|
Links:
Let's start with a few basic understandings, things which may seem a little strange at first glace, but which will make more sense as you read your way into this page. While this page is under the administration of the owner of the old chi-burning list, and is mostly being written by one of the old moderators (namely, Joseph Dunphy), neither of the active moderators from the old list (neither Joe nor Edd) have expressed any interest in coming over to the new list. The owner of the old list will, himself, take leave of the new one, once it is set up and under the guidance of a new owner, retaining control of the old list, which will serve primarily as an archive. What you see is a concept of how the list should work, one which the new owner to be agrees with, which is why you will see this page linked to under "for more information". However, none of the old staff are staying behind in the long run, so if an issue arises on this list, please don't try to get one of us involved. We did our time, we paid our dues, and now we want to enjoy our peace and quiet. Fair enough? The page for the new list remains in the same location as the page for the old list for one strange, "tail the wagging the dog" type of reason. Experience teaches us that search engines tend to penalize pages that move around a lot. In order to preserve some decent search engine rankings, then, we all decided that the new list should have the same address as the old list, and the same would go for the homepage of the new list, the new owner included, and we know her well enough to know that she wouldn't do anything to turn this into a one-way site, in Webring terms. As you read the page below, you'll see a number of rules, some of them described in very firm (even stern) terms. When do they apply? In a sense, that's up to the membership which is presented, at any time, with two options. The members can have the owner and her moderators very actively involved in the list, or they can have a laid back (and somewhat indifferent) style of moderation. Which will it be? This is not resolved through a debate or a vote, but through the actions of the individual members.The rules you see below described what you should be doing, if you become a member. If enough members do what they're supposed to, for the moderators to be able to make a viable group just out of those more conscientious members, then once they've established a pattern of engaging in that better behavior, the rules will start to be stringently enforced and those ignoring them will be banned, without warning. Whether that's 10%, 50% or 90% of the list is immaterial. The relevant question is "after we purge all of those in violation of the rules, will we still have a viable list". If the answer seems to clearly be "yes", then the rules you see below will kick in, every last one of them, and they will do so in a retroactive fashion. When you are told that you have one week, from the time of admission to the list, to post your personal introduction and proposals (more about those below), that doesn't mean one week after the rules kick back in, that's one week, period. Those not already in compliance will be subject to being tossed out, without further warning. Let's say, on the other hand, that almost all of the members decide to ignore those rules. There won't be any scolding or "butting of heads", but there will be simple, logical consequences to the choice being made by the new community. Since the membership won't be making much of effort, if this is the cases that arises, then (in that case) neither will the moderators who, under those circumstances, won't forward even a single event announcement. In fact, they'll be expected not to, if that's how things are going to be. The list will go from a setting of "moderated" (or at the very least, "new members moderated") to "unmoderated" and "members can post" with unrestricted membership. This will have a predictable result - an increase in the level of spam on the list, especially since, in the case that the list goes lassez faire, the moderators will be asked to not delete any spam from the archives, which will set from the usual setting of "open to members only" to "available to the general public". In summary, then, the members can, through willful noncooperation, get a lot of the rules you see below temporarily taken out of commission, but such a victory will carry a cost: a considerable increase in the amount of spam on the list. The list, then, will find itself in one of two possible modes, depending on the actions of its members. There is a "lassez faire" mode, under which the moderators accept the fact that almost none of the members are doing much, and not much is expected of the members, but not much is given back to those members in return. Then there is a "community mode", which the list will go into if enough compliance is seen, with the rules of the list, in which much more is asked of the real members of chi-burning, and more is offered in return. The moderators will take the time to deal with the spam, and the occasional troll or other troublesome user. In lassez-faire mode, if one of those guys shows up, the membership will largely be on its own. If this all seems a little nasty and vindictive, think of it in market terms. You go out looking for shingles for your roof. You could spend a little more and get the good clay shingles, very tough, look attractive and are very leak resistant. But you, instead, decide to be cheap and spend less, leaving the store with the tar shingles instead. Along come the winter storms, the tar shingles don't stand up to them, and the water leaking through your roof destroys much that was in your attic, including your wedding photos. A distressing situation, but would you care to say that this would make the merchant who sold you the shingles a terrible person, or does this make your own personal choice a sadly foolish one? With