
The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man - devy
https://newrepublic.com/article/150497/vanishing-idealism-burning-man
======
alevskaya
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 trying to address that.
Most people can’t use a torque-driver or recognize a turnbuckle. But people
can learn, and when they get involved in build projects or camps out there
they do. They start trying. It’s amateur art hour write very large, but the
beauty of it is how many people start trying to make something of their own,
sometimes with amazing results.

The event is flawed as hell and always has been, but it remains an astounding
expression of labor devoted to the amateur’s search for meaning through
creation. It’s art will never appeal to the traditional critic who worries
more about the statement of art than it’s artifact. They can look down their
noses at the idealism of those who thought to try to make something for once,
instead of leaving the important job of art to those who know better, who have
the right ideals, the right politics, the right message. We’re going to
continue to do carpentry, to make circuit boards, to write software, and to
teach others to get involved in the art of trying.

~~~
kiliantics
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 participating. For some reason, however, many of the
people I know that go to Burning Man, and many of the kinds of people that
typically do go, are never involved in those kinds of local organising
initiatives...

It would be nice if these ideals about art were more commonly expressed and
engaged with in the areas where they are really sorely needed, rather than in
a remote place that people need to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars
to get to and be in.

~~~
alevskaya
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 desert, logistically limited to a small
number of people. Look, the first step to civic engagement is actually
thinking it’s something worth caring about. I grew up in an impoverished,
hollowed-out place - I know it might sound ridiculous, but as an American in
my generation the very idea of ‘society’ can be a hard concept to pick up as
we don’t always get the chance to experience it growing up. Even a toy example
can be illuminating to idiots like I was...

~~~
kiliantics
Many people talk about burning man as if it is an experiment for a new kind of
alternative society and your comment was reminiscent of that kind of talk -
"we’ve become divorced from the act of creation and civic participation...
it’s worth trying to address that". This rhetoric always sounds to me like
burners believe they have found the cure and if only everyone would see the
world as they do we would live in harmony.

I've never been to a burn but I do agree with these diagnoses about the
shortcomings of our society. I also make efforts in my community to confront
these problems and it is a whole lot harder to change things than just going
out and partying in the desert. I have no problem with people going out and
partying but I don't think people should be claiming that it is much more than
just that - a party.

~~~
c22
It is different than a party because of how participant driven it is combined
with the scale. Sure you can see your friend's band at a house party, but most
parties the size of Burning Man are entirely controlled by a single large
entity, like Budweiser. When people talk about _the fall of Burning Man_ they
are really lamenting a trend to more centralized control and less participant
interaction.

------
wwweston
I've been precisely once, and only in the last few years, so I am far from an
expert on the trajectory of the event or any community surrounding it.

But my observations were:

* Any single characterization of an event that is partly defined by its city-sized number of participants is going to be incomplete.

* There's a variety of different experiences to be found there. Chances are good you can find an experience to your liking.

* There's better chance that you can _bring_ an experience to your liking, and as in other situations, a lot of what you get out of it related to what you put in. If I go back, I'm mostly likely to do so as part of a camp that's doing something I'm excited about. The blank-canvas aspect of it might be the most interesting part.

* Among other things, it's a pop-up art festival in the middle of a particularly dusty lake bed with lots of interesting pieces, some of building-sized scale. No matter what else is going on, if you're into art, chances are good you will like this (unless you also hate camping and don't prepare for that).

* To whatever extent specific norms and stated values are different than mainstream, people are still people. You can expect to see some of the best on display and some things that are disappointing.

Is it still "in its prime" or is it "over"? Have the values been commodified
or sold out? I don't know. I think the questions that matter to the average
person thinking of going are whether it's still interesting to you, and what
values you're going to try to bring to it. I don't know if I brought enough to
the time I went, but I'm glad I did it, and under the right circumstances, I'd
do it again.

~~~
rednerrus
Isn't one of the issues that many of the people who come now don't bring their
own experiences? Are they there to consume experience rather than creating it?

~~~
erikpukinskis
Is that an issue?

~~~
c22
To some extent it is because the extra participants still bring all the
negative impacts of extra people, like lines and overflowing porta potties,
without offering something back in kind (more experiences to alleviate the
lines, more rusted bike repair, whatever). Also people who are less
participatory are less invested in the event and more likely to carelessly
vandalize the works produced by others.

------
Mediterraneo10
Having participated in a lot of countercultural gatherings, I was initially
intrigued about Burning Man. But if you hear about an event from the mass
media, instead of through word of mouth in your own small countercultural
community, chances are that the event is already past its prime. After hearing
lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s, and then
hearing more recent attendees describe their experiences, I have long since
got the feeling that BM is now as played out as, say, Goa was after 1972, or
Nimbin after about 1980.

