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The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

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Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#131

Post by P_I_Staker »

kiliantics wrote: post #37
alevskaya wrote: post #23

I started and ran a science-oriented theme camp out there for over a decade as an impoverished academic, and a lot of my friends in the Bay Area help build or manage the event. I’m neither rich nor a hippy. To me, the fundamental idea of the event is that we’ve become divorced from the act of creation and civic participation due to being enmeshed in a highly commodified, transactional society and that it’s worth tryi…

You may not be rich, but you are not poor. How can these projects be about civic participation if they're not inclusive to the kinds of people that can't afford to take time off work and trek across the country to go camping in the desert? There are lots of ways people try to address the problems of our "highly commodified, transactional society" within their own communities, where everyone is capable of participatin…

On your first point, inclusiveness and diversity is great; the issue isn't that rich people are joining in the fun, the problem is when values get warped. What I found most striking was the paid servants and private cities described.

We can argue about what does and doesn't encompass the values of something like Burning Man, but I think that's clearly outside the spirit of the festival; and it's a festival where spirit and values are deemed important. If they wanted to get dirty, and rough it out, I don't think anyone would have a problem. It's the idea of fiefdoms forming with lords and servants, and the event turning into an expensive theme park for the rich that's so offensive.

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#132

Post by P_I_Staker »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #128
alevskaya wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is claiming that BM is a replacement for local civic involvement! But I also don’t like the moral tone of claims about what other people -should- be doing with their time. Sure, some people just go out there to party - who cares? I recall H. L. Mencken: “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” As much as we’d like to make it more accessible, it -is- a weird art event in the remote…

It's not the partying that people object to. It's partying whilst exclaiming "We're saving the world!"

Yes, the pretentiousness can be over-the top. They literally see themselves as a global movement. I have the same problem with TED. It's just a place for privileged people to rub elbows and pretend they're doing something for the betterment of society.

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#133

Post by ikeyany »

iamleppert wrote: post #16

I’m turned off from going by the fact that it seems the only friends I know that go are a narrow demographic of your typical techie. They plan their entire year around it and act like it’s their sole purpose in life. Honestly I don’t want to end up like that, thinking that the real world offers no thrill or spectacle or surprises such that I need to reduce my life down into a few weeks in the desert at the end of the…

That's precisely my perception, based on the conversations I've had with burners. Every depiction of it is a place to go to feel something that they are no longer able to feel in normal life.

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#134

Post by zasz »

com2kid wrote: post #38
zasz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went in 2010 and one of the first people I met there was an advertising exec who said this event was the only time she felt alive. It was really sad.

Why is that sad? She found something she enjoys doing. Better than someone who has yet to find that spark that gives life meaning. Is everyone in the advertising business supposed to love making adverts? I certainly feel more alive camping with friends than I do debugging JavaScript. I'm lucky enough to have a life where I can go on 2 or 3 major vacations a year with friends and family with another couple smaller tri…

I'm glad she's found a way to be alive one week out of fifty-two, but I'm sorry the other fifty-one weeks a year apparently suck that much!

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#135

Post by zasz »

astura wrote: post #53
vinceguidry wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaningfulness can and should be something you can create in daily life, not push off to some once-a-year event. It may not be something you feel 24/7, but surely someone can muster up some kind of really fascinating reality to create or explore at least on a daily basis. Crafting, the outdoors, weekly D&D sessions, all kinds of things offer all kinds of neat little worlds you can explore and be a part of something b…

Its possible the event only feels meaningful merely because its only one week a year. If it were all the time if would be just "part of the daily grind."

Oh, I think it's a lot bigger than that. The woman was the leader of a known, established Burning Man camp. I'm pretty sure the friendships she developed there are more meaningful than the ones she has outside of Burning Man, and it's a bit sad the rest of her life doesn't give her the same social validation. I think we've failed a bit as a society if we can't give people what they need to feel happy on a _slightly_ more regular basis than once a year.

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#136

Post by zasz »

forgottenpass wrote: post #30
zasz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went in 2010 and one of the first people I met there was an advertising exec who said this event was the only time she felt alive. It was really sad.

Hey, at least she has one in her life. That's one more per year than most people. I'm not trying to pick an argument, or imply most people are emotionally dead inside, but _come on_. You really gotta take an expression about enjoying an escaping from the humdrum of day-to-day life and use it to snark about a person's entire existence?

It wasn't intended to be snark. She was very clear that this one week was IT for her. She was a leader in an established Burning Man camp that hands out free stuff for women's health, and she said she really enjoyed the recognition she got for doing something nice for other people. At the time I thought she should look into doing volunteer work with some worthy organization the rest of the year, but now, I see that finding a satisfying community to give value to isn't so easy. What's sad is that for all the technological progress this society has made, it has failed to provide people with consistent opportunities to feel that they are doing psychologically meaningful work.

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#137

Post by zasz »

com2kid wrote: post #38
zasz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went in 2010 and one of the first people I met there was an advertising exec who said this event was the only time she felt alive. It was really sad.

Why is that sad? She found something she enjoys doing. Better than someone who has yet to find that spark that gives life meaning. Is everyone in the advertising business supposed to love making adverts? I certainly feel more alive camping with friends than I do debugging JavaScript. I'm lucky enough to have a life where I can go on 2 or 3 major vacations a year with friends and family with another couple smaller tri…

IMHO we have enough resources that people shouldn't have to work bullshit jobs like being advertising execs if they don't want to. cf David Graeber's essay on bullshit jobs.

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#138

Post by bonniemuffin »

abalone wrote: post #101

"Leave no trace" has always been a fake Burning Man ideal. Sure, they clean up after themselves, but hauling a mini city onto the desert and back (incl. water and sewage) leaves a relatively large per-attendee carbon footprint. That's a trace! Plus there's dumb stuff like straining water resources just to wash off all the dust. Usually when you bring this up they'll say "it's worth it" for all the other ideals. But i…

LNT predates burning man, and has nothing to say about carbon footprint. Take it up with the National Park Service and the Sierra Club if you don't like it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#139

Post by kiliantics »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #129
burkaman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what country you live in, but the US has no legally mandated vacation time. 23% of private sector workers get 0 days. https://www.epi.org/publication/millions-of-working-people-d...

I was kind of shocked at that number, people getting 0 days of vacation? But no, the figure in your reference is paid vacation. These people ostensibly take non-paid days off. I expect most Burning Man attendees are not getting paid to attend, and that's a strange bar to set.

Some people don't earn enough per hour to put significant money aside to take that kind of time off

Re: The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man

#140

Post by toomuchtodo »

gascan wrote: post #102
Chathamization wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every year there are articles about how Burning Man has 'lost' or is 'done'. Yeah, I wonder what the earliest article about that is. I did a brief search for the decline of Burning Man found a Wired article from 1997[1] (and of course numerous people talking about the decline later, like this blog post from 2004[2]). It reminds me of all those "I'm 13, is it too late for me to start learning programming/body buildi…

If you don't do something you're interested in because you think its too late... A proverb I remind myself of regularly: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Including the times when I look out my window and wish my sapling was a bit older.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
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