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...
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.
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.
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.
