once again the conflict between russia and the united states over ukraine, we talked to ian bremmer, stephen cohen and stephen sestonovich. >> putin does trust the chancellor of germany. she has a very difficult position. but i will say this, that any negotiation that moves forward that russia accepts will have to be cosigned by merkel. in other words, he isn't going to -- putin is not going to take kerry o obama's word for this. he's going t going to say have l call me and tell me she's down with it. >> charlie: we conclude with a fascinating event that takes place this year, we talk with

the man who created it. >> it became whimsy amounts to iron will. it seemed plausible. we took it to the beach, set it on fire and instantly our numbers tripled because a burning human form, if you put one up at the republican national convention, the people would say, down in front, it would so compel, and it was so accessible. there wasn't a need to explain it and we haven't explained it to this day. when we ask what that means, you have to achieve that through your engagement. >> what's next with ukraine and larry harvey when we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. we begin tonight with the ongoing crisis in ukraine. tensions are high after russia and allied troops seize ukraine and military facilities in crimea. earlier this week moscow

approved a treaty engage the region to join russia. thursday president obama announced further sanctions on russian officials and financial institutions. >> this is not our preferred outcome. the sanctions would not only have impact on the russian economy but disruptive to the global economy. however, russia must know further escalation will only isolate it further from the international community. >> charlie: russian authorities announced sanctionons u.s. lawmakers and officials in response. joining me is ian bremmer, president of eurasia group, and stephen cohen, president, and stephen sestanovich. he wrote the world from triewm ton obama. pleased to have both of you.

we just heard from the president and then we have the response from russia. >> well, where we are today is that the administration is it trying to show that the first list of measures that it announced on monday, a few rather small number of people not particularly closely related to putin were given visa bands. today they're trying to show they're really much more serious about it and they've announce add number of measurers expanding the number of individuals who are sanctioned, giving the president authority to introduce new measurers against targeted sectors of the russian economy, and looking forward to meetings next week in europe where the president will be meeting with other members of the g7 to formulate a broader response. generally speaking this is a step forward where the american

government is kind of getting its act together showing it is taking this crisis seriously and is not being deflected by concerns about the economic impact to the global and american economies. it's trying to signal this is a very serious crisis. >> charlie: where are we, steve? >> i fear -- actually, i think that we are three steps from war with russia, two steps from a cuban missile crisis. those two steps and both are being discussed in washington and moscow would involve as many advocate moving nato troops to the polish border. i don't know how serious but aircraft are already there and nato is moving troops around. if that thaps, putin would almost certainly move the 150,000 soldiers he was

practicing a week ago and sent back to the barks into russia into south an eastern ukraine, that would be the cuban missile crisis and war would be one step away. that's my snapshot. there's a post script. there is, i am 100% certain, a way back and out of this through diplomacy. the russians have put a step forward, as far as i know, the americans haven't responded. >> charlie: what is that proposal? >> i need a piece of paper. this is what the russian foreign ministry is saying. russia wants, putin wants. in a nato expansion to ukraine and georgia, he wants a moderate government in kiev, kind of nonalign government without these people he calls neo-fascists, and a few are in that government. he wants a continued russian-ukrainian economic

relationship because that's vital to russia and ukraine and he wants a federalized ukrainian constitution because that would give the pro russian people in ukraine some say. now, let me just say briefly what he would give in return. >> charlie: that was my next question. >> yes, i know. as ragan says, it takes two to tango. i personal can't tang olaf laugh putin would, in return, recognize the new kiev government. he doesn't recognize this government. he won't talk to them. secondly, he would pledge not to inspire more separationism in ukraine because there are regions of ukraine that wouldn't mind joining russia and he, russia, would help ukrainian economy avoid the abyss on which they stand possibly by continuing to -- >> charlie: and do you consider that proposal by the russian reasonable? >> i consider it a reasonable starting point. now, we have originned that that's an offer. now it's our turn to say what we

think about that. >> it's going to be hard to do, in part, because secretary kerry already said if the russians proceeded with annexation of crimea which today was voted in favor of and putin said would happen, that that is the end of diplomacy. kerry needs to walk that back. it's unfortunate he said that. >> yes. speaking points all over the united states, kerry said all options are on the table. a couple days later president obama said no engagement of military excursions on the ground, wouldn't provide military support for the ukrainians and furthermore the ukrainians wouldn't want that. the sanctions are real and real in the sense they have economic impact. we will see major capital flight with oligarchs from holdings in the united states and europe and will move to other places. but they will not oppose putin. putin's popularity only increased through ukrainian crisis. the deal that stephen talked

