l'uomo che brucia e l'utopia della società

L'aspettativa di vita di questo gruppo sociale è prestabilita in 8 giorni, e forse per questo chi partecipa al burning man nel deserto del Nevada ci mette tutta la passione ed il desiderio di utopia che nella vita di tutti i giorni non riesce ad esprimere. Su Quartz si entra nei raffinati meccanismi sociali e spaziali che generano questo evento. 

Burning Man signifies society’s shift away from traditional capitalism

How much does it cost to escape capitalism?

Much ink has been spilled and server space spent on the increasingly commercial influence of Burning Man. From the tech glitterati who shell out tens of thousands of dollars for turn-key luxury camps with air conditioning to celebrities like P Diddy and Katy Perry who get flown in for their annual cameos, there’s no doubt Burning Man has come a long way from the few friends who met on a San Francisco beach in 1986 to burn a nine-foot effigy.
For the past 30 years, artists, spiritual seekers, and, as of late, billionaires shell out hundreds of dollars on transportation, food, and 1960s faux-fur coats to join on the decommodified gift economy. According to their annual census, the median cost each citizen spends to join the moneyless metropolis known as “Black Rock City” is $1,500, including a $425 ticket price. (The rest goes toward elaborate costumes, enough sustenance to last a week, and the homemade goods you’ll use to barter with.) But once on site, everything you need is traded for without any money passing hands. A mojito at sundown? That’ll be a back rub. A loaner bike to peruse the playa? That might set you back a caravan-cooked meal. It’s a case of mi casa su casa, writ large.
For a festival with a noncommercial soul, $1,500 sure seems like an awful lot of forgone kombucha to camp in the barren Nevada desert. But for the 70,000 humans who help create the temporary city each August, the Burn is worth every penny.

As Quartz reported last year, overworked America’s obsession with Burning Man may be a cry for help; many of the yuppies who spend one of their two weeks of vacation at Burning Man are seeking the spirituality and hedonism missing from their desk jobs. But aside from self-discovery and personal growth, Burning Man’s rise in popularity may be indicative of a larger value shift away from traditional capitalism.

As the demand to attend Burning Man swells, so too have post-capitalistic ideals percolating outside of Black Rock City. According to a 2016 Harvard study, the majority of young people aged 18 to 29 years old no longer support traditional capitalism. Thanks in part to Bernie Sanders, alternatives to America’s capitalist roots have become part of the political zeitgeist, and groups like the Democratic Socialists of America have more than tripled in membership in the past year alone .

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(continua su Quartz)