Reason magazine, which I’ve finally realized is about libertarianism, has a great article up about the introduction of an alternative-energy corporate pavilion to Burning Man. The author of the article clearly isn’t a drive-by commentator on the Burning Man thing (he’s previously written a book about the event), and has an interesting perspective and reasonable things to say. Which is nice. I like Reason magazine because it confirms my suspicion that not all self-identifying capitalists are shrill 2-dimensional blowhards. Which is a nice. There’s an awful lot of capitalists out there, and it’s nice to like people.

Generation Dobler

In the end I don’t think I’m quite aligned with the author’s perspective. He finishes off with this:

“I doubt I’ll be spending much time in their pavilion of green technologies this year, but an important message can be found in what they are doing: that the free play of creative action, even in a corporate market context, can be interesting and important, create win-win situations, and be engines of innovative and exciting new ways to act, to accomplish, and to live. Anyone lucky enough to live in America in the 21st century knows this in their bones, even if they are loathe to admit it out loud.”

I made this comment:

There’s a couple of ways to read that closing paragraph.

either 1) that a corporate market context creates exciting new ways to act and accomplish, or

2) that “the free play of creative action” (including but not limited to corporate markets) *can* (but not necessarily has or will) create exciting new ways to act.

The first one I absolutely don’t feel in my bones. Not even a little bit. Actually, I feel kind of the opposite down there.

The second is obviously true, but kind of trivial for bone-feelings. Yes, of course the free play of creative action has the capacity to create exciting new ways to act. It’s just that corporate markets consistently manage to bollocks that potential up and make something unpleasant and even somehow dehumanizing out of it.

And I would have assumed that anyone lucky enough to live in America in the 21st century knows that in their bones, even if they are loathe to admit it out loud. But maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe I am.