Editor,
Societies diverge from their governments conspicuously often. One such example is this year's Burning Man festival in Nevada, where an estimated 25,000 people will create a virtual city inside the Black Rock Desert. The official Web site suggests that trying to explain Burning Man to someone who has never been is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind, so you have to go see it for yourself.
This is the era of the war on terror. When I consider it in context to my history studies, I can only bow my head in shame to know that we, the most influential nation in the world, are suggesting that we need to be at war with ourselves.
Today, America is the author of its own destiny, because all societies and people are capable of deciding collectively their collective future. We decided to get pissed off at the Arabs when our Twin Towers came crashing down, and though it didn't have to be, it was our decision to lay guilt upon oil-producing countries. It was our choice.
We could have chosen a sane approach, which would look something like the collective American understanding of the distance between the government and the people. Burning an effigy in the desert is a way of reconnecting. It's something that the people want to do, so they create it. It is not a federally recognized holiday, nor does anyone who happens to talk on Sunday morning sanction it, but it is what the people want to do.
Physics states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The GOP spawned Burning Man - how can we argue with Newton?
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
By denying rights and demonizing humans, we create an opposition so that the world will achieve balance, much like Buddha's middle path. Maybe we have yet to bridge the worlds of nation, state, religion, nationality and tribe. We have yet to be totally human, to understand that our pain is others' pain and our sufferings are the same ones that others have to face. We are facing a world where we are scared of our differences and afraid of the future. Burning Man is avidly opposed to this type of thing.
In America, where our concern for terrorism trumps our concern for global warming, we would all be well-advised to attend the sacrificial carbonization of effigies in the Black Rock Desert. It will purify our understanding of the ground beneath our feet and renew our appreciation for destroying outmoded conclusions. The effigy that burns in Nevada will continually ignite the homeostatic reminder of balance for our temperate needs.
David Zollinger
UNM student