~~~
gammateam
> After hearing lots of old-timers talk about how Burning Man was in the 1990s

But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite
the criticism

The founding members weren't serious about "radical self reliance" as their
congregation now repeats without practicing

Its also more of a heroin hit for these people, the second hits will never be
as good as the first, but its still the first hit for everyone else.

The expense also invites the criticism, it is ironic and funny. Wage workers
can't take a week and a half off for burning AND have another vacation
somewhere else that year, and thats if they can rationalize the cost to begin
with. So it invites quirky tech CEOs and socialites and DJs, along side the
actual counterculture people who barely have a social security number. For a
festival in an inhospitable environment that prides itself on
decommodification, it is ALWAYS going to have criticism.

SEE YA THERE! :D

~~~
Mediterraneo10
> But that's part of the meme, just as much as Burning Man's principles invite
> the criticism

Perhaps you misunderstand. I did not mean that those old-timers complained
about Burning Man today and said it was passé. Some of them have not even gone
again since that era two decades ago. But simply talking to a 1990s
participant and a more recent participant about what they remember of the
event reveals details of logistics, close-knitness, and interaction with the
outside world that tell me that I would find the event much less enjoyable
these days than if I had been able to participate in the 1990s.

~~~
gammateam
I see

Some of that crowd does to the area on the 4th of July week now. They say its
more like how it used to be

------
iamleppert
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 year.

~~~
zasz
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.

~~~
com2kid
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 trips
spread throughout the year. For people with a busier schedule, I can see them
taking great pleasure in the one time a year they get to escape.

Especially since so many people never get to escape. I know plenty of people
who never have had a vacation, and may very well die without ever having a day
off from work and life and stress.

~~~
jdietrich
If you're an advertising executive or a software developer and decide that
you'd be happier living in the desert and making weird sculptures from scrap,
_that is very much an option_. Living in a cabin in the woods or sailing
around the world or establishing a commune for circus artists is a thing that
you can do, and you don't need to be a millionaire to do it.

~~~
theossuary
I don't think you know how expensive it would be to sail around the world.
Especially if you'd like to do it somewhat comfortably.

~~~
jdietrich
You've fallen into the trap of believing that there's only one way of doing
things - the preposterously expensive way that's promoted in lifestyle
magazines.

How much does it cost to learn to sail? If you take a Yachtmaster Offshore
course, it'll cost you somewhere in the region of $15,000. If you show up at
any marina and look keen, someone in need of crew will take you on board and
show you the ropes for free. Many people have sailed around the world at
almost no cost by crewing on other people's boats.

How much does a sailing boat cost? A brand new 50 footer with all the
trimmings will cost you upwards of $400,000. You can buy a rough little boat
and properly fit it out for bluewater sailing for about $20,000. It'll be
ugly, it'll be cramped, it'll have faded gelcoat and threadbare upholstery,
but it'll safely take you across oceans. That's not a trivial sum of money,
but it's well within reach of most skilled professionals. If you look after
it, you'll be able to sell it for close to what you paid for it.

What are your other costs? Mainly food, running repairs and mooring fees. If
you want to do everything in five-star luxury, expect to spend about $80,000
over the course of a circumnavigation. If you don't mind sleeping at anchor
and eating from dented cans, you could easily circumnavigate for under $8,000
- less if you avoid the Panama Canal.

There's a widespread belief - particularly in America - that adventurous
lifestyles are the exclusive domain of the gratuitously wealthy. The reality
is very different, especially if you're young, childless and have marketable
skills. Even if you're none of those things, your options are far wider than
you might imagine as long as you're willing to think creatively and live
modestly.

[https://www.amazon.com/Voyaging-Small-Income-Annie-
Hill/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Voyaging-Small-Income-Annie-
Hill/dp/1888671378)

~~~
icc97
My dad bought a 22ft ketch rig for £28k and sold it about 6 years later for
around £22k. It was in good condition, certainly nothing threadbare, but no
luxury either. He had it around my late teen years, some of the best memories
of my childhood were on that boat. So it cost about £1,000 / year split
between 4 (2 adults 2 teenagers). Much better experiences than crappy beach
holidays.

------
radley
Straight from the BM blog: _A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man_. (TLDR:
nobody).

