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Burning Man, meet Drowning Man

Silicon Valley's freak-out meets Katrina, with a bump

Yes, but...

If it's a program of action, some criticisms begin to look justified. Burning Man is, as the San Francisco Chronicle notes, even whiter than the prosperous Bay Area itself.

The rules force attendees to monitor their consumption, and leave their wallets untouched. But what else is "a gift economy", except Trickle Down Economics with a cute name? If you're already struggling to afford a $200 ticket, then the chances are you won't be able to be Lady Bountiful with the consumables.

And most strange of all to this European's ears is the absence of words like unity and collective. The two words, which form either a tacit or an explicit part of almost every other festival in the world, are as unspeakable at Black Rock City as they are in the mainstream American discourse. In place of common purpose, which Europeans have discovered speaks to power like no other force, is the right to do whatever you want and damn the consequences. And it's all about you.

And once armed, you don't even have to be nice about using it. On Saturday night, I heard one haddock-faced party bus MC (her mullet-haired husband standing guard behind her) repelling would-be boarders with the message,

"Some Free Speech for ya - Fuck Off!".

(Regular readers who've seen the internet's early communities atomize into the "blogosphere" - where a Million Nation States of One can enjoy the freedom to shout past each other, to no effect at all - will recognize this at once).

Or another example. On Sunday morning, your reporter heard a self-appointed "preacher" tell a string of jokes involving Jesus, Mary Magdelene and anal sex, before launching into a tirade against organized religion - a force, he insisted, that prevented him enjoying as much alcohol as wanted to. "Can't we do," he asked, "just whatever we want?"

At about the same time Oakland's Gospel Choir, one of the few black "theme camps" on the playa, was launching into its second session, and through its joyful noise was raising as many donations for the New Orleans relief fund as had been gathered throughout the entire festival.

So is Burning Man just a headless freak-out, or as some suggest, a new model for social organization? Is it escapism, or the future? To damn this annual flowering of fun and creativity as a hedonistic indulgence (which it is, of course) merely reinforces the Puritan sensibilities and strictures which Burning Man was reacting against in the first place. Action and reaction: we could be running round this loop for a very long time.

At the end of the day, Burning Man is no worse for being a great party - so perhaps we shouldn't take the Burning Man Organization's own cliches about radical self masturbation all that seriously. My wish is that Harvey, who has a really good grasp on what's missing from the disconnected and spiritually impoverished life of American suburbia, would drop these now their time has passed. After America's response to its own people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's surely about time. ®

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