Bricolage

I thought it might be important to address the name of the blog before I begin, just to set the record straight.  Bricolage (bree-co-lawj) is a French word that means to put things together with the items and tools you have at hand.  The reason I use it is simply because I have recently been reading Claude Levi-Strauss, the famous French Anthropologist and Structuralist, and this is a term that he employs.  By it he means that the study of the human world, as opposed to the study of the physical world, must be undertaken with the tools we have at hand – namely, in his case, language (he is heavily influenced by Saussure, the “father” of Structuralism).

I won’t go much further than this, just because I am not particularly heavily influenced by either Levi-Strauss or Saussure.  I chose “Bricolage” as the title for this blog simply because I like the term, and I do plan to be, in some sense, a “bricoleur” – one who constructs things using bricolage.  This blog will be ecclectic, and mostly my thoughts on things.  I do not expect to be consistent, or always ‘correct’, as I see writing as a way to learn, rather than as a way to communicate some infallibly correct understanding of reality.  I don’t have that.  What I have is evidence, reason, ideas, and interests.  Comments are always welcome.  Flames are not.