ABSTRACT
This section picks up a similar thread to Chapter 1 by assuming a position that gifting offers individuals the chance to temporarily undo the alienating impulses of capitalism by practicing behavior that does not anticipate reciprocity. Gifting does not assign value to goods being exchanged, but to the act of giving itself. This principle does not attempt to offer a substitute for capitalism in the default world—such a practice could not be sustained for very long outside of a temporary community—but every gifting act at Burning Man holds a temporary space where capitalism is absent. In these conditions, individuals move toward doing rather than having. Both case studies in this chapter offer reason to believe that gifting can traverse the difference between Burning Man and the default world. They describe mutually beneficial connections that reinforce values formed in the act of gifting. The realization that gifting moments de-normalize habitual patterns to accumulate capital, while still yielding their own satisfactory returns, can encourage similar behavior in many other circumstances. Resistance to habits ingrained by cultural conditioning allows bodies to change without resorting to antagonistic rhetoric.