the freedom to make our own choices comes the responsibility to accept their reasonable consequences, and one of those reasonable consequences can be summed up by the words, "the more you give, the more you can reasonably ask to get"; whether we are speaking of a trade of money and goods, or a trade of considerations, that principle holds up either way. The question is "how do we build community in a time and place in which the values of community have been forgotten, to be replaced by the adversarial stance of the marketplace", and the answer is "by knowing how to drive a bargain, and not giving people more than they've paid for". The trade is one of comfort and considerations. Whoever ends up running this place will want to see action out of the membership. The members, in turn, will want the comfort of a list where spam and abusive conduct are absent, and where they're confident that they'll be able to stay as long as they wish. Some members will do their part, which is to say that they'll do their share of the work needed to make this community work as a community, and they will be seen as full fledged members of this list, receiving consideration in full. Those who do less, will get less. Once can now, if one is open to reason, see why there is nothing "mean" or "vindictive" about the lack of warning given to those not in compliance with the stated rules, when the list kicks over from "lassez faire" to "community" mode. (1) Look at it this way. Let's say that almost everybody in the world went on rent strike, almost nobody agreeing to pay even a penny's worth of rent, no matter how harsh the response, and no matter what they were denied; massive civil disobedience. Landlords, after a period of reasonable anger at this unreasonable response, might become resigned to the loss of their cash flow, and even break down and let some people start squatting in apartments that would otherwise be left empty. But those squatters would not enjoy the security of having a lease, and if they should come in one day and find their possessions waiting for them in a box, the landlord having leased the place they were squatting in to a paying tenant who came by, who would think any the less of the landlord and who should? Those who, like the vast majority of the membership of the old list, stubborly refuse to abide by the stated rules, are like the squatters in that analogy. They might be allowed to stay, because the moderators are resigned (at the moment) to leaving the list in lassez-faire mode, but as with the squatters, their stay is a free gift which they've stubbornly refused to do anything to earn. If they are blindsided by their sudden expulsion from the community, then theirs is merely the insecurity of the well-to-do squatter; they are not denied any consideration that they didn't choose to deny themselves the right to, through their own free choices. It is a strange kind of anarchism that calls for us to accept the right of others to make their own choices, but then calls us to go into denial about the fact that they've made those choices. It goes beyond tolerance into willful blindness, and who ever succeeded in building anything while stumbling around in the dark? The building of any kind of real community calls for those who would build to open their eyes to reality, and there is no magic in the torching of a giant piece of lawn furniture that will change that fact, no matter how many may respond to that statement with tirades about of one's lack of understanding, between the deep and headrushing puffs that hyperventilation will leaving them taking from their bongs. We may hallucinate our attitudes into existence, but most things of value have to be created in the real world, and community is one of them. What would one need to do to create a viable Burning Man community here in Chicago? This, one might ask, because none has ever existed in this, the third largest city in the United States, several times the size of San Francisco and part of a metropolitan area with a population significantly greater than that of a few of the members of NATO. Surely, in such a large place, a community could be built, surely one could find enough who were interested? Yet, this has never happened. Burning has failed to gain a foothold in Chicago. Some in BMORG (the Burning Man Limited Liability Corporation) will angrily deny this, protecting their state and act of denial with crude attacks upon the reputations of those who commit the heinous crime of telling them that which they do not wish to hear, but they end up doing little more than add to BMORG's already darkening reputation and put on display the woeful ignorance of the geography (not to mention history, culture, ...) of the outside world that Californians have become notorious for. "Really, you're from Chicago?", a girl once asked our former Chicago contact, as he walked along a beach in San Diego. "I know this guy named Phil Susserman in New York. Do you know him?" she said, a little unclear on the fact that Chicago and New York are over 700 miles apart, neither really qualifying as a small town. Much the same ignorance could be seen put on display by BMORG's comments which were shown with, not the shiny, happy overconfidence usually associated with Southern California, but the hostile, depressed and yet equally ignorant overconfidence that is coming to be part of San Francisco's public image. "It's a lie that there isn't a booming community in Chicago. Why, the Chicago / Milwaukee community has turned out many people". And there's the ignorance on display - those offering the insightful commentary from out in the Bay Area are as unaware of the fact that Chicago and Milwaukee are not next door neighbors, as that girl in San Diego was of the fact that the CTA didn't run buses out to Brooklyn. While Milwaukee is much closer to Chicago than the East Coast is, it is still a good, long drive away, in a completely