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Recently, I put up a somewhat well-discussed blog post asking foreigners not to come to Burning Man or spend their tourism money in the USA at all. As I knew I would, I got some comments along the lines of, “Politics don’t belong at Burning Man.” I'm trying to be respectful here, but my better instincts are failing to win out, so…  You have got to be joking! If you think politics don’t belong at Burning Man, I have bad news for you: you’re soaking in them like it’s Mudman all over again and that will always be the case. Burning Man isn’t just an art festival in the desert. It’s a pop-up city. A temporary society with values and systems and norms and a hell of a lot of shared assumptions about what matters. Guess how those assumptions, values, and systems were arrived at? Yep. Politics. Radical inclusion? Political. Gifting instead of commerce? Political. Radical self-expression? Political. Civic responsibility? So political! Hell, there are plenty of politics in individual theme camps! Here’s the thing: politics isn’t just elections or whatever two-party slapfight is happening on CNN. Politics is how we, as humans, decide who gets what, who does what, and how we live together without stabbing each other with rebar (though you’re not still using rebar I hope). It’s not just about presidents and policies—it’s about power, resources, voice, and community, and there’s no opting out unless you go live on an island by yourself. It's An Art Festival!Burning Man is also an art festival for the love of Larry! An art festival! There is no separating art and politics. Just a handful of examples:
 Co-created by Ukrainian artist Oleksiy Sai, DJ Anatoly Tapolsky (frontline soldier), and former Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Vitaliy Deynega.
 Otto von Danger's "Burn Wall Street"
To ask artists not to provide commentary on some of the most important issues in our world is to ask them to water down their art until it’s just decoration, bereft of significance other than “it’s pretty” or “how cool.” And that's fine, of course! There has certainly been some incredibly cool but not particularly meaningful art at Burning Man. But imagine if Banksy’s motto was, “No politics” or someone told Picasso to keep politics out of Guernica. Or told the Ukranians above not to express their intense feelings about the war in their country... Art is protest. It’s hope. It’s grief. It’s rebellion. And meaningful art is frequently political as hell. Even the vibe of “this exists for no economic reason, just because someone dreamed it and built it and now it’s here” that we see in some beautiful but not explicitly meaningful art on the playa is a giant middle finger to rote consumer capitalism and the cult of productivity. You think Burning Man is somehow outside the US political system? See 2018’s gauntlet of law enforcement run by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs between Reno and Gerlach. And…you know that Burning Man happens on federal land that is available for we the public to use because of…politics, right? Or, are you aware that the Central Nevada Health District is proposing increasing the inspection fee for camps gifting most food and some drinks from the current $50 to between $375 and $525 depending on what's being offered? Guess how we can oppose and potentially stop that? Yeah, politics. "I mean a different kind of politics though!"You might be saying, "Ok, sure, I can accept all that. I just don’t want to see things like campaign signs at Burning Man. " I understand that. And I largely agree with you too! A standard campaign sign is a pretty boring and conventional way to express yourself on the playa. I’m sure we can do better than that. But, if that’s how someone wants to express themselves, well, as the principle says, “radical self-expression.” It may feel mundane, but I’ve seen plenty of mundane art at Burning Man alongside the art that blew my mind. It’s in the eye of the beholder. Or maybe you’re asking for “no politics” not because you think it’s boring, but because you feel a particular type of politics, like American elections, is too divisive? I get that, but the sheer act of asking people to avoid divisiveness is political. You’re choosing whose voices and what areas of discussion are acceptable. That’s a power move. That’s politics! What if someone doesn’t want to see the divisive politics around the war in Ukraine, for instance, such as represented in the “I’m Fine” art piece? That war is extremely divisive to the tune of hundreds of thousands of deaths, and is also tied closely to American electoral politics to boot! I want more art like that, not less. “Oh, but that’s different!" It’s different to you. It’s not different to other people. Everyone has their own issues they prioritize and see as acceptably divisive. Take pride flags. You can’t tell me with a straight face that pride flags aren’t divisive in America. They shouldn’t be, but they absolutely are. Should we get rid of them at Burning Man as a result? Of course not! It seems to me that a lot of people asking for “no politics at Burning Man” just don’t want to be reminded of hard things. They want escape. Which, cool—who doesn’t? But pretending politics aren’t part of the fabric of Black Rock City is like pretending MOOP cleans itself up. You might want to act like it's not there, but someone’s doing the work. Radical expression in all its messy, beautiful, confrontational, weird ways is part of the point, and if we start drawing lines around what are the “right” or “wrong” types of political expression we lose the very thing that makes this whole dusty art orgy worth doing in the first place. Types of Expression vs Content of ExpressionThat said, there is a difference between types of political expression and the actual content of specific political expression. This is a really important distinction. For instance, I am not ok with a hypothetical Andrew Tate pro-misogyny march through Center Camp or a bunch of people spitting lies in Center Camp about how trans people are mentally ill or how Haitian immigrants eat peoples’ pets. That is not the kind of expression I, or many of us I'd imagine, would be willing to treat with a shrug out there. People may have the legal right to express those things, but we - whether that means us individually, as a community, or as the Org - don’t have to welcome it or accept it at Burning Man, which is a private event, and nor should we. We can recognize that political expression not only belongs at but is inevitable at Burning Man without accepting that self-expression that falls into the realm of the vile must be welcomed. I can already hear some of you shouting, “But what about radical inclusion?!” Well, to those of you who are actually concerned about that, vs those who invoke it because they want a rhetorical tool to justify being shitty people, I’m just going to leave you with this link to Karl Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. It answers your question very well. To Sum UpPolitics have always been—and always will be—a part of Burning Man - an art festival. The desire to ban only certain categories of politics - like American electoral politics - is exactly what it looks like: arbitrary. (though we can probably all agree that things like campaign signs would be awfully boring out there.)
