With Burning Man happening now, and what with Burner culture being pretty tightly wound up with psychedelic culture, this seems appropriate. It is a really interesting YouTube video about the problematic nature of Burning Man, especially the hypocrisy of the Ten Principles and what is is, vs what it and it's followers claim it to be.

Disclaimer: the guy is an anarchist, there's a lot of pseudo-academic rhetoric, but some of the points are still interesting. I apologize for the profanity in the title and video, it's not my choice to make, unfortunately.



Blessings
~ND

Someone on chat said "counter culture festivals are in danger of becoming counter culture containers" this couldn't be any more true. I think one of the big problems is that organizers play pretend and act like they don't know about drug use. This is very irresponsible. Instead of playing the I didn't see it game, strategies should be implemented for harm reduction and safety.

I agreed with pretty much everything he said.

Ah where to begin, as a burner of course my obligatory stance is "this guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about" and to some extent that is the case, however he does make some very valid points.

Burning Man is a display of excess and privilege and consumption unlike anything else on this planet. It is wholly American in that respect, nowhere else on earth could such a display of decadence, debauchery, and over-consumption take place. That little party in the desert is the American Dream in all it's hypocritical self-indulgent glory. There is no question Burning Man is the furthest thing from a sustainable festival that could possibly take place.

There was an article written last year that I feel really hit the nail on the head talking about that aspect of it.
How and Why “Conscious” Festivals Need to Change

I do notice this fellow put his own spin on the meaning of the 10 principles and neglected to mention exactly how these things are defined by bmorg. Their definitions come across as much more straight forward than the way he reads into them. Not to deny the valid points he made relating to conspicuous consumption aspect of it which is very much the case as noted above.

Ten Principles of Burning Man

I have to strongly disagree with his critique of the social projects bmorg is involved with. I was on the Playa back in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit. It took 3 days before we could verify that New Orleans actually was underwater and this was not just some crazy playa rumor. Once BMIR finally did confirm this event took place bmorg was able to raise $30,000 within the day to aide relief efforts. Burners Without Borders were the very first ones on the scene in New Orleans providing shelter, food, water, medical care, etc... Long before FEMA showed up.

In 2007 when the theme of the festival was "The Green Man" bmorg ran the major festival infrastructure with a solar array, which they then generously donated to the Gerlach public school system. The Burning Man Project has put large scale art projects up in major cities such as Reno and San Francisco. BMORG also recently became a 501(c)(3) non-profit.


Perhaps you are not aware of the MAPS Zendo project, the fact that Dancesafe and Bunk Police are on site, the Burning Man sanctuary project, The Palanque Norte lectures, the Fractal village and their focus on spreading psychedelic awareness, as well as the dozens of other smaller psychedelic lecture series and sanctuary spaces. As a matter of fact Burning Man is being used as a test ground to explore the implications of psychedelic culture. You may be right about other festivals, but in Black Rock City this most assuredly is not the case.

Burning Man isn't and never was meant to be a sustainable festival, it's meant to be temporary autonomous zone. The ten principles date back to before it was the huge controlled organized monstrous cash cow it has become. Looking back at the roots it was about going out into the middle of nowhere and getting crazy, blowing stuff up, shooting automatic weapons out of moving vehicles at high speed, pure unrestrained anarchy. Of course with an attendance upwards 70,000 people at this point it has transformed a lot from those early days and grown into something none of us could have ever expected or envisioned.

Burning Man started getting "too big for it's britches" some time ago. There is a strong movement now to change the focus from the big burn and spread the culture around the globe. With hundreds of regional burning man festivals, events, and projects taking place on nearly every continent a fairly unified global culture of "burners" is beginning to emerge. Which very well could be viewed a counter culture festival becoming a counter culture container. However I think this may be a somewhat shallow view of things since each of these events is quite unique and has it's own focus and priorities. One could posit the same for the entire global festival culture, which does seem to be emerging as one unified kind of neo-tribal techno-pagan celebratory culture. Again though this would be a rather shallow surface view of things since every festival is unique and novel.

Burning Man exists within this wider context of global festival culture and many of the same arguments that can be lobbied against burning man can be lobbied against the culture in general. They are all shining seas of metal and burning petroleum, many of them are heavily commodified with vendors everywhere and exorbitant budgets to get big name musical acts to perform and the like. In the end the whole culture is fairly unsustainable. The question I've been asking for years is, when are we going to give up the weekend warrior go party your arse off aspect of it and begin to work toward creating something more permanent and sustainable?

To be fair, the Common Grounds Collective and other local organizations were the very first ones on the scene, providing support and mutual aid. These groups were operating in the face of massive state repression before BWB, FEMA, or other outside help showed up.


