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BURNING_CRITICS

                                 September 11, 2007
                                 October    3, 2007
                                 November   5, 2007

Cranking up my mind-reading
apparatus, this is what I
think is going on with
much (though not all) of the      BURNING_CRITICISM
criticism of Burning Man that
you hear.


Does this sound like you?


    (1) you're telling yourself that
    you're more realistic than people who
    think there's something to Burning
    Man beyond it being just a big party.

    (2) any attempts at reaching above
    the quotidian makes you
    uncomfortable, because it implies
    that your "realistic" focus is
    shallow and limited.

    (3) you've swallowed some essentially
    puritanical attitudes, probably
    without realizing it: altruism and
    commerce must be separate; the world
    of spiritual/artistic concerns must
    not have anything to do with pleasure
    or fun; compliance with a principle
    must be absolute, or the principle is
    worth nothing...

                                                   ABSURDLY_PERFECT

But there's another class of complaint,
that comes from idealists who feel that
BM is big business now, that finacially
motivated corruption is rampant..


I need to add some number
crunching at this point.

Suffice it to say for now
that I think the oodles
of money the BMORG is
supposed to be raking in
is essentially an illusion.

From one point of view,
millions of dollars at
the gate sounds like a
lot, but that's net, not
gross, and by the time
you're through thinking
about where the money           (Larry Harvey *may* be paying
goes, there isn't all           himself $100K/year at this
that much left...               point, but it ain't millions/year.)



   Oh, and about the notion that
   Burning Man is expensive: it's
   certainly more expensive than
   staying at home, but relatively
   cheap compared to most other
   forms of "going on vacation".

     Argue against the American
     practice of "going on vacation"
     if you like, but there's
     nothing specific to Burning
     Man about that.


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