Well, it actually is the case, it's just that they've built out the core library with a ton of functionality; intermingling the actual Clojure keywords (there's only ~17 of them) with the convenience macros and functions built up from those two primitives. Someone wrote all of those functions and macros. Hundreds of functions and macros were built by the language creators to give the functionality of a complex language.
> Not that much is implemented in macros.
74 of the functions exposed in the core api alone are macros. Perhaps the most often used one is "defn" (and somewhat ironically "defmacro").
intermingling the actual Clojure keywords (there's only ~17 of them) with the convenience macros and functions built up from those two primitives.
And this is exactly what is wrong with Clojure and its community. An unexplainable lack of ability to embrace macros and all the power they can bring.
I could never understand a single anti-macro argument, they are all too detached from the reality.
As an example: C doesn't have the complication to the language of having "built in" types for hashes or lists. This makes the language easier, since you don't have to learn the extra syntax and grow the mental model of how they were implemented. On the other hand, if you need a hash or list - you need to create your own (or adopt someone else's implementation via a library).
C is a simple and powerful language, but there's so much you have to do yourself, that it's easy to get something wrong.
Clojure (and lisps in general) hide their complexity in macros. This level of abstraction can be great, until you have to dive into the macro and see exactly how it's manipulating your code. Or write your own and troubleshoot the resulting dynamic code.