I think that all of this could be labelled "liberal reformism" at best, which is part of the critique presented in the video.

In my limited opinion, I find myself inclined to side more with the video's presentation of BM social projects. When the possibility of large(r)-scale radical action with insurrectionary tendencies raised its head in the form of Occupy, the kitchens and on-site infrastructure of OWS and ODC were run by Rainbows, not Burners, (something that I think is worth noting, especially in light of the points made in the video regarding privilege). This may have been different in different cities/towns, but it is telling, imo, that this was the case in two of the first (and largest) encampments.

Obviously I don't know the full scope of projects at varying levels, but imo, from the few political discussions I had while at BM (something I tried to avoid while there because for me, BM was a party/vacation without a radical/activist bent) and the small bits of the world that I've seen with my eyes, Burner culture (as a vaguely-defined whole) is much more insular and self-focused than radically-participatory and socially active. Obviously this is just my limited perspective.


Precisely! And it succeeds at that quite well ,imo, even with its massive increase in size. Well, at least for a sanctioned-autonomous zone with heavy police presence...


100% agree...only replace "fairly unsustainable" with "entirely unsustainable"

That doesn't mean they can't be a blast, nor does it mean that by not participating in them you automatically affect greater change in the world around you. The unsustainability/ecological cost of BM is likely a fairly insignificant blip within the context of industrial capitalism. Render BM irrelevant and inaccessible by dismantling industrial capitalism, because you sure as hell aren't going to render industrial capitalism irrelevant by dismantling burning man.


I agree with you here as well, but I don't think that this is the goal for many who attend. There are countless Burners who stand to lose too much from a true paradigm shift, i.e. the slumlords, the tech entrepreneurs, the CEOs, etc. These people have no interest in a deeper culture of sustainability or restructuring the world in which we live. In fact, there are many Burners who we will actively have to fight against in the event that we want to break free of a paradigm of industrial capitalism. I know this because one of the few (and by far the most heated) political discussions I was involved in at BM revolved around precisely this issue.

Or put another way, dreamer, you have asked the question of what would happen if one year the people just didn't leave. Now obviously there are logistical and tactical difficulties stemming from the fact that this is in the middle of the desert, but we can ignore that for the minute. The counter-question is, how many Burners are ready to fight the police for their principles? Because that's what happens when non-sanctioned autonomous zones are declared. What percentage of Burning Man not only believes in creating some kind of sustainable community that challenges dominant culture, but is also willing to act on that within the context of the intense real-world action such an endeavor would demand?

Burning Man is a pre-figured utopia, available to those who are able to pay for it. For me, that's it, nothing more, nothing less.

And, with that in mind, alongside dreamer's comments, I'd like to share something a friend wrote on prefiguration:



PS - Regarding the OP, I don't understand why the fact that he identifies as an anarchist requires a disclaimer and aside from a few poorly chosen words that were close enough to not make an issue of and some less-than-perfectly articulated analyses, imo, I didn't catch "a lot of pseudo-academic rhetoric."

Privilege and pretentiousness is annoying, that much I think we can all agree on. I tend to just avoid such nonsense when I'm at an unsustainable expensive party. I go to enjoy myself, not pretend I'm saving the world by becoming the change I want to see. Give me a break. This is a party and a display of creativity, and a seriously incredible one at that. I don't think BM would hurt it's reputation too much if it just dropped the naive pretentious crap. People would still go, and those offended by the diminished platform for which to preach their half-baked principles will either stop going or just shut up. Having the silliness not be the official line is the way forward for any event of this kind imo.

That being said, if one of these half baked preachy females with a full head of dreads and feathers and a tight body wants to talk to me about principles, I might listen for as long as I can stand it. But then if she gets baked (or other) with me and then have me take her to a tent, I will probably drop all my anti-principle principles and allow myself to be overcome by hypocrisy for temporary pleasure!

But hey, we're all hypocrites

Came across part 2 here:

Yeah because working to be sustainable is a half baked principle.

Go and have fun by all means, but don't come here and talk shit about the people that actually care about the planet you live on.

Honestly I think your entire posts speaks volumes about YOU far more so than THEM.

...they don't work to be sustainable.

Is it really too much to say that sustainability, as preached/practiced by Burning Man (as an entity) is half baked?

I'm not so sure...

For me, the entire "leave no trace" principle is a good example of some of the issues. As defined by the BMorg, essentially, it means leaving the playa spotless. Personally, I think this falls way short and encourages self-congratulations following final clean up reports. For me the question is "leave no trace where?" I mean, seriously, does it really matter if a large swath of desert is left clean by people who just dumped countless dollars worth of disposable flashy-blinky-trippy trinkets in the trash bins 10, 50, or 100 miles down the road? What trace did the production of that crap leave? What trace does its disposal leave?