[https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-
center/...](https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-
center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/)

------
fipple
Things change, whatever. Burning Man is now it's a luxury art and music maker
festival where the rugged conditions are part of the appeal in the same way
that they are for Mount Everest. If you want the old Burning Man you'll have
to start a new thing.

------
wnmurphy
I went 6 years in a row, and I haven't been since they screwed up the ticket
system with a lottery, introducing scarcity that wasn't there before and
encouraging people to over-buy tickets out of fear and game the lottery
website.

In my mind it's turned into a side gag from HBO's Silicon Valley, where
entitled tech bros throw money at plug-and-play camps in the hopes of seeing
world famous DJs play unannounced sets, so they can post selfies on Instagram.

It's all of that and also none of that. It's the most exhausting vacation.

~~~
lordalch
My understanding was that BLM limited the number of tickets they could sell,
and they decided to make the tickets go by lottery rather than raise the
price. If I were planning to go to Burning Man, I would just plan to buy the
$1,200 ticket and skip the angst.

~~~
c22
If you become part of an established camp that contributes significant art or
experiences back to the community BMorg also offers directed group sales
allowing your key contributing members to skip the lottery at the regular
price.

------
Haul4ss
Earlier this year there was a good EconTalk episode[1] with the CEO of the
Burning Man Project. I've never been to the festival, but I'm fascinated by
the economic and logistical challenges of keeping the thing going (in contrast
to something like Woodstock, whose 30th anniversary event in 1999 was a train
wreck).

[1] [http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning-
man/](http://www.econtalk.org/marian-goodell-on-burning-man/)

------
jdp23
The main focus of the story is actually on the "No Spectators: The Art of
Burning Man" art exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

[https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning-
man](https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/burning-man)

------
Theodores
Burning Man's predecessor beach parties sound a lot like how events in the UK
'rave' scene happened. The commercial clubs took over what was once fun,
spontaneous, non-hierarchical and free in the rave/festival scene.

Having a spectacular, out of the world location was always important with
'rave', this could be the grandeur of the great outdoors or an illegally
occupied premium site, e.g. the council's own offices rigged with 40K of sound
with the place completely off limits for the authorities.

To some degree, whether in town or in remote countryside there was always an
aspect of squatting to a true 'rave' event. Even if a venue was legit, e.g. a
farm with the farmer being in on the deal, there would be laws, neighbours and
active policing with searches. Once inside the autonomous zone life was lived
with a very different, trusting 'security model' of community. There was an
alternative world there, the same thing Burning Man attendees go to seek but
get a ritualised, pastiche of.

In time the law banned 'repetitive beats' and people got old. The dance music
that was a big part of 'rave' did live on in the commercialised club scene and
with DJs doing legit concert style events, nowadays to fill stadiums. The
'rave' free party scene died along with the ability to temporarily live 'free'
from a world of conventional law and order.

Burning Man might not be ideal and far too American for the tastes of many
however it offers the illusion of being able to live in that way the UK free
party scene offered. Even if it is more akin to an organised festival you can
at least pretend that you are living as a 'free man'. Maybe Burning Man can
only ever offer a glimpse at the ideals that it is supposed to be about just
because there has to be some organisation rather than it being utterly
spontaneous. This matters not, Burning Man is established as its own thing and
it has been that way since the end of the beach party scene it inherited.

------
notananthem
Burning Man is a made up history of what used to go on in the 90's- namely
everyone brought guns and got fucked up, under the misdirection of
situationist artists.

My friend who went to early ones and said his role was "armed postal worker"
said they were pretty boring because lots of business people tried to make it
a scalable festival quickly, and that the only fun part of it was Mutant Fest,
which happened the week before Burning Man opened (at least, historically, I
think it still exists).

Mutant Fest was just people driving around in fucked up cars shooting guns
playing heavy metal.

------
peterwwillis
The only part of this article I find annoying is the artistic elitism. Burning
Man is great because any asshole can create art and have lots of people see it
and interact with it without it being judged by an art critic, or have to
somehow get accepted into an art show or museum.

The purpose of Burning Man, and a burn in general, is to participate. If
you're not participating, there is no purpose to Burning Man. This creates a
good deal of the confusion and indifference to the event by spectators, and
the world at large.

------
tjr225
As an outsider with little interest in ever attending burning man, it appears
to me to be little else other than a social media spectacle, these days (but
perhaps that's everything).

~~~
ironrabbit
Could it be that, with no interest in ever attending burning man, the only
perception you have of the event is through social media?

~~~
tjr225
That's a great point!

