Scene That Became Cities: What Burning Man Philosophy Can Teach Us about Building Better Communities

"Burning Man has grown and expanded into more parts of the world, going from an experiment performed by two families on a public beach to a frontier carved out of a desert by artists to a culture with global reach produced by people from all walks of life. This book makes the Burning Man philosophy accessible--a sort of "how-to" for creating Burning Man-like communities, activities, and events--using stories and examples, interviews with the founders and significant members of the Burning Man nonprofit, and a dash of self-deprecating humor from an author who frequently writes about this topic"--
"For those who have and have not been to Burning Man, author Caveat Magister, a longtime writer for Burning Man's blog, answers "why does Burning Man matter?" with interviews with the founders of Burning Man, stories from the playa, and ideas of how to take it back to default reality. Burning Man has grown and expanded into more parts of the world, going from an experiment performed by two families on a public beach to a frontier carved out of a desert by artists to a culture with global reach produced by people from all walks of life. And now it's entering a "high culture" phase with exhibitions at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery and nods from pop culture icons like Katy Perry and industry titans like Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. People aren't just inspired to change their lives during Burning Man. They're trying to build major institutions, bureaucracies, and even decommodified economies on the basis of what they've learned from it, like Burners Without Borders, a group that helps communities rebuild after natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. This book is designed to make the Burning Man philosophical methodology accessible--a sort of 'how-to' for creating Burning Man-like communities, activities, and events--using stories and examples from the playa, interviews with the founders and significant members of the Burning Man nonprofit, and a dash of self-deprecating humor from an author who frequently writes about this topic. Applied properly, with great consideration for what individual communities and individual people are actually struggling with, Burning Man's philosophy can help readers discover ways to make their "default" world more like what Burning Man has to offer--be it decommodification, radical inclusion, or self-reliance (some of the 10 Principles of Burning Man)"--
A practical and irreverent guide to Burning Man, its philosophy, why people do this to themselves, and how it matters to the worldOver 30 years Burning Man has gone from two families on a San Francisco beach to a global movement in which hundreds of thousands of people around the world create events on every continent. It has been the subject of fawning media profiles, an exhibit in the Smithsonian, and is beloved by tech billionaires and boho counterculturalists alike. But why does it matter? What does it actually have to offer us? The answer, Caveat Magister writes, is simple: Burning Man's philosophy can help us build better communities in which individuals' freedom to follow their own authentic passions also brings them together in common purpose. Burning Man is a prototype, and its philosophy is a how-to manual for better communities, that, instead of rules, offers principles. Featuring iconic and impossible stories from "the playa," interviews with Burning Man's founders and staff, and personal recollections of the late Larry Harvey--Burning Man's founder, "Chief Philosophical Officer," and the author's close friend and colleague--The Scene That Became Cities introduces readers to the experience of Burning Man; explains why it grew; posits how it could impact fields as diverse as art, economics, and politics; and makes the ideas behind it accessible, actionable, and useful.