For me the issue(s) surrounding the BM principles has more to do with the lack of critical thought/discussion about them and the repetitive mindless espousal of them by many participants than the ideals you could claim they represent.

To point back to Orion's post...BM isn't sustainable, nor could it be. At the point where BM (or any other international festival) became sustainable, it would cease looking as it has until now. So, if people are claiming that participation in Burning Man presents some sort of sustainable ethos, I find myself closer to Orion's stance. Imo, attending BM isn't a conscious act towards sustainability on either a personal or social level. And that's ok. It might perhaps open someone's eyes/mind to new ideas about new worlds and new ways of living...it might even leave them with the desire to act towards building a sustainable relationship with the planet (on the personal or societal level), but I think we should be cautious of conflating what the event may catalyze in some people (or what some people bring to the event) with the entire event itself.

burning man has always looked from the outside to me as some kind of weird semi-transhumanist experiment of excess in the desert.

If you want transformational festivals with a heavier focus on sustainability, there are other festivals. Burning man is NOT IMO just an example of the larger festival culture..it's an example of all of the excesses of festival culture squeezed into one of the most desolate spots on earth.

Absolutely! I fully agree with that. However, we have to remember it's not this way for everyone. Each participant has their own reason for making the pilgrimage to the desert and lay their own value systems and meaning upon what's happening out there and what they expect to get out of it.

For example, it's a place for MAPS to collect data on psychedelic usage and play with the implications of a psychedelic society. It's a place for artists to share their work and manifest their visions into reality. For some it's a place to go give that which no longer serves them to the fire and to transform themselves and their lives. For some it's a place to go ogle naked women. For some it's a place make connections and demonstrate their new technology. For some it's a wicked party. For some it's a way of life... You get the idea, everyone has their own trip out there.


My position exactly!

Burning Man doesn't claim to be sustainable or to be working toward sustainability or anything like that. This idea that burning man or festival culture should be sustainable is us laying out our trip, it has nothing to do with BM which is quite straight forward about being little more than a big ass party in the desert. I still don't see the point of criticizing the social programs they are involved with, at least they are doing something to spread burner ethos and aide the community with their deep coffers. Could they do more? Totally! Should we expect them to do anything at all? Again this is our trip, not theirs. Burners without Borders, the Burning Man Project, Black Rock Solar, Big Art for Small Towns, and various other projects which they are involved are actually doing some really good work.

BMORG very clearly defines the 10 principles they attempt to operate under. They do their best to adhere to these 10 principles, sure they fall short, it's rare that any person or group ever is able to live absolutely in line with their principles at all times. However it is an outline, a guiding goal, something to strive for. I think they do a fairly good job of demonstrating those principles at least on playa within the temporary autonomous zone they create and have control over. No one ever said that any of these principles would extend beyond the borders of the Black Rock playa.

Burning Man isn't looking to change the world. Despite that, it actually is changing the world in many ways. That thing in the desert is one of the most powerful transformative agents on the planet right now. It's nearly up there with psychedelics. I've really enjoyed watching the simultaneous spread of psychedelics and festival culture as they extend around the globe and firmly establish a foothold in the mass cultural consciousness.

When we stop overlaying our reality tunnel of what should be happening on this planet and take a moment to step back and look at what actually is happening, the shift in consciousness taking place via these transformative agents is really pretty damn impressive

I absolutely disagree with this. Of course BM is embedded within the larger global festival culture, how could it not be? Let's take your pet festival Shambhala as an example and look at the similarities and differences.

Both have exorbitant ticket prices making them a haven for privileged mostly white people to burn petroleum and build a city of cars, rv's, tents, generators, etc.. Where they proceed to eat a bunch of drugs and cavort around participating in all sort of debauchery, decadence, and excessive consumption. Neither festival is anything close to sustainable.

Now how about some of those differences. Shambhala is extremely commodified, vendors everywhere, money changing hands, conspicuous drug dealing, paying huge sums of money to get excision and bassnectar and kaminanda and desert dwellers etc.. to come out and play. At Burning Man there is no vending, no money changing hands, the drug dealing is less conspicuous and generally frowned upon since it is a gift economy, no artist at burning man is paid for their performance, they do it as a gift to the playa. They buy their tickets to be there just like everyone else. In a lot of ways Burning Man has a stronger system of values than all these overly commodified music festivals.

Just something to think about before calling the kettle black.

I was referring more to other festivals like Luminate etc..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi-ps9cdYtw

Shambhala however, at least is based around structures that exist all year long so they are not putting them up and then taking them down(or burning them) etc, on a private organic farm, where a portion of the food available is grown right on site supporting the 100 mile diet idea..there is other problems like the excessive ammounts of glowsticks people throw out and some of the less sustainable vendors present etc. It does still seem a lot more sustainable than burning man though.

