ABSTRACT
By establishing expertise on culture, Frazer created a great forum for our subject. If anthropologists neglect culture, we could well dwindle to a sub-section of sociology or even of geography in European thought. Culture is a blank space, a highly respected, empty pigeonhole. Economists call it ‘tastes’ and leave it severely alone. Most philosophers ignore it — to their own loss. Marxists treat it obliquely as ideology or superstructure. Psychologists avoid it, by concentrating on child subjects. Historians bend it any way they like. Most believe it matters, especially travel agents. The intellectual gap that yawns is a reproach to anthropology, for ours is the only discipline that has any pretensions to be dealing with culture systematically.
