Article re: obsessional fannishness

[pegkerr]

From Arts and Letters Daily:

The geek shall inherit the earth. Well, let us hope not. The truth is that most sci fi and fantasy fans are infantile, escapist people, as shallow as they are socially inept... more

.Well, isn't that . . . acerbic. And from someone who counts himself (herself?) a fantasy fan, too. (See, e.g., the author’s defense of Tolkien--which admittedly doesn’t particularly plow any new ground at all.) However, it does touch upon something I’ve been thinking about myself lately, about the difficulty of managing (and perhaps dubious usefulness) of some of my obsessional jags.

Comments?

Comments

[pameladean]

The truth is, most of the people you meet on the street are infantile, escapist people, socially inept, etc. They just escape in widely-accepted ways, and are infantile in widely-accepted ways. The idea that most people, generally, are grown-ups or informed about the world around them is just laughable. I'm not blaming them; most people have a lot to cope with. But in my experience, geeks are far more aware of reality than non-geeks.

Pamela

[fairmer.livejournal.com]

Excellent point. I'm reminded of (one of the myriad reasons) why my mom moved away from the tiny town of her childhood: she couldn't stand the thought that I would experience no more of a cultural life than drinking beer and snowmobiling.

She's never said that she doesn't understand all the aspects of cultural life I picked up instead (I think she was planning on museums and symphonies, and yes, I do those things, too), but she doesn't. And yet, we're both quite glad that that our lives are not limited to beer and snowmobiling.

The family she left behind in this town doesn't get it at all, however.