Comments on: Alternate Voices of The Early Burn http://kozinets.net/archives/65 Robert Kozinets on Marketing, Media, and Technoculture Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:39:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Bridget Leonard http://kozinets.net/archives/65#comment-223 Bridget Leonard Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:31:14 +0000 http://kozinets.net/archives/65#comment-223 This is one of those questions that never ceases to amaze me. It seems to me that the point of counterculturalism is to induce change in society as a whole, to wake people up and make them pay attention. But as soon as a countercultural movement starts to become accepted, right at the point where it may actually begin to affect social change, where mainstream people begin to recognize it and support it, the same people who helped to create the movement and strengthen it turn around and attack it as too mainstream. I think people lose sight of the goal. Is the goal to be radical and countercultural, or is the goal to make the radical mainstream and in that way to introduce social change? This is one of those questions that never ceases to amaze me. It seems to me that the point of counterculturalism is to induce change in society as a whole, to wake people up and make them pay attention. But as soon as a countercultural movement starts to become accepted, right at the point where it may actually begin to affect social change, where mainstream people begin to recognize it and support it, the same people who helped to create the movement and strengthen it turn around and attack it as too mainstream. I think people lose sight of the goal. Is the goal to be radical and countercultural, or is the goal to make the radical mainstream and in that way to introduce social change?

]]> By: rpwagner http://kozinets.net/archives/65#comment-221 rpwagner Thu, 06 Sep 2007 14:34:11 +0000 http://kozinets.net/archives/65#comment-221 Robert, I don't know if you have seen the episode that I send you the link. But in the beggining, the main character explains to his friend what burning man is about. For me, this passage in the episode sounded so false, as a statement made by the organizers of the burning man through the character. Am I "wrong" in my perception? Second point, as a sport undergrad, I like to make comparisons with sport theories. One that I think could "match" with the ideas of burning man becoming instutionalized, rationalized, not so radical anymore, is from Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning (http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Excitement-Leisure-Civilizing-Process/dp/0631192190/ref=ed_oe_p/103-6882359-9771016?ie=UTF8&qid=1189088102&sr=8-1). They state that sport have transformed itself to be accepted by the society in which it is inserted. One of the transformation is the "control of violence" (cannot remember the exact words that they used), where they say that in the contemporaneous sport rules were created to limit the violence in competition, but at the same time, is still present. One good example that I can remember now is the pankration (a fight in the ancient agonistic festivals - like the ancient olympic agonistics in Olympia - Greece), which had just one rule, stating that you should raise your hand if you are defeated (or the fight will end when one of the agonistai - the ancient athlete - got unconscious). If you think about the contemporaneous boxing (or even judo), we have different rules, the fight has rounds, we have points, countdowns and etc. These rules control the explicit violence, to patterns that are "approved" by the society. Other example is the UFC, which in less than 10 years have passed through this whole process. When sport becomes "old", like the Olympics, new sports are born, like the X-Games. Maybe for burning man, something similar is happening. It's not anymore extreme, or radical, or even counter-cultural. For the ones who were in the first editions, burning man now is not the same thing as it was before. Something similar to your post on the Star Wars fandom (old and new). Robert,

I don’t know if you have seen the episode that I send you the link. But in the beggining, the main character explains to his friend what burning man is about. For me, this passage in the episode sounded so false, as a statement made by the organizers of the burning man through the character. Am I “wrong” in my perception?

Second point, as a sport undergrad, I like to make comparisons with sport theories. One that I think could “match” with the ideas of burning man becoming instutionalized, rationalized, not so radical anymore, is from Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning (http://www.amazon.com/Quest-Excitement-Leisure-Civilizing-Process/dp/0631192190/ref=ed_oe_p/103-6882359-9771016?ie=UTF8&qid=1189088102&sr=8-1). They state that sport have transformed itself to be accepted by the society in which it is inserted. One of the transformation is the “control of violence” (cannot remember the exact words that they used), where they say that in the contemporaneous sport rules were created to limit the violence in competition, but at the same time, is still present.

One good example that I can remember now is the pankration (a fight in the ancient agonistic festivals - like the ancient olympic agonistics in Olympia - Greece), which had just one rule, stating that you should raise your hand if you are defeated (or the fight will end when one of the agonistai - the ancient athlete - got unconscious). If you think about the contemporaneous boxing (or even judo), we have different rules, the fight has rounds, we have points, countdowns and etc. These rules control the explicit violence, to patterns that are “approved” by the society. Other example is the UFC, which in less than 10 years have passed through this whole process.

When sport becomes “old”, like the Olympics, new sports are born, like the X-Games. Maybe for burning man, something similar is happening. It’s not anymore extreme, or radical, or even counter-cultural. For the ones who were in the first editions, burning man now is not the same thing as it was before. Something similar to your post on the Star Wars fandom (old and new).

]]> By: albill http://kozinets.net/archives/65#comment-210 albill Thu, 06 Sep 2007 05:30:11 +0000 http://kozinets.net/archives/65#comment-210 Left and Right? Burning Man is not a "Left" event though I can see analogies to what you are stating. I don't think it follows some kind of simple polar political spectrum. Other than that, I agree with what you're saying. :-) Left and Right?

Burning Man is not a “Left” event though I can see analogies to what you are stating. I don’t think it follows some kind of simple polar political spectrum.

Other than that, I agree with what you’re saying. :-)

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