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If he wasn't implicitly being derogatory about those traits (and I think he was) he's certainly not describing them as positive. The other responses echo the at

If he wasn't implicitly being derogatory about those traits (and I think he was) he's certainly not describing them as positive. The other responses echo the attitude that the problem results from these sorts with 'useless degrees.'

anigbrowl 13y ago
Well, it would be easy enough to shoehorn me into that group (I never actually got around to attending Burning Man, but I have a lot of roots in the 90s SF rave scene, for example), and to me he's critiquing the sort of people who treat their membership of certain affiliate group(s) as a justification for self-indulgent behavior that comes at others' expense. I don't see any point in making this into a long spiraling subthread that only the two of us will read, so let me stop here by asking you to consider some other interpretations of the original comment besides the worst one. It might have been worded a bit better but as a fellow resident of Oakland I share the writer's frustration with the local 'revolutionaries.'
jessedhillon 13y ago
a) "useless" should be "economically useless" -- I myself majored in Political Science and it taught me a lot of valuable things, but it would be hard to earn a living on them. b) Nothing's inherently wrong with Burners or their culture. Those traits listed are singled out because they (to me) uniquely identify a group which floats by on privilege while simultaneously claiming to be deep in the struggle of poverty. Almost by definition, anyone who can skip work for a week in summer and spend $300 on a BM ticket (plus associated costs) is not impoverished. To the extent that they are poor, I submit to you that they elect it, and thus to claim that they are victims of the same forces which keep the working poor down is ludicrous. I am actually fairly liberal on these issues. What I resent here is the employment of race and class language to dress up what this really is: one group of overprivileged slackers angry that they now are on the receiving end of a gentrification wave, when they rode in on exactly such a wave! The complete denial of their own privileged status, the pretension that they are in solidarity with the actual poor and disadvantaged (who are largely peaceful and hard-working) -- that's what gets to me. Nothing specific against Burners or the humanities.

anigbrowl 13y ago

Well, it would be easy enough to shoehorn me into that group (I never actually got around to attending Burning Man, but I have a lot of roots in the 90s SF rave scene, for example), and to me he's critiquing the sort of people who treat their membership of certain affiliate group(s) as a justification for self-indulgent behavior that comes at others' expense. I don't see any point in making this into a long spiraling subthread that only the two of us will read, so let me stop here by asking you to consider some other interpretations of the original comment besides the worst one. It might have been worded a bit better but as a fellow resident of Oakland I share the writer's frustration with the local 'revolutionaries.'

jessedhillon 13y ago

a) "useless" should be "economically useless" -- I myself majored in Political Science and it taught me a lot of valuable things, but it would be hard to earn a living on them. b) Nothing's inherently wrong with Burners or their culture. Those traits listed are singled out because they (to me) uniquely identify a group which floats by on privilege while simultaneously claiming to be deep in the struggle of poverty. Almost by definition, anyone who can skip work for a week in summer and spend $300 on a BM ticket (plus associated costs) is not impoverished. To the extent that they are poor, I submit to you that they elect it, and thus to claim that they are victims of the same forces which keep the working poor down is ludicrous. I am actually fairly liberal on these issues. What I resent here is the employment of race and class language to dress up what this really is: one group of overprivileged slackers angry that they now are on the receiving end of a gentrification wave, when they rode in on exactly such a wave! The complete denial of their own privileged status, the pretension that they are in solidarity with the actual poor and disadvantaged (who are largely peaceful and hard-working) -- that's what gets to me. Nothing specific against Burners or the humanities.