Who Does it SERVE?

[TipiDan]

This will be my first post to the E-playa.
Some of you may know me from past involvment in the community, particularly the Rangers and Earth Guardians, though I have been inactive and have not attended for the past 3 years due to relational and health concerns.
The following essay was first circulated privately to BMorg staff in 2000. Later another participant posted it on my behalf to the E-playa. That version is now unavailable since the years have passed.
I present it now to you, fellow enthusiasts, with the hope that any merit it may originally have possessed it may still possess.
Here then, in essentially unaltered form from 2000.
May any irrelevancies stem only from the passage of time, or if not, then may they represent (at least) an interesting "time capsule" and an illustration of part of Burning Man history from one man's perspective...

(Burning Man) WHO DOES IT SERVE?

When coming to an understanding of anything, particularly social movements, political agendas, mores, propaganda, advertising, etc., it is important to ask the question, "WHO does it SERVE?"
Since Burning Man is many things to many people it may never be possible to answer this question fully with regard to Burning Man. Nevertheless it may be important to the health, nature, understanding, and (dare I say it?), to the SOUL of our community and movement to ask this question. "Who does Burning Man serve?"
This question may be answered on many levels with different degrees of certainty or consensus.
On the simplest level, we might say Burning Man serves the Burning Man community.
That is an answer we might all be able to agree on, but it leads on to another question, "to what END does Burning Man serve the Burning Man community?"
We also need to ask if Burning Man serves elements outside of our immediate community, or if it serves society at large in ways we as a community might approve or disapprove of.
At this point I will have to spin off into my own personal interpretations of what the answers to these questions might be. They are the only one's I have. I'm sure they are other answers, other interpretations, that are just as valid, just as important. I hope to express explicitly what many of us already know implicitly, not to strip away any magic or glamour, but to solicit additional thoughts and commentary and to lend substance to our ideas and motivations. Burning Man is of service to all its participants (and perhaps to non-participants) in a variety of ways, not all of them positive... To save space and organize the main points I will attempt to list them:
1)[INTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man provides a unique social milieu difficult to find or experience elsewhere in our contemporary society. Social interactions at Burning Man occur very differently than they do in everyday life: events are accelerated and contacts and connections are cemented more rapidly than they may be in the routine that is fostered by a structured workaday world where people are tacitly urged to conform, not to stand out, and to make adjustments to a hierarchy. The everyday world of most people revolves around the need to insure physical survival within the context of a workplace where time is traded for money at the expense of spontaneity and often of creativity and self-expression. Those who are able to transcend these constraints are rare and fortunate. At Burning Man, participants are actively encouraged to transcend those constraints: self-expression is fostered, not suppressed; routine is circumvented, not reinforced; hierarchy is satirized, not venerated. These elements help to short-circuit the many social inhibitions that prevent people from making and sustaining social connections, friendships, and relationships in the "everyday" world. The social pace of the everyday world is agonizingly slow to the point of producing no movement at all. That's why nothing ever happens to most people besides work, sleep, eating and watching television. "Normal" society does not make any allowances for other things to happen. There are few places to meet people, and those that exist are hemmed in by conventions, behavioral codes, hierarchical power structures, and outmoded expectations. Social interactions in the everyday world exist in a milieu of conventions and expectations fostered by those who do not think or act for themselves; but from how others have told them how to think and how convention expects them to act. Such a milieu is stifling to social interaction, creativity, self-actualization, and to making the most out of life. So, Burning Man serves the community of participants by providing (for a time) an improved social milieu. This is not unique: such a result has been the goal of social events and festivals since the beginning of time, especially when people of like mind, livelihood, or descent have gathered for rendezvous, community dances, conventions, or family reunions.
2)[INTRA- and EXTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man provides a platform for creativity, self-expression, and ideally, self-actualization. Not to belabor this point excessively, we all know what a fine "tabula rasa" the empty Black Rock Playa is for all sorts of creative endeavors. Burning Man provides a milieu not only for social experimentation and growth, but also for creative experimentation and growth. All these points will be interconnected. Naturally, social freedom fosters creative freedom, and vice versa. One may go into the desert alone to seek and discover the better parts of oneself. But humans are undeniably social animals and true self-discovery can only occur in the presence of another, of THE "Other". Seek to deny this hard-won personal knowledge at your own peril. Self-expression gains meaning only when there are witnesses to it. Burning Man provides the stage, provides a better, freer, more