I am reading The Gift (Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Society) by Marcel Mauss at the moment, ongoing research for a yet undefined project and just wanted to share a quote from the introduction section. It is written by E.E. Evans-Pritchard.

“But he not only wrote about the social solidarity and collective sentiments.  He expressed them in his own life.  For him the group of Durkhein and his pupils and collegues had a kind of collective mind, the material representation of which was a product the Annee.  And if one belongs to others and not to oneself, which is one of the themes, perhaps the basic theme, of the present book, one expresses one’s attachment by subordinating one’s own ambition to the common interest.”

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