The Vanishing Idealism of Burning Man
I started and ran a science-oriented theme camp out there for over a decade as an impoverished academic, and a lot of my friends in the Bay Area help build or manage the event.  I’m neither rich nor a hippy.<p>To me, the fundamental idea of the event is that we’ve become divorced from the act of creation and civic participation due to being enmeshed in a highly commodified, transactional society and that it’s worth trying to address that.  Most people can’t use a torque-driver or recognize a turnbuckle.  But people can learn, and when they get involved in build projects or camps out there they do.  They start trying.  It’s amateur art hour write very large, but the beauty of it is how many people start trying to make something of their own, sometimes with amazing results.<p>The event is flawed as hell and always has been, but it remains an astounding expression of labor devoted to the amateur’s search for meaning through creation.  It’s art will never appeal to the traditional critic who worries more about the statement of art than it’s artifact.  They can look down their noses at the idealism of those who thought to try to make something for once, instead of leaving the important job of art to those who know better, who have the right ideals, the right politics, the right message.  We’re going to continue to do carpentry, to make circuit boards, to write software, and to teach others to get involved in the art of trying.