Burning Man, the infamous annual week-long neo-hippie desert sojourn, is partnering with a number of corporations in the name of getting green. Predictably, this has ruffled a few feathers, as it seems to fly in the face of at least one or two of Burning Man's core principles.
Brian Doherty, who literally wrote the (or, at least, a) book on Burning Man, says the problem lies in the fact that some members of the Burner community have watched a certain Cameron Crowe movie a few too many times. To quote liberally from an article published today at Reason Online, titled "Generation Dobler":
Emotionally, I don't understand why so many people get so upset at being marketed to, or at gleefully acknowledging the good that comes from crafting a social world that is dominated by people willingly exchanging skills, services, and goods. These types could be called Generation Dobler, after the famous quote from the sad sensitive man-child character, Lloyd Dobler, played by John Cusack in the 1989 film Say Anything.
Dobler certified his soulfulness by announcing that I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.
Which is lovely in its way, I guess, but the reason many people can indeed survive doing none of those things is because of the unprecedented wealth created by those who do. Most moderns, at least when pressed, recognize that commerce makes our lives richer in certain ways.
Admittedly, these kinds of libertarian takes on pop culture get me a little too fired up. But still: maybe here's where it's worth noting that Lloyd Dobler as character was, at best, proudly irresponsible, and at worst, totally delusional. He says he's "looking for a dare to be great situation," but seems to define "dare to be great" as "charming a woman of greater intellectual means into letting me follow her halfway across the world." (More simply, and more glaringly, he's a guy in a Clash shirt who tries to win back his lost girlfriend by blasting Peter Gabriel. Cameron Crowe's fans like to wank off to the filmmaker's "talent" for spinning romantic fantasies out of source cues, but has any cinematic moment of ostensible emotional nakedness ever felt less natural for the character at its center?)
In other words: for a generation of Lloyd Doblers to survive from one Burning Man to the next, they need a generation of Diane Courts--that is, brains trapped in the bodies of game show hosts--to lovingly foot the bill.
[Via BoingBoing]
Originally posted on:
SpoutBlog