specialagency.net: The dialogue is still broken.

June 04, 2004

The dialogue is still broken.

Everything I've ever tried to articulate about the brokenness of public discourse about politics, it was all present in a kind of microcosmic form at this year's WisCon. People who regularly attend WisCon (The World's Only Feminist Science Fiction Convention) have come to think of it as a place you can rely on for thoughtful and interesting discussion. Sure, the discussion is mostly about feminism and science fiction, but there are a lot of issues wrapped up in those two topics alone, and that's before you even get to the intersection.

WisCon also tends (strongly) towards a left/liberal atmosphere. That's not particularly surprising, or in of itself particularly controversial. This year, though, a lot of people (many of them proudly self-identified liberals) felt that the atmosphere had crossed some line from "biased" to "intolerant". Those are both loaded words, so here's what I mean by the difference: someone with politically or socially conservative tendencies should expect, coming to WisCon, to be argued with. They should not have to expect to be vilified.

Vilification abounded at WisCon this year. I didn't attend a lot of panels (I didn't attend any that I wasn't on, actually) because most of the ones I went to were kind of horrifying. (In the interests of fairness, I should say that I did have one fabulous panel, on the multiplicity of feminist identities and the conflicts between generations of feminists.) I watched a room full of people take at face-value the statement that political conservativism leads people to violence; when someone tried to suggest that crazy people can be found all over the political spectrum, they were mostly ignored.

And then there was the religion panel, already discussed a little over at Jed's site. I've deconstructed that panel experience so many times since it happened that I'm having trouble mustering the energy to do it again, but the short version is that I spent most of that hour and a half being kind of appalled that so many people could say with such straight faces that a Christian belief system is intrinsically tied to hatred, oppression, and violence. ("Appalled" was periodically broken up by "amused"--other panelists kept insisting that I was a Christian myself, no matter how many times I said that I wasn't, apparently just because I was taking the position that the theology of most established religions can be flexible enough to encompass a variety of social and political beliefs.)

I know I've got more to say about it, but for now, I'm still kind of processing. It's one thing to have been saying that anger and fear are keeping people from meaningful political discussion. It's another thing entirely to see that problem played out so clearly in an environment that I've come to associate with meaningful discussion.

Posted by Susan at June 4, 2004 02:42 PM

Comments

I think that for most of the people who are extreme leftists at Wiscon, which is most everyone, they are just reacting to a lot of the current cultural climate, the culture wars over gay marriage, the Bush Administrations general atmosphere of incompetence and 1984-like tactics that are to somehow insure everyone's safety. Because of that atmosphere, liberals, which are just as reactionary as conservatives, are just as ready to hoist a body up on the hangman tree, though it would most likely be a theoretical hangman tree instead of a real one. Liberals tend to abstraction, I figure, while conservatives deal with practicalities. ;-) I imagine many of them deal with people who oppose the leftist position in their daily life (I do) and came to Wiscon for a sort of communal hug session, and got mad if anyone such as yourself wanted to still discuss things reasonably. heheh

Posted by: Chris Barzak at June 5, 2004 05:32 PM

Ohhhkay, my jaw is still on the floor from people informing you you were a Christian during a panel.

Wha?

Posted by: Gwenda0007 at June 5, 2004 07:49 PM

hello susan!

you say: most of the ones I went to were kind of horrifying

if you could email me details at kallisti at visi dot com, i would greatly appreciate it.

i am very interested in hearing specific details about any and all panels that you felt strongly about so that i can address any problems for next year's program, but i need to know details in order to do that. any details you send me will be held in confidence.

thanks!

betsy lundsten
w28 program chair.

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