about being proffered doesn't include a move from crimea. putin said it's unsaleable for the russians to stay the n ukraine. while i do not believe we're actually close to war with the russians because i think we have no interest in military escalation vis-a-vis russia, i do believe the likelihood of this becomes destabilizing significant. >> charlie: in the russians do certain kinds of things, there can be a nato response. >> sure but i don't see the russians going on ukraine. i do think it is possible. i think that the russians find this ukrainian government unacceptable, they will certainly work to overturn it. the question is whether they will do so economically and diplomatically or. >> charlie: i was going to ask, steve, is that a reasonable position to have with respect to that government since the president was overthrown, the democratically elected president was overthrown in the manner that he was. >> look, i think that there are no good legal arguments for the

americans on the ukrainian government overthrow. there are no good legal arguments for the russians on the crimean referendum. we're really talking ukraine is by far the single most important national interest that the russian haves. a russia that has been in decline structurally for over 20 years, demographically, geographically, diplomatically, militarily, economically, and they put a real red line, not a dotted red line, they put a real red line on crimea and ukraine. >> yeah, i think ian is right. we're not on the brink of war, but we are at a very dangerous moment, arguably the most dangerous moment since the end of the cold war, because the russians have begun to dismantle their biggest neighbor, and that is a drastic step that has alarmed all european governments and makes it extremely hard to

consider real diplomacy with president putin, whatever you think of his proposal. putin has kind of cast himself as an international outlaw, and that makes it very, very difficult to just sit down at the table calmly and look at individual proposals. broadly speaking about their proposal, the big problem is understanding whether or not what the russian aim is to be able to dictate the composition of ukraine's government, the structure of ukraine, and its foreign policy. and a lot of the things -- you know, the devil is always in the details in diplomacy of this kind, but a lot of the specific provisions of putin's proposal are extremely far-reaching. they're not really just a federalization of ukraine which sounds innocuous, they come very close to the breakup of ukraine and that combined with fears about what putin is really

after, given what he's done this week, is going to make it extremely difficult to -- for people to sit around the table and talk calmly about this. >> charlie: seems to me that's an interesting point to me, having listened to a lot of people around this table over the last few weeks on this, is it possible because of what you suggested because of the country's economic well being that effective sanctions will influence him and cause him to either stop or pull back? >> sadly, i don't think so. and i think this is a misjudgment on the part of the united states. i think that there are no reasonable sanctions that are feasible for the americans and europeans. >> charlie: achievable or feasible. >> no achievable, that we can't get there, to put the kind of pain on the russians to make a move. the interests are asymmetric, the level of importance of ukraine to putin is too great. putin gave a speech this week to the upper house to have the parliament and seen as an

historic speech all over russia, a speech that i would say a strong majority of russians have been waiting for a leader to give for 20 years from now, the belief that the united states does not have russia's interests at heart, is willing to undermine and you finally have a leader who's willing to stand up and say absolutely no more. his popularity has only shot up since this ukraine crisis has started in the last two weeks. >> charlie: like putin or not, you have been saying that for ten years. >> 20. >> charlie: 20, right. i think you can't get out of a bad place unless you know how you got in. i have been arguing since the '90s that the constant expansion of nato toward russia's borders which began under clinton and is now in the ball ticks on russia's borders was going to eventually lead to something like this. ian pointed out something very important and i think every american interested should read

putin's speech, it's in english, and it tells you where me's coming from. putin used the expression "red line," and he has two, one georgia, one ukraine, for reasons, we crossed the red line in georgia in 2008 and there was a small war. he believes -- now, he may be wrong about this -- but he sees in this whole thing nato coming to ukraine and he believes we crossed a red line and what you got is what you got. now, steve sestanovich's position, i understand, but if we were to deconstruct each thing steve said, that means either putin withdraws from crimea, kicks it out of the russian federation or there are no negotiations, and i maintain, if there's no negotiations, with all the tales in ukraine, prove violations every day, snipers, we don't know who they, are all the tails wagging the dog, we could get to war. we have to begin negotiations and it doesn't begin with putin, after what he did this week,