interesting and inspiring stage than everyday life, for us to enact the dramas and dreams of our lives upon. But if we perform for "others" in our community, for others on the playa, so also do we perform for society at large. This makes this value more than just one for "us", for our community; but one for those who cannot make it to the playa. I risk pretension but will say it is a value we may be able to impart or transmit to the whole world. For if we can, though the magic of each other and the emptiness of the playa, make ourselves freer, more open, more creative, and more ourselves, than we may be able to impart some of that same energy to everyone who would like to share in it, whether they can attend Burning Man or not, or even whether they've ever heard of Burning Man or not. If Burning Man allows and encourages participants to be anyone or anything they want to be, they may end up being more of themselves and more of the person they were meant to be or could possibly be. The individual and society at large can only benefit from this.
3)[INTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man allows its participants to develop previously untapped talents that the world at large may have failed to foster. The events that may conspire to limit an individual's access to opportunity are too numerous to mention here. Entrenched interests and powers rarely surrender their control of hierarchies, political parties, corporations, or social clubs, even when more inspired and talented people are "waiting in the wings". History illustrates that power corrupts and that Karl Marx's ideal of a government that would ultimately "wither away" after achieving its ends is an ideal that humanity is not yet ready, or ever capable of achieving. As a result, talented people may be excluded from full participation in society, and may never achieve the greatest expressions of their own creativity. Because of this, individuals suffer and society is retarded and deprived. That Burning Man can foster and inspire the development of heretofore unrealized potential in its participants is an established fact, whether these potentials be for creative endeavor, socialization, leadership or administration. Of all the implicit values that Burning Man offers this one needs to be recognized and explicitly stated the most, lest we loose sight of it. Burning Man's leaders were neither groomed for their roles nor promoted through conventional channels in corporate style: they came out of nowhere at the right place in the right time and displayed their talents to a hungry and receptive community. We should hope that unconventional channels of recognition and to responsibility always remain open in the Burning Man community. If they do not, history can suggest what the results might be, and will mercilessly record what results may accrue.
4)[EXTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man challenges society to question its conventions and transcend its limitations. As a stage and a platform Burning Man allows voices that challenge the assumptions of everyday society to be heard. Society has needed gadflies and venues for genuine satire since societies were first formed. Contemporary society is no exception. Since some conventions and fashions have become so ingrained as to sustain a stagnant inertia in this fin de siecle, "launching pads" for the radical ideas of wholly original aesthetics are more important than ever to the greater good of society at large as a creative society.
5)[INTRA- and EXTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man allows the individual to experience and confront aspects of their own and human nature that are obscured or denied by society at large IN A RELATIVELY SAFE ENVIRONMENT. Although those who enter the Burning Man experience at any level may need to accept some element of danger (I know, it said so on the ticket) the value of allowing participants to directly experience activities beyond the ken and pale of everyday events in relative safety is one that is strongly upheld by the project and its arms, particularly the Black Rock Rangers. It is fitting that the Rangers should be mentioned here because the catchphrase, "Not the problem, but a part of the solution" has been used by them in the context of conflict resolution and the workings of the Black Rock Ranger's "agency dance" through which the festival is produced and assured. The phase is also useful for the Earth Guardians in their role as those who encourage people to "never let it hit the ground." But it was conceived in the greater sense that Burning Man itself through many cathartic "allowings" allows people to experience parts of themselves that may be unknown, and to enter into social grey areas and places and situations that may be unexplored. If this can be done in safety at Burning Man it may be of benefit to society as a whole. If I may wax metaphorical for a sentence or two, if society as a whole may be likened to a body, and social problems that are generated out of profound lack of self-actualization (such as schoolyard shootings) may be liked to a disease, then I would suggest that, (on the playa) we produce powerful antibodies for a whole host of social ills that are the result of alienation, disaffection, exclusion, loss of hope, and the inability to activate the creative and manifesting potential that exists in every human. Burning Man is a critical inoculation that will preserve the future health of our greater society. And that's why, even though it’s scary, Burning man is not the problem, but a part of the solution.
6)[EXTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man provides a "safety-valve" for society at large by providing a platform for the disaffected to "let off steam". This is really the same as the preceding; but from the possible perspective of one not a member of the community of Burning Man participants. It is mentioned because the results of this way that Burning Man serves may be different. It is a value of Burning Man that deserves further examination.
