Does Your Art Party Have a Philosophy?

Larry Harvey wrote the 10 Principles in 2004. He established the Burning Man Philosophical Center in 2013. Five years ago in July, the first formal book on Burning Man philosophy was published, centering on that work.

Yet to this day, the most common question I’m still asked is: “Does Burning Man have a philosophy?” The second most common question is: “Does Burning Man need a philosophy?” The third most common question I’m asked is: “Were you actually invited to this party?”

The answer to all three is “Yes … but also, it depends.” 

I think it’s occasionally worth going over what that “it depends” is about, and why. And you should definitely invite me to more parties. I probably won’t go, but it’s really nice to be asked.

What Do You Mean by “Philosophy”?

When most people think of “philosophy,” they think of one of three things:

1. Definite maxims intended to provide an eternal truth, like “I think therefore I am,” or “The unexamined life is not worth living,” or “man is condemned to be free,” or “Caveat is on the guest list.” The idea is that if you can repeat these back at somebody, or come up with your own, you are doing philosophy.
2. A set of complicated theorems and proofs, generally known as “analytic philosophy,” in which you attempt to define abstract terms so clearly and logically that only true statements can come from their rigorous application. It’s like geometry, if geometry were less fun. 
3. The TV show “The Good Place,” which aired from 2016 – 2020, and is probably the single most philosophically oriented comedy in modern history. If you haven’t watched it, you really should. Seriously.  I Good Place therefore I am. 

Burning Man has none of those things. None of that is what we do. And if that’s all that someone means by “philosophy,” then no, we don’t have one, and honestly we’re better off without it. 

In fact, many of the intellectual elements that were influential in Burning Man’s development were explicitly intended to prevent things like that from developing. Burning Man could, in that sense, be considered “anti-philosophy,” and certainly anti-academic philosophy. Academic inquiry tries to put things in boxes, Burning Man tries to get people out of boxes.

But confident maxims and formal academic inquiry aren’t the only way we understand the world, are they? 

No. No they’re not. In fact they’re probably among the least common ways that people, across cultures and history, have tried to make sense of life. There are other options, and those options matter. 

And just because those other options aren’t academic or formalistic doesn’t mean they can’t be rigorous — in fact, the best ones usually are. And when they are rigorously applied, when they are open to new evidence and make critical thinking accessible, then they are by any reasonable standard “philosophy.” Like The Good Place. 

In a recent article in Aeon, Harvard philosophy PhD student Abigail Tulenkois took a deep dive on what some of those other approaches are, and how much they have to offer in areas that “traditional western philosophy” struggles with.

For example:

“Folklore is an overlooked repository of philosophical thinking from voices outside the traditional canon. As such, it provides a model for new approaches that are directly responsive to the problems facing academic philosophy today.”

“In my view, philosophy is a mode of wondrous engagement, a practice that can be exercised in academic papers, in theological texts, in stories, in prayer, in dinner-table conversations, in silent reflection, and in action. It is this sense of wonder that draws us to penetrate beyond face-value appearances and look at reality anew.”

Well, Burning Man certainly has folklore. It definitely has stories. It has all kinds of conversations. I don’t know that it has “prayer” in the sense that’s normally meant (your mileage may vary), but maybe it’s true that there are no atheists in the Exodus line. 

Okay, that was a joke, but actually sometimes you do see people in the exodus line doing amazing things to support, entertain, and engage with each other — and when people participate, what you’re seeing in those moments is very much Burning Man’s philosophy in action.

In this sense, Burning Man very much has “a philosophy”: in fact it has a “wisdom tradition” — a culturally unique way of looking at the world, engaging with the world, asking questions, and finding answers or at least better questions. And that … that is everything we can reasonably ask of a philosophy.

And while it is not formalistic — in fact it tends to laugh at unnecessary formalism — it can in fact be quite rigorous. But it’s grounded not in a series of abstract maxims about the world but rather in the experiences that people are having. (In philosophical terms, it is a “phenomenological” approach.) Being rigorous in Burning Man’s philosophy means paying close attention to ideas, yes, but it is even more important that you pay close attention to, and be honest about, your experiences and the conditions that create them. (If you find yourself saying “oh, that’s Immediacy!” then Stuart Mangrum will personally give you a sticker. Find him on playa and demand your sticker.)

In many ways this approach to philosophy emerges out of the history of the 10 Principles; when Larry was asked to write something that explained what Burning Man was, he didn’t write a political or artistic manifesto, he didn’t explain what the “big idea” was and urge everyone to follow it. Instead, he did two things:

First, he wrote as little as possible and explained as little as possible. His entire explanation for what Burning Man is amounted to less than 600 words. 

Second, he made it descriptive rather than proscriptive. Instead of coming up with a conceptual blueprint that he insisted people follow, he observed what our community was already doing when we were successfully “Burning,” and described that. 

Burning Man’s approach to philosophy has followed: it does not privilege abstract thought and ideas over the actual experiences of people. Rather, it takes the experiences people have, examines them carefully, and sees what it can learn. 

In this sense, Burning Man is an “orthopraxy,” rather than an “orthodoxy”: it considers what people do to be more important than what they think. 

Burning Man doesn’t care what your views on environmentalism are — but it does care if you MOOP. Burning Man doesn’t care what the content of your art is, but it does care that you express yourself. Abstract thought and language are not the fundamental units of meaning here: action is. We don’t tell people what “burning the Man” means, but we do burn it together. What it means is up to you, but we do it together. 

From that approach, from the 10 Principles and Burning Man’s history and stories and careful attention, a philosophy emerges. One that has significant, relevant, insights on art, human thriving, and the ways we can build better communities. It just doesn’t look like academic philosophy. It can be in dialogue with academic philosophy, but it will have a lot more jokes.

But is it necessary? Does Burning Man have to have a philosophy? Do we need it?

We’ll examine that question in the next post, “Does Your Art Party Need a Philosophy?”

 Cover image of “The Only Other Thing Is Nothing” by Midabi, 2022 (Photo by Ranny Víquez)