A burning hypocrisy in the Black Rock Desert

This opinion column was submitted by Eric McCammond, a government administrator and retired Air Force senior master sergeant who lives in Las Vegas.

Ah, Burning Man, that magical time of the year when your kid’s ultra-progressive teacher, his best friend’s parents, and your yoga instructor all load up the diesel-guzzling RVs they only use once a year with a week’s worth of rations, their newest glowstick rave outfits, and a pound of cocaine for their annual pilgrimage to the Northern Nevada desert.

Now, I don’t necessarily hold any judgment against anyone who chooses to adorn themselves with luminescent accessories or even people who choose to introduce illicit chemicals into their bodies. My rub is with people who engage in self-indulgent behaviors without giving a second thought to the impact on others. But what really sticks in my craw is when the people engaging in these harmful, self-indulgent behaviors express principles of decommodification, leaving no trace, and civic responsibility. All you have then is a bunch of half-naked, high-as-a-kite hypocrites dancing out in the desert.

The crux of the issue of course is that the real driving principle at Burning Man is hedonism, the philosophical theory that self-indulgence is the highest calling in life. This is coincidentally also a hallmark of capitalism, but I’ll save that for another opinion column. In a world stressed by inequality, injustice, overconsumption, and global warming, hedonism is simply incompatible with the world we live in.

Decommodification

It's difficult to mask the irony of spending obscene amounts of money on pre-packaged provisions, Airstreams, disposable art exhibits and prime Columbian yeyo so you can go spend a week pretending not to participate in the capitalist market system. This is not to mention the Silicon Valley elite who feed off our working class all year and then go party with commoners once a year. Aside from the more accepted forms of capitalist exploitation, Burning Man highlights the damaging dichotomy of illegal drug use in America. Most Burners don’t give a second thought to where their drug of choice came from. What village in the global south lives in daily terror so narcotraffickers can push products northward. What inner-city person of color sits in a jail cell, caught in a sting so a Burner can get their fix. With most Burners being white, they’ll never get close to the negative consequences their behavior produces.

Leaving no trace

Burning Man is an ecological catastrophe. They themselves report a carbon footprint of 100,000 tons of greenhouse gases each year. This of course flies in the face of “leave no trace.” An ecologist I can’t recall once wrote about how differently we would view greenhouse gas pollution if our atmosphere were made of water rather than air. When Burners clean up all of the water bottles and other solid rubbish following the event, they all high-five each other and say, “we left no trace!” But this is only because the greenhouse gases from their carbon-chugging RVs and combustible art exhibits seem to dissipate into thin air. Of course, anyone with even a rudimentary education in science knows that long after the Burners have all driven off the playa, the carbon traces of their activities remain.

Civic responsibility

Every Burner I have ever met made their motives immediately evident: escapism. Many Burners spend all year yearning and preparing for the one week a year when they feel like they are with their community. Many Burners participate in smaller regional events throughout the year to help them make it to the next annual event. But escapism is the opposite of responsibility. One would wonder how powerful of an impact all these Burners could have if they spilled the same money, attention and resources into their yearlong local communities rather than a week-long hedonistic escape in the Black Rock Desert.

Eric McCammond is a local government administrator and retired Air Force senior master sergeant who lives in Las Vegas.

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