- by paxus
- in Anarchist tricks, Energy/nuclear, Funology, Memetics, Propaganda, Sharing, Story Telling, traffic bait
- 46 Comments
The Dark Side of Burning Man
[This article is the second part of a two part series, the first of which is on why Burning Man is Funologically Significant – the upside of the event.]
Burning Man is completely unsustainable. Even the significant efforts of the Alternative Energy Zone sustainable energy theme camp do very little to mitigate the huge ecological footprint of the camp. Does this event use more power than a nuclear aircraft carrier (which supports 1/10 the population) ? No, it certainly uses less, but we are an even longer way away from the discussion about a sustainable military. If sustainability is your personal primary objective, you can bail on this post and this festival here.
The place is dirty with cops. My last visit to BM in 2009 was ruined by the police busting in and busting people in our camp. Almost all these charges were dropped in the end, after tremendous hassle. One of the design constraints of the Transformus regional Burning Man event is that it has to be fewer than 2000 people; that way they can have their own security rather than the police from outside. The 70,000 plus person event* in the Nevada desert does not have this luxury and correspondingly there are police of all different stripes at the event, busily spying, entrapping and otherwise ruining this event which is not running over anyone else’s rights. There is this scary acceptance at BM that the police are there and nothing can be done about them. To me, in this regard Burning Man has given up its political power and said “We need to integrate the police state into our party.” There are dozens of things either organizers or participants could do to reduce the police presence at the event, and these things are not being done. The Wikipedia entry on BM gives a very low number of arrests and lists citations in the hundreds, but this does not include the Nevada State Police arrests, a much higher and unreported number. [One commenter on this post says police presence has decreased significantly since my fiasco in 2009, but reports from 2013 seem bleak.] *69K participants according to BM inc and BLM in 2013.
BM is sexist. Okay, it is much more complex than this. There are lots of women taking organizing and leading roles in this event, including lots of women doing very serious construction work and getting seen and appreciated for it. Burning Man is also a liberated zone, where women can go topless should they want to and it is not a very big deal. And the stereotypical beauty models and the objectification of women’s bodies runs pretty fierce through the camp. There is a bit too much of a frat party feel to Burning Man for my tastes. The type of partying which happens at BM does not lead me to believe it has a good consent culture and i have certainly seen a fair amount of presumptuous behavior on the part of burners.
Burning Man is classist. The tickets run between $240 and $420 [Scalpers in 2014 are asking between $800 and $1000], plus the location necessitates significant travel, housing and food expenses. Add to this the cost of costumes, art cars and their registration, desert protective gear and so on. And of course, no one is requiring you to go to this remote expensive event. But because it is so pricey, the people who go represent not the 1%, but certainly a more affluent class. Funologically, BM is often contrasted to the Rainbow Gathering, which is also often remote, but has free admission and a much more generous internal culture in which all kitchens give food to all comers. Part of the magic of BM is the spirit of generosity of the event; and it has a ways to go to be more inclusive, particularly for less affluent participants.
Burning Man Inc. Burning Man is a big company which uses lots of volunteers to make money for themselves. Certainly millions gets turned around into art projects and critical infrastructure. And BM advances a DIY effort; it is the ultimate crowd sourcing event. I wonder if BM were more like the Rainbow Gathering, if they would keep sticking with this piece of desert which costs them $1 million/year – there has to be an equivalently wonderful piece of desert (perhaps privately owned) which costs less. But even more important than the land, there is something slightly problematic for me about this basically anarchist-organized event that has a bunch of paid staff making decisions, some of which are irreversible. The latest fiasco around this is the problem with getting tickets. Bureau of Land Management rents out the site and restricts BM to about 70K tickets. Now that the event is regularly selling out, how to fairly distribute the tickets if hugely problematic. BM Inc is bad for democracy.
Other articles you might be interested in if you liked this one include:
- The Temple versus the Man contrasting the closing rituals for BM events
- Super Meme Construction Kit ideas which self-replicate and change the world
- Definition of Funology and its metrics
This blog post continues to be popular, in part because it is posted in this clever blog series on reasons not to go to Burning Man.
More can be found about this anarchist author from the banned wikipedia page found here.
[Edited by Judy Youngquest]
Tags: burning man, burning man problems, classism, critique of Burning Man, ecological footprint, nevada desert, nuclear aircraft carrier, sexism, unsustainable
46 responses to “The Dark Side of Burning Man”
Pax, as always a succinct and interesting examination of the culture surrounding Burning Man. Thank you for posting this.
I’ve found many of these topics questionable as well, especially the massive energy footprint needed/left. But the Man itself is an event of excess. When a massive infrastructure (energy for lights/sound camps, food, water, toilets, organization, etc) is required just to maintain the status quo, it is difficult to see through the glitz to the true spirit of the ‘man, the culture, the gifting, the DIY nature of our art, performances, interactions. Radical self reliance is key, and I feel as though the regionals promote the spirit of that belief.
That said, BM is also undeniably fun as well, and once you get past all the sparkle ponies, the heavy police presence, and the camp politics.. it can, and is, a transcendent event of the human spirit, where (nearly) everything is permissible within the 10 Principles.
Dearest Jason:
I completely agree. And this is the sister post of why BM is important. It can be a transformative event. And can we do it more accessibly and w/ lower impact? I think so
Paxus
The Buddha teaches: The first Noble Truth is the existance of suffering. In other words, there is always something to complain about. May you find a place to live without discomfort, or come to understand that you can be happy in a place even if you can make a long list of what is wrong with it.
