Of course, we’re aware of your work Charlie, and we’ve been citing you since we started this in 2007. The fact that we haven’t done so in this particular post is certainly no indication that we don’t appreciate what’s gone before us. We’ve also cited your work in the volume that’s out, and repeatedly in other places as well. I understand irritation, but we DEFINITELY acknowledge those who have come before us, repeatedly. Not just you, but Boas, Robert Turner, Victor Turner, Gregory Bateson, Levi-Strauss, etc. etc. etc.

While I agree, some anthropologists can be profoundly myopic, my background at the University of Chicago certainly taught me that, not only is it shallow and intellectually superficial to reinvent the wheel, but it is also a great way to have a conversation with yourself and lose the intellectual stimulation that can come from reading what someone else has thought about an idea. In fact, when we first started this weblog, you may recall, I tried to get in touch with you several times but never heard back from you. Perhaps I was using an old or defunct email address, but I was pulling them off the sites for biogenetic structuralism that I was linking to in the earliest piece I wrote about you. In fact, I think it was probably only the fourth or fifth online piece I ever wrote.

So, yes, I agree with you, but I also think that we can close off the conversation by being overly defensive and dismissive of other people’s attempts. It’s not ‘Nuts!’ and I’m a little pissed off you’d come to a site, to scholars who have repeatedly tried to be gracious, and not do YOUR homework. I’ll continue to be gracious, but this is not the way to make me want to write any more about your work. There are too many people out there doing good work who are really excited by the new options we have for communicating through Facebook, blogging, and the like.