different metropolitan area. It's a long enough trip that locals won't take it lightly, and as for our "local" burn, Synchronicity? It was held in Kentucky, apparently, putting it on the opposite side of Illinois from Chicago, at the very least, hundreds of miles away. "OK, then, what about the burningchicagoans", some have asked. OK, they have the word "chicago" in the name of their Yahoogroup, but if you look at their past postings, you'll find that most of the activity on that list has taken place in Michigan, not Illinois, putting them closer to Detroit than they are to Chicago. Much of this alleged local community, then, has been manufactured with smoke and mirrors and the willful cooperation of stereotypically Californian geographical ignorance. It's as if a Midwesterner had said "what do you mean Los Angeles isn't close to Puget Sound? They're both on the West Coast, right?" Sigh. On those occasions when an event taking place "in the Chicago area" actually WAS in the Chicago area, and not just somewhere in the Central Plains states, sometimes we found ourselves wishing that it hadn't, because it really didn't cast the community in a very positive light. Consider, for example, the Nude World Bike Ride. Nudity, in its proper place, is not something we object to. At Burning Man, participants arrive with the understanding that it has always been present, and people go way out of their way getting to that festival, knowing that this is the case. But can one really say the same of a diner in a sidewalk cafe on Rush Street, as a stark naked cyclist peddles by, looking (shall we say) far too excited by the experience, his excitement showing signs that it's about to start bubbling out into the world, only about three feet away from the plate of linguine that the dismayed diner is now trying to shield with his napkin? It is coarse, crude, inappropriate and truly inconsiderate behavior that wears out our welcome rapidly. Some of us had the misfortune of being at Luciano when our friend "Foamy" came shooting past, the Chicago contact observing under his breath that "this is not how we make white clam sauce". A smattering of applause at the tables followed as the flashing blue lights of a few patrol cars came up behind the parade. The beginning of community is to be found in the recognition that other people exist, and in the willingness to care enough about that fact to let it have some kind of impact on one's choices - to think of others. That's certainly not what we were seeing that night; what we were seeing was more of what a lot of Burning has become - a childish, selfish spirit of "look at me"; one of the recent transplants who has decided to make herself a community leader even went so far as to say that the outraging of the sensibilities of the genuinely local residents was a good thing! We may laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but we shouldn't laugh at the arrogance of the act of barging into somebody else's home, and showing that kind of blatant disrespect for his culture and for the pre-existing community. "Bull in a china shop" was the cliche on many local lips, such an attitude doing little to encourage anybody who really did have local roots to take part in any of the festivities to come. When most of those festivities, when they occur at all, seem to consist of getting drunk or otherwise intoxicated in a place where any attempt at conversation is drowned out with the tumpity-thumpity thump sound of LOUD recorded music, almost all of it in one genre, most of those locals would have little reason to attend, anyway, which is regrettable, because Burning used to be about a lot more than that. Something had to be done, but what? Once upon a time, really not so very long ago, some of us set up a list for those travelling into our region for
local Burns, those holding those local burns, and for those in our area travelling to Burning Man, as part of something
that we called "the Alternative Burning Man List Network". Rather unwisely, we then just assumed that adults could
be counted to act like adults, and do what they darned well should have known that they should have been doing.
Experience subsequently taught us the error of our ways, as it so often does; wisdom, as we will often say, is
not to be found so much in the absence of mistakes as it is in the willingness to learn from them. With that thought
in mind, we will now lay out some rules for this new list, rules that painful experience has taught us need to be
spelled out in advance.
With all of the above unpleasantness mentioned, now more than ever, we have the question - Why do we do it? Part of the answer to that question would be to point out that anti-social idiots will be with us no matter where we go, until we send them away, and so the only alternative to facing them head-on and dealing with them is to let them have control of every place where people might meet each other. Think of the world such a defeatist approach promises to bring into reality, and think of how much the world we're living in is starting to look like that place. If we want our lives to be fun and free again, the way life used to be, we have to be willing to put up a little bit of a fight, and the longer we wait, the harder we'll have to fight. But why Burning? That question would seem to present itself with particular force when we speak of the large
festival so many of us go to out in Nevada. About the only good thing to be said for the Playa as a physical
environment is that we're not about to run out of parking. Perhaps, because it's too big a concept to give up,
just because a few druggies who need a time out, decided to drop by? Here is one explanation of the event. It's a
Utopian vision, and the practical realities, including the need to deal with some of the jerks who showed later,
has forced some scaling back of the anarchism, but much of the former promise of freedom still remains.
