ABSTRACT
The radical self-reliance principle is often a major factor in participants’ decisions to attend Burning Man, whether for the first time or the thirty-eighth time. The idea of camping for a week on the playa, which is notorious for scorching days, freezing nights, and blinding dust-storms offers quite a temptation for those who thrive in extreme challenges. This surface reading of the fourth principle, while it involves real risk and creative problem-solving, does not call on the individual to do much more than learn by repeating what has worked for others in similar situations, increasing knowledge and strengthening ego. While this is useful in disseminating practical skills among a willing and eager population, it still belongs in the domain of a self intent on conquering fear of the unknown, rather than a self opening to the unknown without its familiar fear. Grounded primarily in a re-interpretation of traditional Sublime theory, this chapter also looks to theories of “extimacy,” ethical intimacy, and the carnivalesque. I draw upon Lacan, Levinas, and Bakhtin to question the difference between “radical self-reliance” versus traditional self-reliance. Perhaps a self in heterotopia is a radicalized self that accepts it can never not rely on the other, particularly if that otherness is also within.