7)[EXTRA- and INTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man provides a clear object lesson on a symbolic level of the primacy in importance of experience over possession. I believe this to be the most important value of Burning Man. The act and ritual of "burning the Man" presents a lesson to humanity about the greater value of experience over possession. We love the Man. The Man is of charming form. We'd love to take him home with us, we'd love to take him home. But we know. We know that no matter how beautiful the Man is, he is never more beautiful than when he is engulfed and Going. It is an experience. So we learn. We learn of the primacy of experience over possession. Experiencing the Man is of greater value than keeping him. This is a lesson that the world so much needs to learn right now, from closer to home to all over the globe. To take this lesson to heart will improve our relationships with each other as individuals and with the planet as a species. This is why burning the Man is important to me symbolically.
8)[EXTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man provides a training ground for law enforcement and emergency services personnel to hone their skills in dealing with unconventional large-crowd situations. This is an extra-community value that has potential benefits and pitfalls to the Burning Man project and community. I leave it for your consideration.
9)[EXTRA- and INTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man provides a platform for the exposition of the effects of human presence in the natural environment and how to mitigate and ultimately eliminate those effects. I thank the principals, the project, and the process for "allowing" me the small role I have played in advancing this value for all the totalities.
10)[EXTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Burning Man provides an opportunity for predatory individuals to exploit the innocent, optimistic, and bewildered in various ways. This is a negative non-benefit of the event of Burning Man that the principals, project, process, and participants are and will become aware of to a greater extent as the festival matures. It is for the consideration of everyone who cares about the Burning Man community. It relates directly to the role of the Black Rock Rangers.
11)[INTRA-COMMUNITY VALUE]Through fostering self-expression and discovery, Burning Man could precipitate social or psychological crises in some of its participants. This is a non-benefit of the event that relates directly to the role of the Rangers. It is listed separately from number five because it relates directly to potential physical events during the festival as opposed to benign philosophical or aesthetic epiphanies that the festival may precipitate or advance. The ramifications of learning to discriminate the many shades of grey that run from epiphany to crisis and the many ways to ameliorate the consequences are best understood and practiced by the specialist Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Rangers.
12)[INTRA-INTRA COMMUNITY VALUE] Burning Man serves BMORG? Questions have been posed and proposed that does not Burning Man benefit the organizers, and that Burning Man benefits the organizers in some way more than others. I would first suggest that with all of the other clear values and benefits that Burning Man promulgates and bestows such a question is moot. The second question that arises is well, "how could they really (benefit more than others?)" as the manifest benefits to participants at so many levels are established. What could be a greater benefit than artistic, imaginative, and social ACTUALIZATION. We would hope that the principals and leaders of the Burning Man project find self-actualization through their participation in Burning Man just as we do. And we know they DO, don't we? Some who have proposed this [negative?] benefit specifically have introduced elements of satire into their treatments of the Burning Man organization, project, and community. I would emphasize that satire on every level is a key element of the significance and actual process of Burning Man. It is a very important TOOL of Burning Man, how many of the values of Burning Man listed above are affected and promulgated. Everyone who attends and participates in Burning Man dreams together and shares values. We in the (is it still 2000 or so?) that lend a hand in producing the festival share a higher level of values. We engage in a form of "enhanced sharing" through which comes enhanced understanding of the production. Mostly we share burdens, while others may be only yet still at the stage of sharing the sensations of Burning Man. We, as agents and tools of the Burning Man project must put the goals of the project above personal agendas. We all have them. For all of us, I'm sure, most of our personal agendas fit very nicely with the goals of the Burning Man project. And in simplest terms that's to produce the festival. In more expansive terms they are to bring the gift of the Burning Man to the community, the world and to all time. San Franciscans have special knowledge of the way movements that focused too closely on singular leadership often evaporated after the leader's death. This is not to happen to Burning Man. The Burning Man project has so far been astute and stepped lightly around some of the pitfalls that have affected some experiments in community that have gone before. For all of us to reduce our personal agendas when contributing energy to the goals of the Burning Man project is for all of us to "play our cards right", and to help assure the greater goal of assuring the continuance of the Burning Man, and contributing a great legacy to the ages.
Burn the Man.