Not quite a completely blank slate - there is a marine ecosystem out there to concern oneself with when the Playa floods during the Winter, but blank in the sense that there are few of the works on man to contend with. With a modicum of thoughtfulness toward one's environment, one finds oneself in a place where one has the all too rare freedom to be left alone, in a space so vast and relatively empty as to open up possibility inconceivable in a more closed-in eastern environment. Naturally, this all changes when we stay in our region, for both good reasons and bad. The summertime environment in the Midwest is far more hospitable than that of Nevada. Camping in a cool dark patch of woods vs. camping on a shadeless dry lake bed in 100 degree heat - which sounds more comfortable to you? The downside is that we don't have anything like the same amount of space to work with. Out on the Playa, that table top desert (with all of its infinite possibilities) stretches for tens of miles in all directions. In the Midwest, it's usually an acre or two in the middle of a park or (more likely) somebody's farm, and usually not the incredibly RV friendly affair the big festival is. This does mean that our local burns aren't the spectacular, miles wide affairs seen out west, with mechanized fire-breathing dragon shaped vehicles taking people out to tour the sculpture gardens before parking at small jazz clubs made in the form of a pair of enormous fuzzy dice. In place of the hard-edged surrealism of the Western events, one sees something a little more friendly, cozy and personal, more of a gentle whimsy than aggressive strangeness. Something, in a word, more Midwestern. But the notion of interactivity remains. This isn't a show put on for an audience that passively watches, this is an event where all who come are invited to take part. In what? In whatever strikes the fancy of those who come. People bring out their interests to share with others. Actors will put on plays where the audience participates; scientists bring their toys and amaze the crowds; cooks will prepare meals as musicians lead drum circles and teach those present a little about their art. It's creative pot luck, in which each shares just for the pleasure of sharing. There is no vending at these events. This is not about money or business. This is more like having a really big living room (the whole outdoors) for a day or two, and greeting your guests. We're not about to deny that there were problems during the days of the old chi-burning, both on that list and off. But such is the nature of personal relationships - open your doors and a few unfriendly people will walk in, or maybe even a great many, if you get as careless as we did, before. What has been remarkable about burning as a phenomenon (offline) is how very few unfriendly people have done so, in so many places. Many travel experiences will give you a chance to meet people who you will spend a pleasant time with - but then never see again. Burners, however, as far as they may be scattered, tend to make friendships that last for years and give them more than a few stories to tell. That's a nice thing to walk away from a camping trip with, I think, and certainly something that has kept many coming back for more. It's something worth trying to keep alive. The catch is that these haven't happened very often, and with almost everybody sitting around waiting for others to make the first move, they may very well never happen again. Thus the rules, take them or leave them. Those who are into the concept can take that as a promise that we won't back down; those who aren't, are encouraged to seek out a new list, because we aren't going to haggle. If we have to make so many concessions to the unreasonable stubborness of those signing up that we can no longer do what we set out to do, in fact we can no longer do anything other than recreate the scene we were trying to get away from, then what's the point to bothering at all? If it comes to that, we might as well just grab our books and go hiking, as the only point to our taking the time to get involved was to see to it that a real alternative existed in local burning to what had been seen on the official list. Why take the time to create a duplicate of a social setting that already exists? We hope that you enjoy our list, but remember - Burning is about participation. You can only get out of this list what you're willing to put into it. So, above all else, please speak up and be heard. It's the only way people can get to know you. Note added by main author of this article, with mild amusement - "we" doesn't including "me", in this case. As we wrap up, let us once again remind the reader that the modstaff of the old chi-burning list are moving on to do other things. I guess it's a matter of what one is looking for. Some people are looking for a big mob scene, and maybe a formal list is the way to go for them. You've just read the homepage for one such list, a list that at the time of this writing hasn't taken on life, yet. What I'm looking for is a lot less formal, just a creative camping trip with people I interact with in the real world. I won't even use the word "burn", or give the event (if you want to call it that) a name. The moment you do that, all of the comfortable easiness goes away, and everybody starts thinking of what was a pleasant bit of goofing off as being something that has suddenly become a job. Personal introductions and project proposals, so necessary in an online setting, become beside the point, when one gets away from online networking. Those who, as we say, "bring nothing to the table", don't get noticed and so don't get invited. If you want to try to get in touch with us via our old Chicago contact's homelist, you can certainly try, but you might find that we're a lot less approachable online than off. Look at all of the formality one has to go through online, just to do things that are so trivial offline, and with greater restrictions because you're telling the whole world were you are and what you're planning to do. We guess those problems would arise if what we had in mind were even to grow to the size of the old Burning Corn, but we don't have any such desires. To those who do, and are willing to do what is needed to make those daydreams an honest reality, we hope that this little list proves to be of some help to you, but we are out of here and I am delighted to be gone. (end of personal note) What's your pleasure? Would you rather go to the googlegroup or the yahoogroup, or just return to your ring? Active moderators on the yahoogroup: medius2. On Google: John. Big Bad John.
PLAYA DUST WEB RING prev | next | random | list join the ring
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