saying, okay, never mind, i send crimea back to ukraine. >> charlie: steve? i agree that getting crimea's status changed is not the primary focus of policy right now, and sanctions are not going to do it for exactly the reason that ian mentioned. the sanctions are really meant to symbolize western alarm. but steve is right, also, that we need to know how we got into this crisis. how we got into it is that putin had a strategy for bringing ukraine into his orbit and it blew up in his face because it couldn't be sustained in ukraine itself. he sought an economic subordination of ukraine to russia, and the only way in which he thought you could control the popular response there was by a bloody crackdown which brought down his agent, president yanukovich.

yanukovich was ousted by unanimous vote of the entire ukrainian parliament including every single member at his party. it's a pretty legitimate government, actually. i think the problem we have now is not so much how to reverse crimea's status, just as in most to have the cold war -- in most of the cold war it wasn't about changing bulgaria's status. the real issue is how to make ukraine succeed rather than having it dismembered by russia. that's going to take a very ambitious and creative policy on the part of the west. >> charlie: the idea i assume you're talking about is ukraine would have its relationship with russia but also allowed to have a relationship with the e.u. >> absolutely. >> charlie: two things, it would benefit everybody. >> sure, and the new government in kiev is talking exactly that line. this week, prime minister

yatsenyuk said a number of very important things about the future course he sees. he said, nato membership, not at all on the agenda, because that's a very divisive issue in ukraine. he also said the e.u. is opening its market to us, and without any invidious measures that might be harmful to eastern ukraine, the russian economy, the new government is trying to find a way to unify the country, put the economy back on its feet to unit the society at a time when the russians are doing everything to create social tension, and i think there's just no way to describe russian policy as other than terribly threatening to the post cold war order, and i think the ukrainian government is, by contrast, acting much more calmly,

responsively to try to keep the peace. >> charlie: one quick thing here. do you believe that putin believes that the demonstrations leading to the overthrow of yanukovich who was aided and abetted by the united states. >> i don't know but here's what he does believe, that on february 21, the european union foreign ministers signed an agreement with yanukovich that would have kept him in office till elections in december, gotten the protesters off the street and brought the process of some kind of reconciliation. that document, which russia didn't sign but signed off of -- i mean, it agreed with it -- was dead in the water twelve hours later and he feels that the fact that the united states and european union did nothing to enforce that document which led to the -- >> charlie: yeah. -- indicates our complicity

at some level. >> charlie: and some say deck at a time american foreign policy. >> i don't want to implicate ian, he speaks eloquently for himself, but i would say the difference between your two steve's is the difference between, i think, war and peace. in steve sestanovich's mind, it's rust and putin who are responsible for this terrible mess from the git to the go. and i ask all of us at the table this question -- i mean, i was raised in kentucky, they taught us at school there are two sides to every story -- is there anything legitimate or true that russians have said or done in this crisis that putin said in that speech? if so, so much is true, that's where you begin to negotiate. but steve sestanovich doesn't have a word of legitimacy for anything that comes to russia, one last word, henry kissinger wrote, one of the great things he said, demonization of putin is not a policy, it's an al"bye

for not having a policy. >> charlie: he said it on the program. >> good. >> charlie: steve, respond and i'll come back to how you see putin and how stephen cohen thinks you see putin. >> well, i don't think i should be the subject of this discussion. >> charlie: i know. i'm happier to make putin the subject of this conversation. i think putin had every opportunity to respond to the change of government in ukraine in a way that kept passions calm, that created an opportunity for multiple interests to be served, and to avoid a crisis. and without demonizing him, i think you can say that every step of the way since then, his actions have escalated the crisis, have created anxiety's both within russia and within ukraine and within -- among

ukraine's fab neighbors and throughout europe. the fact he has gained some popularity at home, to my mind, is not a real justification for deeply irresponsible policy. if stephen cohen wants to say whipping up the russian republic makes what he says true, fine, but, really, read the speech carefully. the speech is a kind of justification for a very far-reaching overthrow of stable arrangements that the countries that emerged out of the former soviet union have enjoyed amongst themselves and made it possible to keep the peace. now the peace is threatened. but i think that is primarily the doing of one man. >> charlie: but the fact is putin has been demonized through this process. as stephen cohen said, there have been things putin said. putin had blood on his hands, he was more than happy to support yanukovich when he was cracking

