, some of which seem attrac-
tive to us, others not. In some Indian communities in
Brazil,I felt surrounded y beautifulindividuals;others
seemed to offer me the spectacle of a degraded hu-
manity. The Nambikwara women seemed to me in
generalmore beautifulthan the men; the opposite was
the case with the Bororo. Making such judgments,we
apply the canons of our culture.But the only valid ca-
nons in the circumstancesare those of the people con-
cerned.
In the same way, I belong to a culture which has a
distinctivelife-style andvalue-system,so thatvery dif-
ferent culturesdo not attractme automatically.
D.E. You don't like them?
C.L.-S. That would be saying too much. If I studythem as a social anthropologist, do it with all the ob-
jectivity and indeed all the empathyof which I am ca-
pable.That doesnit preventcertain culturesfromhitting
it off less easily than otherswith my own.
EngenderingnowledgeThe politics of ethnography Part 1 - to be concluded)
PATCAPLAN
This artic e is based on
the secondAudrey
RichardsMemorial
Lecture deliveredat
Rhodes House, QAford,
on 18 May. We are
publishingit in two
parts, of which the
second, largely
concerned withanthropologyand
feminism,will appear in
the December issue.
Dr Caplanstarted by
saying that Audrey
Richards(1899-1984)
had been a 'living proof
for women studentsofher generationthat
'women could be and
weregood
anthropologists'.ShementionedRichards's
presidentialaddress to
the AfricanStudies
Association in 1967,whichrecalled what it
Ethnography
A poem written by R.D. Laing captures the mood of
the postmodemist,reflexive era:
The theoreticaland descriptive diom
of much research in social science
adoptsa stance of apparent 'objective'neutrality.
But we have seen
how deceptivethis can be.
The choice of syntaxand vocabulary s a political act
that defines and circunmscrbes the manner n which facts'
are to be experienced.
Indeed, in a sense
it goesfurther
and even creates the acts that are studied
The 'data' (given) of research
are not so much given
as taken
out of a constantlyelusive matrixof happenings.
We shouldspeak of captaather than data.
Thequantativelynterchangeablegrist
that goes into the mills
of reliabilitystudiesand ratingscales
is the expression
of a processing that we do onr-eality
not the expression
of theprocesses of reality.(inWeaver 973)
Within anthropology,much attention s currently o-
cused upon ethnographyand definitions of it as a form
of knowledge. Roy Ellen suggests that it has many
meanings- at one and the same time, it is something
we do/study/use/read/and write (1984:7). Ethnography
lies at the boundary of two systems of meaning and
raises the question, how do we translateanotherculture
through the vehicle of our own language?This in turn
takes us back to the oft-debatedquestion- what is cul-
ture itself? Increasingly,it has been seen as manufac-
tured, both by informantsand anthropologists,and in
the process, as contested. The protagonists n this con-
test are the ethnographer, he subjects/informants, nd
the audience/reader. shall deal with each of these in
turn.
How do we represent another culture - can we?
should we? What is the ethnographer?Archivist, trans-
lator, midwife, writerof fiction, trickster,bricoleur,in-
quisitor, and intellectual tourist (see various contribu-
tors to Clifford 1986) are just some of the recent sug-
gestions. The standardmonographwhich has charac-
terizedBritish and American social anthropology or so
many years has come in for some heavy criticism.
Aside from the fact that,as many have pointedout, it is
usually extremelyboring,it also fails to include the ob-
server in its analysis: the ethnographerappearsbriefly
in the preface, as if to establish the authorityandcredi-
bility of having actually 'been there',but thenpromptly
disappearsfrom the main text. This means that his or
8
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