Gonzo Prank comment

The first year I went to BM, 1998, about forty different people independently told me in advance that I shouldn't bring along anything that I would be upset if it got dirty, broken, burned, destroyed, or lost.

We build cities with police forces, oppressive laws, fire departments, day jobs, taxes, etc. so we don't have to live our lives in fear of disruption and chaos. That's a good thing; I'm glad I don't have to worry about getting eaten by a lion or blown up in the middle of the night. On the other hand, we all have something inside that needs a bit of chaos; so in a healthy society, we construct ways to allow ourselves a relatively safe slice of escape from all the rules and rigidity of normal life. Carnaval, traditional harvest bacchanals, Burning Man, etc. It's always been this way.

If Burning Man is a place of chaos, then it fulfils this function for us. If Burning Man is a place where people who burn things early get arrested, then it doesn't fulfil this function anymore. There's nothing wrong with places that don't seethe with chaos; in fact, almost all of us who attend Burning Man, and almost everyone else for that matter, choose to live in places of order, not places of anarchy and chaos. No one likes to get eaten by a lion, or killed in his tent by a speeding car at night (which happened in the '90s, and from what I understand was really the trigger for adding rules and order to the event.)

But one does ask oneself, if Burning Man isn't serving this purpose for us, then what is it other than a less-comfortable version of home? Or a staged show, a spectator event, the same year after year? People may have a primal need for an escape from order, but I don't think people have a primal need to get really dirty and uncomfortable just for its own sake. So the more Burning Man becomes like just another city, the less it provides the energy to maintain its own cultural momentum.

I think there are a lot of people who still remember what BM used to be about, and who feel very strongly that the thing it used to be is a lot more important than what it is now. Those people are not thoughtless assholes for working to revitalize the chaos. You might disagree with them, but if you really do then you should ask the organizers to make it clear that Burning Man is not about radical self-expression anymore so those people will know to stay away...

And then as a followup I also wrote:

You have no idea how many people are specifically complaining because "this one guy had to ruin MY ENTIRE BURNING MAN EXPERIENCE". All I can say is that if your ability to enjoy Burning Man depends on having your expectations met, rather than challenged, then you should really go do something else altogether. Or, an alternative point of view is that Burning Man really is a place where you ought to be able to go back year after year and safely recreate the same experience you've grown comfortable with.

Personally, I find that my toilet is an excellent place to recreate an experience I've grown comfortable with, year after year. I'm glad it is, and I sure wouldn't want to live without that, like people used to before the benefits of organized society... But when I go to Burning Man, I fully expect to be challenged. And to have to do a lot of unplanned extra work, too, for that matter! When I want a relaxing vacation, I go somewhere else. I'd think DPW people would have figured that out by now, too.

And then finally:

I think the fact of the Man burning early is a wonderful thing, because it challenges everyone's expectations. I would think it was great if it were and accident, or if Larry Harvey Himself did it, or if the fucking Dalai Lama did it or George W. Bush for that matter. I would think it was great if it were the wind, or shoddy construction that set it off. I don't give a fuck what caused it to happen, that's not my business, and it isn't yours either, and whatever it is it would be a damn shame if even a single person convinced himself that this event was something to be unhappy about rather than happy purely on the basis of whether the guy who did it was nice or not.

Let me reiterate that, because I think it's the most important point: If it were an accident, then I bet you and all the other unhappy people would be a lot happier, don't you think? If the Man caught on fire early by accident, everyone would laugh with tingling dread and excitement, and pull together to clean up and rebuild, and the festivities would be twice as joyful come Burn time. Do you disagree? So, given that it's possible to react that way, why on earth would you choose to use some details of the personality of some irrelevant putz as an excuse to be upset instead of happy?

...and now you know exactly how I feel about this whole thing.