------
TaylorAlexander
I recall reading an article a few years ago about how every year, people
declare burning man “dead” or dying. People write articles about how it’s not
how it used to be. How the message is lost. Every year.

When I talk to people who go, most of them seem to suggest it’s still an
amazing place. I guess it largely depends on who you are. I really dislike the
society we’ve built. It feels too focused on work (I live in the Bay Area) and
not enough on community. So burning man sounds ideal for me, it’s just been
scheduling issues that have so far prevented me from going.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that apparently these articles come up
every year. Take them with a grain of salt.

Edit: here’s the article.
[https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-
center/...](https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-
center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/)

~~~
wavefunction
You can find much of what you might find at Burning Man in other places in the
world. I think it's amazing primarily to people who've never been or aren't
regularly exposed to those things.

------
acconrad
I've always toyed with the idea of going to Burning Man but I'm turned off by
how popular (read: the big, comfy trailers and the stratification of
attendees) it has become. Is there a retreat that still is all about art /
society-in-a-box?

~~~
jvagner
I don't go to BM, but my teenage son does (with his mother).

His mother and her BM crew make some of the big art you see pictures of every
year.

They think it's still great.

------
abalone
"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 irrefutably it's still a fake ideal, which calls into question the
authenticity of all of them.

~~~
bonniemuffin
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace)

------
Lichtenbat
Burning Man was a once in a lifetime thing for me. I heard it was like a
massive rave, and it was better than that! It definitely is a better fit for
the party people than I thought. It’s a no fear environment that is generally
safe. Plus it’s desert camping, so it’s logistically a blast as well.

For people who don’t party, they get a chance to decompress and live at a
different pace.

As an old school massive promoter in SF/SoCal and CO, it’s great it comes back
year after year! Time to one up the previous!

------
jimmywanger
I know that Reno locals hate Burning Man and burners in general. Whenever
Burning Man comes to town, a lot of canned food and bottled beverages are sold
out, they don't spend much money in town, and on the way home, they're still
in party mode, and spun out of their mind, and raise hell in local
establishments.

------
aaroninsf
Not going this year; have gone maybe 20 times starting in 95.

There was IMO and experience genuinely something special (I won't say unique,
but probably... unique) there, which is now vestigial. Still discoverable but
at a time, in some strata of the event, all but axiomatic.

I would describe that special thing as an emergent aspirational culture of
techno-utopianism made possible by expending profound resources in the service
of simulating (creating if you like, temporarily) an environment best
described as "plenty."

Much about our culture is defined by axiomatic scarcity, from which
competition emerges.

The thing that made me keep going back was the recurring experience of an
inverted order, in which a uniquely large scale collaborative game was being
played, in which the rules were changed. Lots of rules. This created open
social space and possibility. Guards went down and spontanaeity blossomed.
Altruism and kindness and generosity were, quite often, emergent.

This was of course highly imperfect in a very long list of ways. And there
were of course as always, bad actors, bad experiences, and a shadow side.

But that does not diminish the power of experiencing the potential of existing
in a culture in which the competitive instinct can be harnessed to drive
collective rather than individual benefit.

Many aspects of the now ossified and largely ignored "precepts" attempted to
define and explain the constituent aspects which made this emergent culture
function. A fools' errand but an absolutely necessary one in the face of
massive growth and the encroachment of the outside rules.

Many (most all) cultures have some sort of time-out-of-time in which
traditional norms are suspended. It's a pressure valve and a laboratory in
which the culture can tinker.

I consider myself unspeakably blessed to have lived in SF at a moment when my
culture and generation experimented at this scale, thanks to the (at the time
permanent-seeming) very temporary apex of the post-Cold War internet boom,
when the Bay was still a meeting point between a lot of very creative, very
iconoclastic people, and, suddenly, a f--k ton of money and resources.

We still have the latter, and it shows in the preposterous scale of very cool
vanity projects on the playa now.

But we are in a much much darker moment historically and generally, the
culture of the Bay is now within the event horizon of money and conventional
rules of power.

I still have fun when I go, and there is still idealism.

But the safety, risk taking, collaborative play from a smaller city and the
sense of fellow travelers who frankly were a lot more freakish and non-normal
than attend now, lives on only in individual interactions and nooks and
crannies.

It's still the background radiation shows, and to the extent the "precepts"
are pursued, still leads to magic.

And it's still a great gathering of freaks, and celebration of potential.

Still worth it IMO if you can find the right people.

Never expect to see something ignite at that scale again in my lifetime. For a
while Occupy had potential to be something more. Ah well.

