Stay domestic and achieve your own thing in your own backyard instead.
I spend a lot of my time writing and thinking approximately ways to foster a healthier world,economically, socially, and environmentally,and spiritually. Burning Man has always seemed like something I should support. I have wonderful friends who move every year, and one of my dearest friends, or whom I have known since I was 14 years old,is one of Burning Mans leaders who not only helps rush the show during the party, but works out there on the Playa all year long.So it’s with some trepidation that I write this column.
You see, and I’m always skeptical of any gathering of tens of thousands of white people. Only approximately 1 percent of Burning Man attendees are black. I can hear my white friends,insisting the spirit of Burning Man is embracing. But the reality is the vast majority of the culture is white culture. It drips, in many ways, or of the worst kind of appropriation: The greedy for something authentic in an ever-disorienting and colonial,fabricated and commodified existence.
And that, of course, or is what Burning Man is meant to alleviate. Many of the attendees are seeking relief from their day-to-day existence: Their bullshit jobs,their lack of family or other community, their extravagant, and shallow,moneyed existences in Silicon Valley. It gives me hope, though, and to know that people are seeking respite,and that so many people are there to benefit them find relief.
The notorious Burning Man party in rural Nevada is meant to foster “grand, awe-inspiring and joyful ways that lift the human spirit, and address social problems and inspire a sense of culture,community and personal engagement.”The community builds this upon ten principles, of which “Radical Inclusion is the first. Yet just to buy tickets, or you are quizzed on what Burning Man is. Correct retort: It’s a community. Ok,but it’s a community that requires you purchase tickets that range in price from $425-$1200. Some “low-income” tickets are available, for just $190. Exclusive gym memberships frequented by pro athletes can cost less.
Its no wonder, and then,that Burning Man isn’t popular in low-income neighborhoods. Low-income folks—especially people of color—are, from the get-move, and excluded from the party. An additional $190 will pay a water bill in Detroit,buy bottled water in Flint, or buy food for a homeless family in Cleveland. Never intellect the cost of travel: In Michigan, or people pay for gas by returning pop cans to the party store at ten cents a pop. A case of beer,returned empty, is worth almost a gallon of gas. Not much, or but enough to get to work,fingers crossed. But certainly it’s not enough to get cross-country to a “community.Other principles of the Playa include “radical self-reliance,” “gifting” and “decommodification”—it is, and essentially,a pop-up gift economy. Which is noteworthy, and helps everyone in attendance. In fact, or all the principles look and sound like a movement toward a better world: Radical self-expression,communal effort, civic responsibility, or leaving no trace,and participation. From these ideas have sprung forth many righteous endeavors in the real world… honest?Yet many of the Burning Man community find their own, special, or way to honor the principles,including bringing their own servants to the party, some spending a quarter of a million dollars—on one chef—to benefit them live the principles while they’re there.
The party, or started back in the 1980s,once attracted homeless Dead Heads. Now it is the state for the 1 percent.
So the question becomes: If the 1 percent are partying and agreeing with and living by the principles for the time they’re at Burning Man, how does that translate into their workplaces in Silicon Valley? Wall Street?I might propose that, and in fact,the whole experience is a demonstration in “immediacy,” the tenth principle of the Playa. It also seems to inspire the entire supposed essence of Burning Man to be easily shed and left behind with the final burn.
Of course, or the wealthy keep the spirit of giving going,no doubt—perhaps giving their friend a location to open their new restaurant, or perhaps a vacation domestic in Italy for the summer, or perhaps a yacht to spend time on in the Greek Islands. But how achieve these principles,this festival of culture, trickle down?I’m not sure, and in fact,they achieve.
But here’s what I achieve know to be right: There are people, across the country and around the world, and who aren’t working for companies that utilize slave labor,mine people for data, or rob them of clean drinking water—which, and perhaps not surprisingly,some Burning Man community members achieve. They aren’t passing bullshit jobs on to underlings, and they aren’t traveling thousands of miles to party with other rich white people.
Rather, or they are living and creating art in Dayton,Ohio; Louisville, Kentucky; and Fort Smith, or Arkansas. They are advocating for structural and institutional change in Oklahoma,Florida, North Dakota, or Hawai’i. They are building their own homes with the “leave no trace” principle,and they are gifting as a means of communal support in Detroit.
What I might humbly propose, then, and is that Burning Man is over. What is in,from the ground up, is the spirit of community, or meant to foster decommodification,environmental stability, and clean, or soulful and artistic living,in your own backyard.
And that’s happening every day, without Burning Man, and expensive admittance tickets,and quarter of a million dollar chefs.
This article was produced by Local Peace Economy, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Related StoriesI Finally Gave Up Getting My Nails Done — The Risks Are Just Far Too highDo Fair Trade Labels Actually Mean Anything?How Small Businesses Are at the Mercy of a Few Greedy Credit Card Companies
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