Dearest Phil:
i am confused. The suffering at BM is part of the magic, as described in the section on white outs in this post. paxus.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/why-burning-man-is-significant-funologically/
I think Burning Man is brilliant, one of the most important creations in recent popular culture. And as a good theist should think critically about their god, my job as a funologist it to be clear about this important events failings. Just as i highlight the failings of Twin Oaks in my discussions of it, to insure people see what needs to be worked on and where they can bring their ideas and gifts to the discussion.
Paxus at Twin Oaks
17 Early Flowers 2012
I think that if you’re going to take as a given that:
-the community is vast and poorly defined (making the application of democracy tricky)
-the event is essentially a party
-it will be held on public land (and specifically this public land)
I don’t see, from my ignorant vantage point, any glaring errors or omissions on the part of the organizers regarding the infrastructure and structure of the event. I think that both your pro and con posts are spot on and do a good job of summarizing the complexity of this event.
I think it would be a fascinating experiment to see what would happen to the event if you took out the fundamental ephemerality of it, as you were proposing with Villages in the Sky. How would it be different if the city didn’t come apart every year? If you could build on the past? If a permanent residential community was established?
@GPaul. The ephemerality is what makes it work. People have to go back into the default world, process what just happened and effect change in their communities to make default more enjoyable. The class of people would go down since the ephemeral aspect is what makes going to Burning Man so expensive. If it was a permanent residential community then you would get something like Slab City meets Las Vegas and there is no way it would be sustainable out in that brutal desert. The rich socialites won’t be living there as they need air conditioning, showers and night clubs the other 357 days of the year.
@Esteban:
The temporary nature is certainly appropriate for the dessert setting, what Gpaul and i were thinking about is events which are in less hostile environments (like for example some of the regional burns are) which could avoid the constant tear down everything and build it back up again the next year. Slab City meetings Las Vegas sounds a bit horrifying, i must confess.
Paxus at Twin Oaks
29 Transformus 2013
@Paxus… we’re doing that in Utah. The Utah regional Burning Man event (Element 11) started a new tradition last year of leaving one effigy behind to be burned the following year. It started because the fire department wouldn’t let us burn a Viking ship last year due to fire risk. It was the first thing to get burned this year and it was epic. It’s nice to have something to play on right away as the camp comes together. The event is held at a private SCUBA dive facility near the Great Salt Lake. The fee to rent the grounds has gone a long way towards laying down gravel for the camp and esplanade roads. Seems to rain hard every year so lots of mud to get stuck in. Also we get to enjoy a covered salt water pool for skinny dipping and showers to wash in. Otherwise the area is very much like BRC with dusty alkaline soil and extreme heat. Weather at night is always nice in July though. We get freak rain storms that make sound camps scramble to protect their gear, but everyone loves to play naked in the rain.
Also we have a Building Man event, where junk is brought in and transformed into art and infrastructure, like the rain water catchment, composting outhouses, adobe huts, etc… It’s not a regional burn, but the guy who started it was inspired at Burning Man when he started crying at the site of a bunch of Germans (if I remember the story correct) hauling in brand new construction grade lumber in order to build something to burn.
@GPaul – I would want to live there.
I always tell people that BM is an ordeal to be survived. Burning Man isn’t utopia. There is a dark side. People die in that desert every year.
That said, BRC is a lot closer to utopia than your daily life, and common sense and listening to one’s body will do 99% of the work of keeping one alive.
And out of the ordeal of surviving, out of the resources that must be focused on survival, comes Burning Man’s power and value. In our day to day lives, survival is a given, we take existence for granted so we focus on our “first world problems” and live in a reactionary mode. At Burning Man, nothing is a given, survival cannot be taken for granted, so we live in a creationary mode where each act we take is creating the world we want to live in rather than reacting to the world we live in. Some people use their creative powers to create evil, or indifferent chaos. The dark side is real. Others use their creative powers to create good on a scale we never see in the stifling default world.
Burning Man is an ordeal, but the ordeal is powerful for those prepared to endure it.
Dearest Emmie:
Thanks for this thoughtful post. In my piece on why Burning Man is funologically significant i also point out the importance of the ordeal and of losing control in why BM is so important for many and powerfully transformative.
Paxus at Twin Oaks
Nagisaki + 67
A lot has changed since 2009. As someone who’s last year was 2009 until this past year (2011), I noticed a major decrease in the police presence at Burning Man. In addition, the BLM actually has their own art car, and after talking with them a little bit (they placed our camp right across from BLM’s camp on Rod’s Road/The Wheel), I realized that a lot of them don’t really mind BM or even most of the debauchery that happens here. Because most people who go out to the desert do so in a relatively safe and orderly way.
The main problem BLM has cited with the growing attendees is traffic. Realize that the two-lane road that goes into BRC is already jam-packed, and they feel that increasing the limit would unfairly burden the surrounding folks who aren’t used to this much traffic or this many people (which is, for many of them, why they are located so remotely from crowds of people 99% of the year). Consider that it may not be the Burning Man organization unfairly pigeonholing the festival into its current state, but rather the entities surrounding it.
If you have a better idea of where Burning Man should be held by all means I suggest you tell the organization so they can get planning for next year. It would certainly be a breath of fresh air to see Burning Man move somewhere that getting to didn’t involve such a traffic clusterfuck. But you have to take some concessions for the closest thing to utopia out there.. :)