The glowstick thing is horrible..the ammount of glowsticks on the ground is just crazy by monday morning. LED is way better.

One thing about the gift economy, is that it really doesnt mean a whole lot to me in the context of burning man. If you have enough money to drive across the country(or get on a plane) miss a week of work and pay to get a ticket and stay at burning man, you have money. These are not people who do not have money. Gifting is great but in that context it is not really anything to be put on too high a pedestal. If people were living without much money year round on a gift economy it would be much more impressive. For the time being however, we all exchange money to get by. Thats how it is.

Another thing I wonder, is that if none of the artists are being paid at BM, and there is no vendor sections etc..why does it still cost more than other festivals? Artists should get paid though..I dont see that as a downfall of any festivals..they have to pay rent just like the rest of us. It's part of our reality atm that we all have to be paid for the work we do.

Where did I say being sustainable is half baked ?

I used that term a couple of times because I like it. In fact I'm half baked right now.

Did YOU just capitalize words at ME?

I think need to read the attitude page, there's too much venom here over nothing at all. Clean language on the forum you'd think would be standard.

BM is far from sustainable, but where do they claim to be sustainable? It started as a group of guys who wanted to escape society, fire guns, drive around like mad-men, blow shit up, etc. It was never some hippy-save-the-world nonsense. I see BM as a blank canvas (an expensive one at that) for creative minds to do what they want to do in a (fairly) safe environment w/o the fear of arrest (unless one is acting like a complete moron).

Nothing more, nothing less. Don't over-think it. Enjoy it.

The problem is, that may have been the original ethos, but the culture that has sprung up around it is one of moralistic hypocrisy. I'd love an anarchist free-for-all party, but that's not what BM is anymore. It's an anarchist free-for-all party that you (apparently) get moral brownie points for attending and is to be preached as gospel when not on the Playa.

What BM was is not as relevant as what BM is.

Blessings
~ND

Many outcroppings of "psychedelic culture" engage in moralistic hypocrisy...hell, I think we could even simplify that and state that many (most?) cultures engage in some form/degree of moralistic hypocrisy.

To some degree, I still find myself thinking, "So what?"

In the grand scheme of things BM doesn't cause additional harm by existing...it's not some monolith of industrial capitalism...it just contributes its small part to the ongoing horrors of industrial civilization. To be honest, I don't know which I find more frustrating, Burners who think that BM is a radical solution to planetary problems, or people who somehow think that they should focus their energy on "fixing" BM or working towards stricter adherence to the principles (presumably in order to have that change radiate out into the world). If you want to change the current paradigm, there are much more strategic leverage points than BM, imo.

I bet you'd be hard pressed to find a politically-active anarchist that would identify BM as an "anarchist" anything.

And speaking of anarchy, I still don't understand the original disclaimer.

I think the main thing these festivals stand for for is being a melting pot of creative minds.
Sure they might not be good for the environment in a short time perspective, but they offer a meeting place for likeminded people who might have never met each other if not for the festival.

This is a fantastic thread and I'm really happy this conversation is happening.

Let's keep in mind we all love each other here and there's no need for hostility though.

I don't have too much to add to whats been said already, but I do think it's important to acknowledge the points made that BM was never supposed to be radical or anarchist or sustainable in nature; many of these things are projected onto it by a generalization of the people who attend.

I personally am entirely disillusioned with festival culture in a lot of ways, but at the same time I don't think it's productive for me to try and change that culture--I think we should see it for what it is and work on creating real change by challenging institutions of power.

That said, I think these festivals are amazing places for like-minded people to congregate and if you don't try to see them as something they're not, they can be inspiring and beautiful places for creativity and self discovery to flourish...and they can be a hell of a lot of fun.

Anyways my $.02....sorry for being a bit vague--it's early.

this ^

.. at the very least these festivals create an environment that nurtures personal growth - which in and of itself can have long lasting beneficial outcomes on society and environment. the amount of people I've seen return from festivals inspired to make positive change to themselves and they're relationship to the planet is certainly token to this aspect.

I have to agree that many of these events are not particularly sustainable themselves but I feel that they can play an important role in inspiring sustainability in the bigger picture.
the other thing to take into consideration is the comparative level of resource consumption that would be taking place if all the attendees weren't at the festival and were going about their daily lives. I don't have any statistics to provide on the matter, but it seems fairly logical to me that spending a week out in the bush engaging in activities like dancing, camping and exploring nature would have a significantly lower environmental footprint than that of our daily grind back in civilization ... but I would be interested to hear the thoughts of others on the idea

I should add that I haven't attended BM and am coming at this more with experience in aussie psychedelic festival culture