Burning Man has entered the mainstream. Not only did the event sell out for the first time in its history, but the Wall Street Journal and New York Times both gave it prominent coverage.
What is Burning Man? For the still uninitiated: “Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever. Burning Man is also an ever-expanding year-round culture based on the Ten Principles.” Those ten principles, in turn, are: (i) Radical Inclusion; (ii) Gifting; (iii) Decommodification; (iv) Radical Self-Reliance; (v) Radical Self-expression; (vi) Communal Effort; (vii) Civic Responsibility; (viii) Leaving No Trace; (ix) Participation; and (x) Immediacy.
According to the WSJ, this “mantra is so compelling that some 50,000 participants have gathered in this rustic setting for the 25th annual rite,” but a more honest count might conclude that it draws about 1,000 people eager to explore the philosophical implications of alternative socioeconomics, and 49,000 people looking for a good party. Yet, with all the potential to report about alternative events and lifestyles, both papers focused on the incursion of capitalist trappings into this supposedly non-capitalist venue: the NYT wrote about the for-profit nature of the parent corporation, while the WSJ described the emergence of a class structure among Burners. The irony falls equally on the newspapers and the Burners, however, because far from presenting an alternative to capitalist socioeconomics, Burning Man is a glorious, joyful expression of them. And therein lies the true story.
Three years ago, I attended Burning Man for the first (and so far only) time. Like many virgins, I was unaware precisely what to expect–or how I could contribute to the community. After all, as a professional technology lawyer and an avocational political philosopher, the demand for my skills in an alternative art city appeared somewhat unclear. Fortunately, a chain of telephone referrals led me to a long-time Burner organizing an “academic style” conference on The Future of Art. I volunteered a presentation on contemporary copyright issues, reasoning that the ways that we regulate art would have a profound effect on the art we get.
On my second day on the Playa (as the grounds of Black Rock City are known), I thus found myself in a scorching shade structure addressing a scantily clad crowd curious about art and its future. I spent my twenty minutes running the crowd through a series of hypotheticals designed to illustrate the profound effect that the regulation of art can have on determining whom we motivate and what we motivate them to do. The next speaker, a fine Marxist graduate student in I forget what at I forget where U, read a paper to the crowd extolling the gift culture at Burning Man as an appropriate curative to the rapacious excesses of capitalism–as exemplified by that most imperialistic of all evil empires, the United States.
That’s when the real fun started.
I suggested that my Marxist friend might have things exactly backwards. I proposed that there is no such thing as “excess” in a capitalist system; what he had identified was actually “surplus.” And it is the very concept of surplus that enables events like Burning Man. Around the country, Burners are productive enough fifty-one weeks a year to spend the fifty-second “gifting” the bounty that they have accumulated. No one leaves for Burning Man, I noted, wondering whether the gifts they are distributing would render them incapable of affording food or rent upon their return. Furthermore, I suggested that the manner in which Burning Man motivated artists to conceptualize grand installations, trained numerous organizers in logistics, and promoted the professional development of event planners, DJs, and lighting specialists throughout the year, was precisely the capitalist system in action.
My Marxist friend hung his head. It seems that at no point in his academic career had anyone ever suggested that capitalism did any of these things. But to my surprise, my survey of the crowd–heavier in sex educators, radical lesbians, aficionados of fine pharmaceuticals, and spiritual healers than academics–revealed a fair amount of head nodding. While they may not have characterized it as such, they all seemed to possess an inherent understanding of the importance of motivation and surplus.
The remainder of my week on the Playa drove the point home further. I wandered among the diesel generators, fuel inefficient RVs, and art installations belching gas flames into the air, discussing the importance of environmental stewardship. I learned the various rules for planning, zoning, land use, and campsite décor that defined the Playa; came to appreciate the importance of branding upon the selection of a camp names; and enjoyed the competition among camps to throw the best parties–and to thereby attract attention to themselves, their designs, and the gifts they were offering. At Center Camp, the administrators explained the relationship among the Black Rock Rangers–the internal police force–whose primary job was to enforce egregious breaches of the law so that state and federal law enforcement officials would stay away. I even learned of the debate over men who chose to wear shirts but not pants–which somehow registered as a curious breach of protocol in a clothing-optional environment. I also, however, encountered near unanimity on the supremacy of Burner culture and Burner morality to their bourgeois American counterparts. In short, I learned that the residents of Black Rock City recreated the social and cultural structures common to most American cities–albeit with a few curious twists–and were loathe to admit it.
So what is Burning Man? It is a celebration of individual self-expression, surplus, and the motivation that recognition and acclaim can provide. Burners who spend their year cultivating the skills that will make them better Burners enhance the communities in which they live. The morality inherent in the event is thus its own success–precisely as capitalism extols. And it is wasted on far too many people too dumb to be proud of that very success.
In short, Burning Man is a slightly weird microcosm of America.