2013 Theme - Cargo Cult - thoughts?

[yellowrose]

I am in agreement with the folks who have expressed concerns about the racist/colonial tones of the theme.

We are interested in creating a petition in solidarity with other camps who have concerns. Please let me know if you have any ideas for what should be written on the petition, and if your camp wants to join. We are not experts on this topic, simply concerned burners. Link below.

https://www.change.org/petitions/burnin ... -man-theme

[theCryptofishist]

I still think it would be funnier and more instructive to colonize a camp and introduce a cult...

[skyhawkecks]

I am in agreement with the folks who have expressed concerns about the racist/colonial tones of the theme.

We are interested in creating a petition in solidarity with other camps who have concerns. Please let me know if you have any ideas for what should be written on the petition, and if your camp wants to join. We are not experts on this topic, simply concerned burners. Link below.

https://www.change.org/petitions/burnin ... -man-theme

lol

[knowmad]

Prosperity theology doesn't, on the face of it, seem all that different than Calvinism, where god's approval is signaled by wealth...

and here I always thought Calvinisim was when God signified his approval by blaming Hobbes.


Petition? Petition the Lord with Prayer? You DO NOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!!!

[BAS]

The petition should start with three loud cheers for the Hat, followed by three for the Man, and...

[knowmad]

When the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

[Elorrum]

We feel sure our theme will attract many alien Visitors, and hope this will stimulate our planet's faltering economy.
stimulate the economy? huh?

[theCryptofishist]

We feel sure our theme will attract many alien Visitors, and hope this will stimulate our planet's faltering economy.
stimulate the economy? huh?

It's a metaphor. The aliens are going to have sex with the earth.

[Elliot]

What a fabulous Theme, that stirs so many of us to thinking!

[5280MeV]

I have been following this conversation all day, and the whole debate is just beautiful.

The people of Vanuatu have appropriated US military traditions in an inappropriate manner, blindly reenacting parade marches and the flag raising ceremony without an understanding or appreciation of the meaning of the US flag or the sacrifice of the troops.

In making this phenomenon - often called a 'cargo cult' by Americans - the theme of the Burning Man event in the desert, the mostly American participants of Burning Man have appropriated the inappropriate appropriation of American tradition in an inappropriate manner, without regard for the misunderstanding of American culture of the Vanuatan culture.

This inappropriate appropriation of inappropriate appropriation is not just racist, it is racist-squared.

[theCryptofishist]

Well, at leeast the Star Trek re-enactors will fit right in this year.

[ygmir]

[quote=heCryptofishist"]Well, at leeast the Star Trek re-enactors will fit right in this year.[/quote]
TRIBBLES!!

[Tiahaar]

taking notes at computer**

notes that ygmir has Interesting Hands...
Anyways...
A theme that has CULT as part of its name gets +1000 edgy points (the bliss hippies had their turn last year)

[Foxfur]

I have been following this conversation all day, and the whole debate is just beautiful.

The people of Vanuatu have appropriated US military traditions in an inappropriate manner, blindly reenacting parade marches and the flag raising ceremony without an understanding or appreciation of the meaning of the US flag or the sacrifice of the troops.

In making this phenomenon - often called a 'cargo cult' by Americans - the theme of the Burning Man event in the desert, the mostly American participants of Burning Man have appropriated the inappropriate appropriation of American tradition in an inappropriate manner, without regard for the misunderstanding of American culture of the Vanuatan culture.

This inappropriate appropriation of inappropriate appropriation is not just racist, it is racist-squared.

+100!
You are my new hero!!!

Speaking of Vanuatu, I ordered a pound of weapons grade kava last night.
Guess what my Camelbak will be filled with...

[knowmad]

This inappropriate appropriation of inappropriate appropriation is not just racist, it is racist-squared.

So DoublePlusGood? I'm a bit confused, I's this one of those Racist thing that I'm supposed to feel outraged about? or one of those Racist things I should be stoked about [*'Merika!*]
let's see racism is negative, and the product of a negative Square, is a Positive![*'Merika!*]

Schweww! Thought I was going to have to report you to the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Hippies would have been able to figure it out but Math is soooo, Abstract Man!

[brm15]

To all my whimsical travelers, ready for take off?!! Here we come and go John Frum! Brooommmzzzzziiifuuuufzzz
NO! I don't consider it racist. BRC is a large metropolis, and as in any metropolis, there are always some racists in the midst. No surprise here. I can't wait to go down those slides! Spam please. I'll skip the bacon.

[Humin]

As for the theme itself I think it has potential, though it's more specific than the last few years' themes.

I understand where BMorg is coming from, more trying to get people to view themselves as the cargo cult. I also understand the racial concerns. I've actually heard of cargo cults a long time ago, to me they've always been linked with the "tribal savage" archetype we see in media. There is a running theme in media of white explorers meeting indigenous tribes, and the tribes deification of the explorers. I'm not offended, but then I'm not Melanesian so I wouldn't be.

