INW Acculturation Series: Burning Man Culture

#1: Introduction to the Burning Man Culture

Hi there!  This is Shuga coming at you from the Acculturation Committee for Ignition Northwest.  Over the next year I will be guiding readers through an Introduction and Exploration of Burning Man culture via monthly articles highlighting the Principles of Burning Man, what they mean and how you can incorporate them into your lives in a meaningful way both on and off the Playa.  For this first month, we will be introducing the Ten+1 Principles of Burning Man and some general resources that are available for additional exploration on your own.

To start our introduction, rather than discussing “That Thing in The Desert” and all the cool art and experiences there, I think that we should start with the Burning Man Project’s mission and vision: 

Mission Statement

The mission of Burning Man Project is to facilitate and extend the culture that has issued from the Burning Man event into the larger world.

Vision

Burning Man Project will bring experiences to people in grand, awe-inspiring and joyful ways that lift the human spirit, address social problems, and inspire a sense of culture, community, and civic engagement.

Program Areas

Burning Man provides infrastructural tools and frameworks to support local communities in applying the Ten Principles through six interconnected program areas, including Arts, Civic Involvement, Culture, Education, Philosophical Center, and Social Enterprise.

[To learn more about BM Program Areas go here: https://burningman.org/network/about-us/program-areas/ ]

Right away we can see that the Ten Principles are a crucial piece of what makes up Burner culture.  So, what are these Ten Principles?

The Ten Principles of Burning Man: 

1. Radical Inclusion: Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.
2. Gifting: Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.
3. De-commodification: In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.
4. Radical Self-Reliance: Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on their inner resources.
5. Radical Self-Expression: Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.
6. Communal Effort: Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.
7. Civic Responsibility: We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.
8. Leave No Trace: Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.
9. Participation: Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.
10. Immediacy: Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

In addition to the Ten codified principles of Burning Man, we in the Pacific Northwest, along with several other regions have adopted an additional principle that we find to be critical and an underpinning of all of the other principles, Principle 0.

      0. Consent in All Things: INW has chosen to embrace “Consent in All Things” as principle zero. We see open and enthusiastic consent as the foundation from which all other principles grow. Consent is the base we build upon: without it, our community will crumble.  We have zero tolerance for consent violations and have proudly signed on as affiliates of the Radical Accountability Council to assist in these efforts.

These principles are a window into the potential for creating a better world, which is the aspiration of Burners around the world.  They encapsulate an ethos and describe a way of living well.  According to Burning Man founder, Larry Harvey, the principles are integral to one another and nothing short of all of them combined will really do.

I hope this introduction has stimulated curiosity within you to learn more and get involved.  If you are interested in getting involved check out the INW Get Involved web page at: https://ignitionnw.org/home/get-involved/.  You can find all of the active committees and roles that you can participate in, including the Acculturation Committee.

Look out for our next installment in October, where we will discuss the Principle of Radical Inclusion and how we can incorporate this into our Burning Man experiences and our default life.  See you then!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

If the introduction of these principles have piqued your interest, check out the Philosophical Center on the Burning Man website for more great reading and listening material, at: https://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/introduction-the-philosophical-center/ 

In addition, I would highly recommend giving a listen to this podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXo6rsAfadc to find out how to consider the principles of Burning Man through a lens of social and racial justice, which has been a major initiative of BM-org for the past year and a half.  We will be discussing this in more detail as we deep dive into each of the principles over the next few months.