Comments | jeff_duntemann: I've Been to Chattanooga at a Con with No Politics

jeff_duntemann

I've Been to Chattanooga at a Con with No Politics

Jul 11, 2017 15:03

Well, that won't be the title of a Top 10 song, fersure. However, it's true: I went to my first SF convention in five years. It's called LibertyCon. It was in Chattanooga, Tennesee, thereby taking my list of un-visited states down to 11. I had a truly marvelous time. I'm going next year, 1,500-mile air distance be damned.

I've never seen anything ( Read more... )

sf, writing, publishing

Comments 2

etfb July 22 2017, 13:51:11 UTC

It's sad, Jeff, that you've reach the age you are and you haven't figured out such a simple fact: politics is people. If you didn't see any politics in that crowd, it's for only one reason: everyone there agreed with you. It sounds rather sad.

jeff_duntemann July 22 2017, 20:00:53 UTC

I've figured out a far more important fact at my age: **Politics is hate.** What we thought of as "politics" when I was a young man is now called "governance." Language evolves. Politics now means hating people who disagree with you on matters of governance. This is a consequence of tribalism, which has become the great curse of our time. Tribalism is a complicated set of behaviors that we inherited from the killer apes we evolved from. I've learned a great deal about tribalism from reading anthropology, particularly the writings of Jared Diamond and to a lesser extent Colin Wilson, both of whom I recommend ( ... )