Maybe I should have left off the last part b/c it's a bit provocative :) Yeah, the language itself is built on macros - but as a language user you don't really care as it's an implementation detail. I guess my point is that you could know nothing about macros and still use Clojure very productively. Selling Clojure as another Lisp feels like sell a car for its cupholders. The data structures, syntax, JVM interop, REPL etc. are more interesting and have little to do with Lisp. But that's just my opinion as a casual user