Against the cultural anthropologists

My post below on Jared Diamond and his cultural anthropological critics has attracted a fair amount of attention (e.g., see the Twitter re-tweets of the post). But first I'd like to admit that I think it was wrong in its specific thrust. Though I've seen Stephen Corry of Survival International referred to as an anthropologist, he's certainly not an academic. Corry is an explicit and open advocate, as is Jonathan Mazower. The Guardianpiece which I linked to also was not entirely clear on this point. In other words, the example in that article was not particularly relevant to my broader thesis. But overall my position remains unchanged, because The Guardian was not presented as evidence, but an illustration of a trend which I have long commented upon. Many of the academics who re-tweeted my post focused on the assertion that "cultural anthropology has gone down an intellectual black hole, beyond the event horizon of comprehension, never to recover." Those who agree with my position understand exactly why I would say this. For example, here is a portion of Armand Leroi'scomment: