It’s the ego, and guilt behind it, that drives us to think we need to push people to do anything. At a rave, the only thing pushing people is the music. Walls do not exist. It’s like a taste of heaven, and what you do with it afterwards is up to you.

You wrote, “I would hope that those in attendance at LovEvolution felt inspired by the community and congregation that they experienced and use that as a starting point to spark real change in the world.”

I agree, and I hope that my skepticism about the event is unfounded. It is, after all, skepticism and cynicism (like my own about LovEvolution) that keep so many individuals from commiting to local or national social justice action. I try not to excuse myself from my own critique, uncomfortable though that can be! ;)

I appreciate your point that events like LovEvolution aren’t about “forgetting what we stand for,” but rather for “remembering what we’re fighting for.” It’s provides me with good food for thought.

Still, I can’t help but feel that every action is necessarily political, even the assertion of apolitical activity, even the assertion of fun for fun’s sake. Moreover, as you suggest, it’s easier for people to love another when there is no agenda on the table. But that doesn’t mean that real community is forged. Our species has a terrible track record of partying together when the warring is temporarily halted, only to pick up arms and resume fighting under our respective standards at daybreak. There may be value in an amoral party, and I respect your insistence on that point, but I remain skeptical that the party congregation might evolve into moral action. You’ve encouraged me to cling to a hopeful assessment, though, and for that I thank you.

In response to some of your comments, especially those posted by Peter and Hyaena, I do agree with you in some respects. Just throwing a party once a year, no matter how many it draws, is not enough. Rather, I would hope that those in attendance at LovEvolution felt inspired by the community and congregation that they experienced and use that as a starting point to spark real change in the world. And as Susannah stated, many attendees do possess that attitude and spirit of love and common humanity and they do belong to movements that change the world for the better.

What makes me hesitate is the suggestion that LovEvolution could be improved by adding a moral basis. To which I ask: whose morals? mine? yours? LovEvolution is supposed to be about inclusion. As soon as you try to put a moral basis behind it, make it a movement, make it political, you begin to put up walls where there were no walls. And soon a gathering of 100,000 people is 50,000 and then 10,000, and people are focusing on ideologies rather than the original intent–just being together. I’m not asking that people compromise their beliefs or standards for the sake of popularity, but I appreciate the festival because it’s not political. We set aside our differences for a few hours and become one community. That’s the point! It’s not forgetting what we stand for, it’s remembering what we’re fighting for.

And in response to Hyaena, there are certainly dark sides to raves and festivals. There are people who desperately try to escape from themselves and drug overdoses and alcohol poisoning are a dangerous side of that. But let’s not forget that escapism can be found anywhere where people feel isolated or discontent. I’ve seen individuals lose their identities in religious and cult-like organizations, thinking that these communities would provide emotional and spiritual fulfillment. These people are not so different from the young raver who’s so far gone he can’t remember his own name. Let’s just hope there will always be someone around to hold them in their time of need and help them realize that that form of escapism will never be fulfilling.

Check out Burners without Borders to see some of it. Certainly, as with any movement, the masses are less involved in the more evolved parts of it, but Burning Man is more connected than it is given credit.

I’m not involved in Burners Without Borders, but know of their work. I was at Burning Man when Katrina hit New Orleans. $35,000 was raised during the event, and right afterwards, people with skills and tools went down there and really made a difference when the government was not. Just one example.

I sometimes feel a spiritual vibe at rave type events; not at this particular one, but I got there late, briefly.

Were we to ask those who gather to be blissed out on ecstasy, to dance in their birthday suit, and to speak an abundance of happy platitudes to instead spend the day volunteering for San Francisco’s less fortunate, for local environmental causes, or to involve themselves in the politics of social justice, and you’d likely have a small fraction of the turnout. As the writer of the piece says, “everybody loves an excuse for a party,” but dancing and having fun must only be the seed. Why don’t the organizers of events like LovEvolution attempt to harness the “community” established for the post-orgy work that is needed to forge true community, especially at the local scale? Some have tried, in fact, and no one shows up.

I don’t mean to discount these parties entirely. I’ve enjoyed the “community” and camaraderie of drug-induced love fests as well as communal, natural highs (like the author of the above piece). I don’t wish to judge the LovEvolution participants unfairly (or to judge them at all!). Rather, I second Dave Belden’s question: “How it is that people in large numbers make that huge leap to believing that they can actually change the wider world?”

Certainly, we should welcome all manner of attempts to figure out that “how,” but, having been the guy who cares for the overdosed raver who weeps in the corner and can’t remember his name, and the guy who has watched intelligent, sensitive friends devote themselves to attending festival after festival until they’re a dopamine-depleted and bitter husk, I feel that it’s naive to view these events as a possible path to answering that question.

Hopefully, I’m totally wrong.

On Peter’s point, I think the congregational similarity holds here too: some congregations do stop short at being escapes, moments of love in the week, that help us to get through the rest of the week in ‘the world’ and they can actually dissuade people from reforming the world if they preach it is all a vale of tears, as many do. Other congregations do consciously participate in reforming the wider world. It’s still a mystery to me to know how it is that people in large numbers make that huge leap to believing that they can actually change the wider world. Believing you could put on a LovEvolution event is a pretty big leap in itself, I think.