TipiDan

[SED]

Burning Man serves ME. So thanks!

[skygod]

It seems like BM has morphed a bit from it's origin. I'm not sure that blowng shit up in the desert really served anyone. I wasn't there, but it sounds like the early BM's were more fun, but more dangerous. I'm not complaining, mind you.

[SED]

My first burn I wandered past the heavy metal pancake breakfast and saw a crowd of people walloping the daylights out of each other and some fool in a bunny suit.

This year a guy got booted from BRC for giving a woman an orgasm.

I guess there really ain't no figgerin' it.

[Badger]

This year a guy got booted from BRC for giving a woman an orgasm.

That's the first I've heard about that.

I do know that one once-frequent poster on this board was asked to leave the event because of behavior usually associated with yahoos and assholes and some predatory types.

[Ron]

Hat's off to Badger for the best sig. animation *ever*!

Ron

[Badger]

<snicker>

[SED]

This year a guy got booted from BRC for giving a woman an orgasm.

That's the first I've heard about that.

I do know that one once-frequent poster on this board was asked to leave the event because of behavior usually associated with yahoos and assholes and some predatory types.

Asked to leave? I think not.

Because . . ?

Because someone (not the primary complainant) said he behaved as you describe.

My point?

It's getting safer out there in the formerly wild and wacky west.

[Bob]

(Burning Man) WHO DOES IT SERVE?

WHOM.

[Lassen Forge]

Like the title of the Book says...

To Serve Man.

[MikeVDS]

[quote="Bob"][quote="TipiDan"](Burning Man) WHO DOES IT SERVE?[/quote]

WHOM.[/quote]

Though that *used* to be technically correct, today the word who is perfectly fine, and in fact "whom" is considered a bit archaic for American English users.

[skygod]

Like the title of the Book says...

To Serve Man.

LOL!. Pass the Ketchup.
(Catsup (sic) has natural mellowing agents.)

[blyslv]

IT'S A COOKBOOK.


I don't get the splatter pattern.

[Ugly Dougly]

It doesn't have to serve anyone.

[bedlam]

"I wish Karl had spent more time making capital instead of just writing about it." -- Karl Marx's Mother

apocryphal... i think

[skygod]

I don't know if it's the sizzle or the steak that I love the best.

[helitack]

To me, it's the smell of the sizzling ribeye and the first bite...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

[SED]

I don't know if it's the sizzle or the steak that I love the best.

It's the steak, ya stoop. Although, it might be the servile degradation of the cook who makes it for you.

[skygod]

I don't know if it's the sizzle or the steak that I love the best.

It's the steak, ya stoop. Although, it might be the servile degradation of the cook who makes it for you.

You always aim for the heart, don't you.