down in ways that clearly lost his legitimacy in ukraine, but a deal was cut with the european foreign ministers, and the americans were happy to jump on that in ways that would have completely unacceptable to the administration if we had been on the other side. lord knows our administrations over history have been willing to accept undemocratic things if they benefit us or our strategic interests. leaving that assayed, what is going to happen now because steve sestanovich is right, the russians escalated every moment. having said that, the obama administration escalated every moment, too. the fact that we don't know how far they're willing to go doesn't mean both sides haven't given as good as they've gotten. the obama administration slapped new sanctions on today and within an hour the russians had sanctions back that were nip and tuck right with them. furthermore the russian ministry said yesterday they were thinking of changing

negotiations process in iraq. they are taking this very seriously and if the u.s. continue to ratchet it up on something the russians think as legitimately in their backyard that they must address, the it continues. this is going to have real economic impact and we also will have a russia that will be geopolitically dangerous and destructive everywhere they happen to have influence. that's not a new cold war because china is not involved. >> charlie: brings in syria. absolutely it does. china won't support them. the most important thing that gives us reason for optimism is this won't become a globally destructive event is the chinese decide they don't want part of this. they've abstained. they've said virtually nothing. they don't want to be attached to the russians or the americans. leave them alone and let them do what they want in asia and other

places. but in terms of anywhere russia has influence -- iran, syria around their borders and some of the countries that could very well be destabilized farther like poland, and northeast estonia and the russias there, clearly instability. >> charlie: do you think it's alarmist to say this could lead to war? >> if you talk about trade war, absolutely. if you talk about capital flows -- >> charlie: russia is so weak, isn't it more likely to have a significant detrimental impact on their economy and pressure on them than it is here? >> russia is weak, sure, but russia is not ready to collapse. this is not egypt. this is not ukraine. they're not begging for cash. this was a guy prepared to take $15 billion and write a check to the ukrainians. believe me, the russian people, they're not doing incredibly well economically but there's still growth. the the fact they're a shadow of what they were 20 years ago doesn't mean we can push this

guy into oblivion. putin is not going down. this is the same guy that was prepared the prisoners to be released from prison because they weren't a threat to him. we should not underestimate him. stove stove said what i agree with, that the americans need to read a speech from a world leader who fundamentally disagrees with us and doesn't sugar coat it. we have too many people out there who disagree with us and do sugar coat snit when you say read speeches, i think people put in speeches what they intent intend to say. so the war thing we can't settle. so where are we going to go? >> well, let's try to move it ahead. >> charlie: okay. we have several problems. i agree completely with ian that american diplomacy hasn't performed well and a lot of

statements have been said that are regrettable. >> charlie: that was true in syria, too, wasn't it? >> yeah. you have another problem. putin personally doesn't trust president obama. he thinks he's a resolute, has a short attention span and goes back on agreements that he makes. >> charlie: how do you know that? >> because it's just well known in the russian establishment that he feels that obama hasn't come forward. but the more important point is -- >> charlie: what are they doing talking on the phone all the time? >> god knows. >> charlie: well, god knows, but two hours here, an hour there. >> maybe they're earning their salaries. but here's the important point, and i want to shift the focus, putin does trust the chancellor of germany, merkel, for various reasons. she speaks german, he speaks russian, that always helps. she's in a difficult position, but i will say any negotiation that moves forward that russia

accepts will have to be cosigned by merkel. in other words, putin is not going to take kerry or obama's word for this, he's going to say to them, have merkel call me and tell me she's down with it, because she talks -- >> charlie: just as he's talking to putin, he's reaching out to her all the time. >> do you know why he doesn't trust obama? >> charlie: yes. so the obama -- just to give you -- >> charlie: he's going to give us the reason. i generally ask questions to know the answer. go ahead. >> i have a friend who says a good question is better than a bad answer. you play the essential role. i say that. several examples but let's go the one we remember, libya. the united states said to russia, support of the united nations, a know-fly zone over libya so gadhafi can't take his planes up and attack the insurgents. russia said, it's just a no-fly zone, you're not going to bomb gadhafi? we did and it led to his