EDIT: I am Jewish though, and nobody asked my opinion on the Barbie Death Camp. If they did ask, I'd say I assume it's in good fun, and I have to think I'd have the same reaction to this years theme if I was of Melanesian descent.

[graidawg]

In my latest though isn't Bm a kind of reverse Cargo cult - where we go to a strange exotic place in the hope of finding something that we don't really understand from a more primitive society and perform rituals that have no meaning to most of us and people have names that mean nothing elsewhere though we argue about if they are real or not. Anyway my idea of going as a colonial englishman need no modification to fit right in.

[goathead]

To those who think its racist, take it, play with it, and make it your own.

Your choice, be inspired or be offended.

Fuck Your Day

[graidawg]

don't take the

[H.G.Crosby]

I am in agreement with the folks who have expressed concerns about the racist/colonial tones of the theme.

We are interested in creating a petition in solidarity with other camps who have concerns. Please let me know if you have any ideas for what should be written on the petition, and if your camp wants to join. We are not experts on this topic, simply concerned burners. Link below.

https://www.change.org/petitions/burnin ... -man-theme

NIGGERS BE TRIPPIN'...


lord have mercy.

[Elorrum]

I will need to find my own angle on this theme since my take right now cannot get past the word Cargo. At the beginning of the short documentary series, Guns Germs and Steel, the author of the book, Jared Diamond relates a seminal conversation he had with a New Guinea friend, and how it got him thinking: "Why does the white man have so much cargo, and we have so little?" Appealing to an outside being for material things? Isn't there something more I should want if aliens came? I think my cult will be the cult of MTV cribz, or the cult of plug and play RV luxury burning. Why not the cult of mutant vehicles? I want one so badly. I shouldn't plan for myself, educate myself, think of a way. I just have to want it want it want it so bad and build an altar to whatever I think it is as a kind of celebratory art, on my vacation from being a fucking slave and letting the message that I don't have enough rule me. Well, I bathe in hot drinking water, have enough food to be obese, and access to doctors and medicine. Plenty cargo. Pretty fucking luxurious to much of the world. Even if I'm drowning and paralyzed by my stuff, it's probably not the right stuff to have anyway, and I need to imagine what kind of cult I would be in if I could be in one that would worship the better cargo I should really really want, but have no chance of getting on my own. The altars already exist here, and I think they are billboards, and trade shows, and t.v. commercials, hell, t.v. Let's just have a year where commercial sponsors can come to the playa and build their own exposition. I think they would REALLY bring in the cargo.

What I would ask for, seeing how the closed system of Earth is turning us into overpopulated stressed and deranged toxic hangers on, is a way out or a solution. A way to release the pressure of our over population and spread out a bit in space.

[ygmir]

I will need to find my own angle on this theme since my take right now cannot get past the word Cargo. At the beginning of the short documentary series, Guns Germs and Steel, the author of the book, Jared Diamond relates a seminal conversation he had with a New Guinea friend, and how it got him thinking: "Why does the white man have so much cargo, and we have so little?" Appealing to an outside being for material things? Isn't there something more I should want if aliens came? I think my cult will be the cult of MTV cribz, or the cult of plug and play RV luxury burning. Why not the cult of mutant vehicles? I want one so badly. I shouldn't plan for myself, educate myself, think of a way. I just have to want it want it want it so bad and build an altar to whatever I think it is as a kind of celebratory art, on my vacation from being a fucking slave and letting the message that I don't have enough rule me. Well, I bathe in hot drinking water, have enough food to be obese, and access to doctors and medicine. Plenty cargo. Pretty fucking luxurious to much of the world. Even if I'm drowning and paralyzed by my stuff, it's probably not the right stuff to have anyway, and I need to imagine what kind of cult I would be in if I could be in one that would worship the better cargo I should really really want, but have no chance of getting on my own. The altars already exist here, and I think they are billboards, and trade shows, and t.v. commercials, hell, t.v. Let's just have a year where commercial sponsors can come to the playa and build their own exposition. I think they would REALLY bring in the cargo.

What I would ask for, seeing how the closed system of Earth is turning us into overpopulated stressed and deranged toxic hangers on, is a way out or a solution. A way to release the pressure of our over population and spread out a bit in space.

well said, well said indeed!!
Thanks Elorrum.

[Simon of the Playa]

GET TO WORK!

[media]

[Roberto Dobbisano]

oh, sure, next thing you'll tell me is that it will set me free.

[Foxfur]

Baggage is the new cargo.

[Simon of the Playa]

stop blaming texas for JFK's death...

[Elorrum]

maybe it is just the hard crusty chrysallis.

[ygmir]

we'll know, when alligator skin suitcases come back

[H.G.Crosby]

i heal Asian Clocodires are Fealress, they head stlaight into the flay...