From the weekend

[vostoklake]

ME: Yeah, I'll be back over here in September next year for the World SciFi con.
AUSTRALIAN SOCIALIST: What do you do at a science fiction convention?
ME: What are we doing at this conference we're at now?
AUSTRALIAN SOCIALIST: Discussing and sharing information about socialism and meeting other socialists.
ME: Well then. Substitute "sci-fi" for "socialism" and you've got it. You also missed out "getting drunk and scoring", which is also applicable to both cases.

Comments

[mainfisch.livejournal.com]

That's hilarious and tragical at the same moment. Because it is to say that attending this type of a political conference is just like riding yet another hobbyhorse. Which probably has been the essence of it...

[laputain.livejournal.com]

I don't want to diss anyone at the conference, who were all good and sincere people, but you're right that treating politics as a social or lifestyle option is an occupational hazard of the actually-existing left. Just like you can go to church all your life and never actually know God, so you can stand on a street corner selling a badly xeroxed paper called Socialist Somethingorother all your life and never actually do anything to help change the world.

Another part of the problem is the trap of perfectionism - those people who actually do something, however flawed, to actually try to change the world (like the Venezuelan gentleman in my icon) are often sneered at because they're not doing everything right all the time. So many so-called "socialists" have the attitude of "wake me up when the revolution comes", and of course the revolution will never come with that attitude.