assassination. from that moment on, putin never trusted anything that came out of the white house. he wasn't president and he was calling the shots. what he said in the speech, you remember this, we have been deceived and betrayed. he used those words. do i lie? and the same in russian and english. when a national leader says, we russia have been deceived and betrayed by the united states several times, the least we can do is say what is he talking about? we don't deceive and betray people. there's some misunderstanding here. let's sort it out. he's thinking of libya. he's thinking of the promise we wouldn't expand nato. he's thinking of what he did for george bush after 9/11, when putin did more for the american war effort in afghanistan than any nato country and what did he get in return? the united states left the international ballistic missile treaty the bedrock of russian national security and bush expanded nato. >> charlie: didn't obama come back and begin to negotiate

that? >> that so-called reset which people of our generation used to call detente. do you know what the people said to putin in russia? they said to him, you are appeasing america. you're an appeaser. it's got to stop. there is a politics in russia. >> charlie: let me close on this. tell me how you see who has influence on putin and where is there leverage with him. >> there are two groups around him. one wants to keep a good relationship with the west and they lost on crime. i can't they had a debate and they lost. he went to the other side. >> charlie: listening with rationality to conceding factions within russia? >> i'm not sure which one of us is rational anymore. who would have thought it would come to this. the point is the crimean is in the russian federation and will stay there for our lifetime.

but serious people from washington, moscow and maybe berlin are sitting at a table like this having a conversation that is quite different than what obama, kerry and putin are saying at this moment. >> charlie: what should the president of the nate do that he is not doing? >> i think right now the president cannot get chancellor merkel to solve the problem for him, as much as we might like him to be able to and as much as steve would like that thought. right now, chancellor merkel is just as outraged by what putin has done as any other western leader, and my guess is around the g7 table next week, you're going to have a pretty unanimous view. the immediate problem that the west faces is how to shore up ukraine, and that means a strategy that's much like what the containment strategy in the cold war was, which is checking russian power without war, without war.

that means building up an effective ukrainian economy, society and governmental system. putin has a lot of incentives to have a pause, now. that pause may be a strategic opportunity for the west to try to put ukraine back on its feet. i think that is probably the window of opportunity that we should exploit most. i agree with steve and ian that diplomacy is not likely right now to offer much of a way out because the atmosphere of distrust is so great. >> charlie: thank you very much stephen sestanovich, thank you stephen cohen, thank you ian bremmer. larry harvey is here, the co-founder of the burning manifest val in nevada. started bay wack in 1986. burning man has grown into the largest outdoor art event in north america. last year it hosted nearly 68,000 participants along with hundreds of original works,

performances and theme camps. here is a glimpse from the documentary spark, a burning man's story, which came out last year. >> we arrived out at this vast plain. i took a stick and i drew a line on the ground, and i said, on the other side of this line, everything will be different, and everything has been different. (music) >> the place is an idea that's so powerful and so alluring that people will go to the worst place in the world just to get a little piece of it. >> it's very disconcerting in a one-week period of time to realize everything you've done in your entire life could potentially be wrong.

>> i need to learn. i have a long ways to go. >> burning man is a great way to build stuff and blow it up. >> you people here today are the people from this moment on that creates the framework and the caldron that will cook their soul. >> in order for us to survive on this planet, we have to engage thousands and millions of people. we have to. we're giving our lives. it's that important. >> charlie: meet larry harvey. i am pleased to have him at this table for the first time. welcome. >> it's my pleasure.

>> charlie: so what's the idea that will bring so many people to not the most attractive place or the easiest place? >> no, it's not easy at all, though an international city in its own right, it's a wilderness survival experience. >> charlie: what brings them? i think it must be because they find something there that isn't readily available elsewhere, a sort of authenticity. it's a little like what gangaping talks about, he talks about motivating people in the workplace but you can apply it to what we do. he says, you need -- people need to experience autonomy, mast riand a sense of purpose. >> charlie: autonomy, mast riand a sense of purpose? >> that's right. that, in a sense, that's very much what we do. we tend to formulate as i formulated a little meta

physically, i am, we are, it is, but it's the same arc of meaning. the sense that you're wheeling yourself and it should ant must be shared with others and that your abilities, your gifts can merge with the world, and the world will answer to that, and lastly that old fashioned idea, transcendens, and that you're connected to something much larger than you and, in fact, you can do all three at the same time and that, together, we think makes a whole life we call an ethos and describe it in the ten principles we follow. >> charlie: tell me how it began. >> it began as an impulse of the afternoon. i called a friend and said, let's burn a man. he said, would you repeat that? so we bent to the beach -- >> charlie: you were doing what at the time? >> what was i doing at the time? oh, i'd gone to a series of just place-holding jobs that afforded