~~~
creep
You'll always find the freaks in society if you're authentic about your
freakish nature, to address one point in your comment.

It's simple but I really do have this kind of emergent, creative, slightly
anarchist experience in every day life simply by stepping out the front door.
As long as I have the presence of mind to recognize myself in someone else
(and empathy, and genuine other-love with that self-love) something fantastic
will happen, something strange that changes me and others.

Other than this I really don't know what you're saying about burning man, but
I think the concept as I understand it can flourish under modern city-
conditions, maybe only in such conditions. There never will be a time when the
dam isn't about to burst, unless it already has and we're in that moment of
filling up again. That's what's wonderful, there is no permanence. That
essential property underlies everything, there is nothing to worry about, no
potential lost just funneled elsewhere. Maybe when people recognize this they
won't go looking for love at burning man. I'm sure it's still worth it for the
surrealism.

edit: and you can't get by on just a feeling and a quick session of analysis.

~~~
aaroninsf
Another way to put what I was trying to say about the genuine uniqueness of
living in a culture of plenty, instead of scarcity, is that it was a
particularly affecting variation the experience of immersion in a different
culture.

The closest comparison I have in my own life is what it's like when you're
somewhat self-aware and find yourself in a culture where the social norms and
expectations are different.

In the case of my own experience at BM, I consistently found a hybrid
synthesized culture which clearly emerged from the people who chose to be
there and put themselves 'out', but also, transcended any particular
subculture or precursor.

I used to randomly encounter and take long walks with another artist who'd
started going around the same time, and a recurring topic for us was what
happened when the ravers colonized.

My take was that if it was a choice between them and their MDMA-fueled energy,
and the much darker FSU punk acid/speed/alcohol faction which was the primary
counterbalance for a long time, I'd take the ravers.

But that changed thing and dilluted the weird equilibrium and skewed it a lot
more towards "conventional" (sic) rave culture. Which is a fine thing but not
the same exactly.

Yet a different take would be to simply observe that never and nowhere have I
experienced what it means to live in a city for a week, year after year after
year, which is intentionally constructed by and for and populated by a lot of
people who take their psychedelic experience seriously (c.f. Pollan's Changing
Your Mind). That sounds hokey or derisively dismissible, and it absolutely
meant a lot of superficial edges which were...

...but it also created a social space that is truly a foreign place, not
least, when it's inhabited not for a night or a weekend but for a week or
more.

Totally unsustainable, under the requirements of current civilization, and not
advisable IMO even if it were.

But as a place to suspend the norms for a week and be reminded that this is
all of it a collaborative consensual construction and what we assert as
"normal" is merely the artifact of our own limitations and historical moment?

Unspeakably valuable and unique in my experience...

------
checkyoursudo
Nothing last forever.

Ideal, and idyllic, things often seem to be ruined by popularity (and the
commercial or other exploitation popularity brings?).

See "overtourism" as another example (and somewhat related).

------
jl2718
All the idealism of burning man pretty much dies as soon as you realize that
everybody’s on drugs. It’s a dark path. Some people do alright. On a long
enough timeline, most don’t.

~~~
c22
While there's definitely a larger percentage of the public "on drugs" than you
find in day to day life (and a lot more people drunk on alcohol), there are
still many sober people at the event. I'd posit at any given time the
_majority_ of participants are sober, with the exception, perhaps, of Friday
and Saturday night.

------
Animats
The successor to Burning Man is probably Wasteland Weekend. Even that's
getting commercial. It's turning into a music festival.

------
warrenmiller
Fuck Yer Burn!

------
modells
There's a lot of people whom just go to Burning Man to get high and fuck.

------
CrankyBear
Vanishing? Folks, it's been gone for years. It's now summer camp for well-off
techies.

~~~
jontas
I don't think you read the article.. it's about how the idealism of the
artwork vanishes once it's left the playa. It has nothing to do with the
changing nature of burning man.

------
newnewpdro
"Leaving no trace"

What is the carbon footprint of this festival?

They should rephrase that to "Leaving no visible trace"

~~~
astura
"Leave No Trace" is a term of art:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leave_No_Trace)

It's not without criticism.

------
rednerrus
There are people in this world who have no creativity. They are desperate not
to be living the lives they've chosen. Eventually, they are going to show up
in your creative venture with their other, not creative friends. They are
going to bring the money they made doing their not creative work. They are
well-intentioned but they are going to ruin everything. They are trying so
hard to escape the assholes that ruin things. They don't realize they are the
assholes that ruin things.

