Dear Bill,
I can well imagine being irked at the ascendancy given L-S if you feel he's warped the playing field. There certainly are such figures that I feel irked at for having, to my view, warped my discipline and crowded other ideas into the background. But for all that, since I'm in no way an anthropologist and have long viewed the idea of "empirically verifiable demonstration of effects" a touch silly in the social "sciences", I'm simply looking for new ways of looking at things that can yield yet newer ways of looking at things. Whether they hold up to the scrutinies of empirical verification is in my world, you are correct, sort of beside the point.
Also, I apologize for my tone, and realize that this view of the life of the mind as a combat is something I indulge in from time to time, but ultimately feel is also a distortion. The idea of winners and losers is notoriously unreliable from a longer historical perspective in the arts, and probably to a lesser degree in other disciplines. But then the idea of "disciplines" as applied to the arts is also a little silly.
Also, watching the "game" from the sidelines allows one to take occasional potshots at the players. And I don't expect to be forgiven for that.
Nonetheless, the "idea" of structuralism when exported created many many fascinating works of cinema in the seventies.
dan
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