Radical Inclusion? what does that mean?

 To answer the question of what is “Radical Inclusion” in my understanding of it in a burner way, here’s what I really have to say now that I have time to write deeply about it. To be clear these are my opinions being stated: 

We know the words for Radical Inclusion to be:
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

More than just those words, the meaning of the actual practice of radical inclusion is including ANYONE within the limit of other principles. NO prerequisites like “They must be popular” “They have to have a lot of wealth” “They all have to be best of friends with me” “They must smell nice” “They must eat tacos on tuesday” along with so many other excuses to exclude.

We also must accept that some will be disruptive and make you angry at times, but also allowing that sometimes people have bad days and different perspectives. Days pass and perspectives change and when people are listened to and included in some meaningful way perhaps we can slowly learn more about each other together and get along. There will also inevitably be times that you just dislike someone so much you don’t want to deal with them. That’s fair on a personal level, but what about on the community level? If they are being civil and will avoid you when possible, are not harming others, and have made other good friendships in the community why should they be excluded? Also being from an opposed viewpoint they might even have some insight into the “backside” of a situation that may not have been directly observed from your viewpoint. So again it’s good to “Radically Include” those varieties of views and skills.

To not be all fluffs and sunshine about this though, there has to be said that there are those who are toxic and harmful and can overlay disrupt and bring down a community. In those unfortunate cases Communal Effort and Civic Responsibility among other principles prompt us to unfortunately have to exclude. Community doesn't function well if there is a continuing cycle of harm and abuse and for the grater good abuse needs to have intervention. The only way is to limit and exclude the abusers. However even in those cases of exclusion, “radical inclusion” asks of us to think deeper and ask why that cycle of harm exists and if the action was truly for that "greater good" of the community or was it just for the betterment of a very few. People abuse rarely for no reason. Many abusers were also abused themselves. Not being willing to think deeply about the motivation of someone's abusive behavior just leads to snap judgments that also perpetuate a cycle of abuse. Not continually asking who is really benefiting from the exclusion from another can lead to abusers and bully's taking control.

Really, Radical inclusion is such a hassle. It means we constantly have to think and debate about things we don't want to talk about at times. We have to constantly check our egos and opinions. We will fail at it in so many moments as well. But that's another part of the immediacy of reality. We will never be perfect, we all will have to take breaks and know our limits. However, as long as we keep trying to do better, magical things can still happen.

In conclusion and to be somewhat metaphorical: Include Radically. Know your limits. Don’t get burnt or burn out, but guide others when you can. Never tell people they cannot dance. Instead, show through example how to dance, so that they too can learn and participate. Because the more we can include in the dance the more there are to fan the embers creating new fires of compassion, that hopefully someday, the light of which will grow large enough to bring more to it so they can feel:

welcomed home.