The Twilight Generation

Part 1: In Search of a Better Map  Right click to download mp3  Right click to download m4b AudioBook  Duration: 40 minutes  Originally published: April 2004

Part 2: Burning Man  Right click to download mp3  Right click to download m4b AudioBook  Duration: 38 minutes  Originally published: May 2004

Part 1: In Search of a New Map

In this wide-ranging and articulate dialogue, Erik Davis, the author of TechGnosis, comments on the unique character and situation of his generation: the thirty-somethings (or Gen-X, if you will). Davis explains how his generation isn't willing to embrace the merely postmodern stance of the Boomers, and yet is struggling to find something to fill the void. As it soon becomes clear in this dialogue, the only thing that could adequately fill that vacuum is an increasingly integral approach to reality.

The Boomers were the first generation to have nearly unlimited access to the culture, religion, and history of societies from around the world. As such, they gave the first suggestions on how to navigate those pluralistic waters—they created the first global maps. But those maps ultimately showed a world of fragments, all of which were held to be equally valuable, and were, therefore, equally meaningless. Having been born in the shadow of the Boomers, Davis explains that his generation can see problems like this "from the outside."

And yet a fragmented pluralism isn't the only item that needs to be addressed within an integral vision. Davis goes onto speak about the "graying" of the spiritual traditions, the resurgence of fundamentalism after 9/11, and the sorry state of materialist ambition in today's culture. As he summarizes, many people are living in a kind of "bardo-realm," where the video games are more immersive than ever, the seat of consciousness is subject to the push and pull of chemical tides, and the endless waves of self-published internet pabulum tells you not what is right, just what is right for me.

So what might a more integral map look like? How would it inform the way we live? Will the thirty-somethings be the first generation to help usher in this kind of a comprehensive approach on a large scale? Please join us as two of the finest minds of their respective generations share notes and speculate on the contours of tomorrow….

Part 2: Burning Man

One of Erik's many areas of interest is altered states; he recently taught a course in the San Francisco Bay area titled: "The Altered State: California's Spiritual Frontiers." Within that particular arena, he has also become a well-known commentator on one of California's most outrageous progenies: Burning Man.

For those not yet initiated into the mysteries of this event, Burning Man is an annual countercultural arts festival which was founded in California (it has since migrated to the deserts of Nevada to accommodate its growing popularity). As any devoted Burning Man attendee will tell you, you can't describe what its like; you have to experience it for yourself. It is precisely the nature of this experience that Erik and Ken explore in this dialogue.

Erik proposes that one of the most positive aspects of Burning Man is the chaotic, frenetic, and profoundly experiential atmosphere of the gathering. Radical self-expression is the order of the day, and though agreeing with the value of such pursuits, Ken calls into question just what self is being expressed. Here is where the going gets a little tricky, theoretically.

As Erik points out, part of the power of the event is that it transcends many of the containers of experience normally dubbed as acceptable by our culture. Many participants report experiencing profound states of consciousness induced by the intense collision of fire, art, drugs, and the collective momentum of 30,000 people unleashed from the constraints of social norms. Erik and Ken both appreciate this aspect of the festival, and agree that "there should be a Mardi Gras in every city."

However, as developmental psychologists from Abraham Maslow to Jane Loevinger to Clare Graves have pointed out, the self grows through waves or stages of increasing identity, care, and concern. Broadly, development can be divided into three basic tiers: preconventional (me-centered), conventional (us-centered), and postconventional (all-of-us centered). The important point is that you can have a profound altered state experience at virtually any stage of growth. But, evidence indicates, one's stage of development will determine how one will interpret and understand a state experience, and such state experiences will often merely cement one's limited stage beliefs.

Though in no way denying the value of the state experiences of BM, Ken points out that the festival ends up celebrating preconventional and egocentric stages, no matter how wild and wonderful the altered states. In a society that does not sanction very many altered states, those experiences are forced into festivals like BM that end up celebrating preconventional and egocentric stages, instead of celebrating all stages and all states. Ken's criticism is subtle: he is not criticizing altered states nor BM per se, but a society that does not sanction more types of altered states, a politics of restriction that therefore keeps festivals like BM confined to the lower stages. Burning Man thus ends up being "the red-meme festival par excellence," a point that Erik concedes, although both he and Ken would hate to see it stopped on that account!

Erik and Ken also agree that, even so, there is nothing wrong with Burning Man per se; it is simply limited in its scope. But what is problematic is that the organizers and many attendees of BM don't acknowledge this limitation. The existence of higher, deeper, more profound terrain in the human and spiritual landscape is denied.

Text by Colin Bigelow

Images: Empire by Bo Bartlett
Fire Muse by Philip Rubinov Jacobson