Eric Csapo on Levi-Strauss

The solution is never logical, strictly speaking, but it imitates logic. If the problem were capable of a purely logical solution, there would be no need to have recourse to myth. But myth can do what logic cannot, and so it serves as a kind of cultural trouble-shooter. Rather than thinking of it as a kind of placebo which creates the mere impression of solution to a problem, it may be regarded as a mechanism for relieving anxiety.
Csapo, Eric, 2005, ‘Theories of Mythology‘, p.226 (Blackwell Publishing)