"No politics" is also incredibly tone-deaf when the country is currently rapidly backsliding into frightening authoritarianism. People are literally being disappeared off the streets in America because the administration didn't like what they wrote in a student paper. "Radical self-expression" is one of Burning Man’s official principles. “No politics” not only isn’t—it seeks to suppress an entire category of important self-expression and in doing so, is inherently in service to the existing power structure, which seeks to suppress political expression that doesn't align with it. And finally, we don't have to accept the vile and hateful in our communities whether on the playa or off. I know this will not be a popular post with some folks who would prefer to pretend that Burning Man exists in a vacuum, unaffected by the rest of the world. But it doesn't. Are you sure you want to spend your tourism money and time in the United States? “Families search for loved ones after hundreds taken on U.S. immigration flights disappear.” “French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found.“ “Trump touts prison in El Salvador for Tesla attackers.” "Loyalty Tests Now Part of Ohio Traffic Stops." “Canada only works as a [US] state.” These are all real, recent headlines, or in the case of the last one, a quote from the President of the United States. If you’re a foreigner coming here to go to Burning Man, you have few rights and you could literally end up being rounded up by the government and sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, regardless of having no criminal record, no criminal charges, and no court hearing.  This is not an exaggeration. The admin is unilaterally doing this to non-citizens, and threatening citizens with it as well. And it’s going to get a lot worse. We’re only two months into this. Don't think you're safe because you're not coming here to protest, you're not trying to immigrate, or you're "just going to Burning Man." These people do not care. If there's any hint about you of anything they don't like, from your racial or ethnic identity to your tattoos to what's on your phone, they can seize you and you'll be lucky if all they do is send you back to your home country. Will they send you to a prison in El Salvador like they're doing to others? Chances are not, but is it worth risking to go to a festival? And is it worth giving tourism dollars to America when this country is doing it to other people? The rural areas of Nevada you go through to get to Burning Man heavily support Trump. Pershing County, where Burning Man is held, went 76% for Trump to 21% for Harris, for example. How much more strongly do you think their sheriffs there supported Trump than even the general Pershing County citizens did? And as anyone who went to Burning Man in 2018 during the first Trump admin knows, the federal government, not just local law enforcement, can also make going to the playa dangerous. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs presence on the route between the Reno area and Burning Man that year was turned into a gauntlet of pulling people over and searching their vehicles. (Thank god for the peoples’ hero, Dildo Ackbar!) Will that be repeated? Who knows, but it’s a risk. Trump’s first admin was carnival clownish. Now he’s more like Pennywise, from Stephen King’s “It” - still a clown but now a scary one that's eating metaphorical (or actual...let's not put it past him) children. As a visitor here, you would be:
I’m not telling you that going to Burning Man is bad. I love Burning Man. It’s been a huge part of my life for the past 15 years. I also know this call for foreigners to skip Burning Man will be resented by some, including people in Org management whose opinions I personally care about and who are working to resolve Burning Man's current financial difficulties. And for that I'm sorry. But if there's ever a time to spend personal credibility or social mojo or whatever you want to call it, it's now as far as I'm concerned. I only have two platforms that anyone might pay attention to, and this is one of them, so I’m using it, for whatever small good it may do. (If you’re interested in my other platform, I started a podcast the week after the 2024 elections called No Tacos For Tyrants. You won’t like it if your idea of a good time is fellating Trump or Elon. ) Why not go to a regional outside of the US instead of supporting America with tourism? There are so many, all over the world you can pick from, and you can still maintain your connection to Burning Man that way. https://regionals.burningman.org/  Locations of Burning Man regionals around the world. Me? I won’t be at Burning Man this year for the first time since I started going in 2010, though it’s because I had made conflicting plans almost a year ago. I’m sure that no matter what some people say, it’s still going to be a great time for those who go.
I just hope that people who don't live in the US help send a message to this country by staying away from all US tourism, of any kind. I’m focusing my energy on fighting back in whatever ways I can. I don’t have any illusions about my voice being remotely important in the grand scheme, but we all have to do what we can and going to Burning Man, especially while leading a camp or having a project, is just a big (usually enjoyable) time and money vacuum. I’m reminded of this quote from burner, Grateful Dead lyricist, and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation John Perry Barlow (R.I.P.). It’s a bit dated with its Karl Rove reference, but the point remains the same: “If someone like Karl Rove had wanted to neutralize the most creative, intelligent, and passionate members of his opposition, he'd have a hard time coming up with a better tool than Burning Man. Exile them to the wilderness, give them a culture in which alpha status requires months of focus and resource-consumptive preparation, provide them with metric tons of psychotropic confusicants, and then... ignore them. It's a pretty safe bet that they won't be out registering voters, or doing anything that might actually threaten electoral change, when they have an art car to build.” Stay safe, friends, and resist fascism. And do something about it if you can, however small. |
AuthorI'm Dr. Yes. I run this site, have led a couple of theme camps, was part of a Temple team, and make Burning Man videos. Just say yes, folks, and help keep Burning Man weird! Archives
March 2025
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I'm Dr. Yes, a fan of Burning Man.
Burn.Life is a non-commercial, hobbyist website and no commerce, ads,or paid endorsements are involved. Any products mentioned or linked to are done so because I or people I trust have used them and I view them as reasonable recommendations. You can email me here: yes (-at-) burn (-dot-) life.
Burn.Life is a non-commercial, hobbyist website and no commerce, ads,or paid endorsements are involved. Any products mentioned or linked to are done so because I or people I trust have used them and I view them as reasonable recommendations. You can email me here: yes (-at-) burn (-dot-) life.