this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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Okay, maybe this is a bit too heavy of a question to present here, I know I'm risking starting a struggle session. But most people here are either MLs or something similar, meaning we're socialists who recognize the need for a state apparatus before full communism, and even the best of best socialist states still have entities that do things that can only be described as "policing". And we generally recognize that's a thing that has to be done cuz not matter what you're going to have anti-social elements in any society, even if you're doing socialism very very well. We say ACAB cuz we hate cops of bourgeoise government, but I think we all generally recognize that under any sort of political system there's gonna have to be groups that do policing work.
And as a person who's done a lot of outdoorsy stuff, I will say, a park or nature preserve does require some people to guard against anti-social elements. There are A LOT of people who will do extremely stupid/destructive/weird shit in national parks, like trying to pet a bear, not disposing of their waste properly, destroying pieces of nature for souvenirs, so you do need some people with some kind of authority who can go "hey stop that" and kick them out if they keep doing it.
I think such people should be under public overweight, shouldn't carry guns on regular duty, ect ect. But they should exist unless you want campgrounds on national parks to get filled with burning man types who leave shit everywhere.
We work pretty hard to kick those people out of Burning Man too.
No offense if you're into Burning Man type events, but the more research I do into the history of it the more I'm convinced even from the get go it was a bougie faux-hippy escapist event. I'm fine with the idea behind having a bunch of people do art and drugs out in nature together but the OG Burning Man was organized by a bunch of Bay Area tech bros who never claimed to be leftists of any persuasion and the environmentally friendliness of the event is usually overstated by the organizers.
No offense taken for sure; you're not wrong about any of that. I've been going for 21 years, and am in pretty deep with the volunteer public safety / conflict resolution group out there. There are leftist elements to it--the group that I work with in particular is, I think, a really good alternative model for policing that's worth consideration--but it is in no way a leftist event or organization generally.
I like it because it's a way for me to push myself into physically uncomfortable situations to practice self-reliance and patience (I did almost 20 days out there in a tent last year), and because I think it provides a good experimentation ground for alternative models of social relationships and organization. Also, I have friends that I only see once a year out there (I even met my wife there doing the same volunteer work I do). While it's certainly not a leftist space by design, there are leftist elements to it (decommodification and inclusion, primarily), and I think it provides a useful kind of liminal space for people to try out different ways of living together that would be hard to experiment with in normal life. There are things leftism can take from Burning Man, in my opinion, even if the ideology of the org itself isn't leftist. Some of the regional events are way better politically, and do have more explicitly leftist organizational principles.