me as much free time as i could. i had become part of a bohemian deal in which whimsy amounts to an iron will. so seemed like a plausible thing to do, so we took it down to the beach, set it on fire and instantly our numbers tripled because a burning human form f you put one up at the republican national convention the people would sit down in front. it would so compel. and it was very accessible. there wasn't a need to explain it and when the state asks what it means, we say we have to achieve that through your engagement and your actions. we won't tell you. >> charlie: who came? originally? >> charlie: yeah. curiosity seekers? >> originally, a small group of -- it was the underground

culture of san francisco. san francisco has distinction of an international city for that fact. and, so, they came and a group of -- called the cocaphany society that came out to that year. wand in that desert, there's so much nothing, the least gesture had a world-engendering power. in photographer stream or artist stream, to have a canvas like that. it spread by word of mouth for a few years and our numbers doubled and doubled and now we're at -- >> charlie: 70,000 people. 68- was the last number. we have a good relationship with the bureau of land management and we think that we can

increase the population in a way that will serve well. >> charlie: did it explain to us -- some people heard of this but most people don't understand. what are the rules? what is the organizing principle, for example? you know, you don't buy things there. >> no, we've decomodified. there's no advertising. we don't do vending, any of those things that are normal. you can't really use your cell phone. >> charlie: right. and, so, it's a retreat from the normal world, that's for sure. and while you're there -- well, we have ten principles, they emerged from our own experience. >> charlie: they're interesting principles. >> radical self-expression. >> charlie: right. which means you just have to decide what makes you real and put it out there.

radical self-reliance. but, at the same time, communal effort, and that founded on the idea that you define yourself in this realty -- relationships with others and i spoke of the experience of mastery, the sense of flow at which you work with others and they, in turn, work with you, and finally that creates a community reality that makes you feel that you belong. >> charlie: people came who wanted to create art. >> yes, art, and we're the largest interactive art exhibition in the world. but we say -- we have a saying, the people come for the art, very often, but they stay for the community, and then you look at the art, if you look beyond, there's a lot of spectacle and a lot of very, very ambitious things that require armies of

artists to do and they're very organized, self-organized, but if you look beyond that you see that it says a lot about social organization. in order tor to do that, they fd raise and that creates huge communities contributing to a work of art that's going to appear at the event. it's a funny thing, all these years, we've never said this, this is just culture in operation, it was never spoken, no artist or artist group ever signed their work. isn't that extraordinary? >> charlie: that's crazy. we never told them that. >> charlie: they feel necessary to -- >> well, we did say, this is devoted -- it came out of a bohemian world where people are

very generous about giving things. you go to an artist studio and your eye keeps dropping on it and the artist says, you want it? i made it already, i'm doing something new. >> charlie: the joy of creation was mine and you can take it. >> exactly. we took that attitude, plucked it out of bohemia, and so it's devoted to acts of giving, which do not contemplate a return. we just take transactional economics out of it. >> charlie: well, here's what's interesting. some say it's, therefore, a kind of anti-capitalist coming together and, yet, at the same time, the people who come are some of the most successful capitalists in america who come for the experience. larry paige, the high-tech community, take all kinds of people in the venture capital business who come there for

something else... community, autonomy. >> that's right. well, we never said we were anti-capitalists. >> charlie: i know you didn't say it. >> we did say we need to critique and get away from consumers which is another proposition altogether. >> charlie: everything's about buying something. >> everything is about buying something. in fact, your entire identity is invested in what you consume. >> charlie: right. and we said -- that's not an authentic life. looks like we were right because people were coming from all over the globe to see what that feels like. so there's an empirical way of looking at it. we have a lot of people from silicon valley who have been coming up from early on. in a way, we're a little like them. i don't want to overdo the analogy, but, nonetheless, they

work on a frontier. at google, they put aside time to pursue your own -- >> charlie: 20% of your day is entirely your own. >> autonomy and mast ri, and they do that. >> charlie: yeah. so, naturally, they looked at us as cousins, you know, in a sense, and we have the magazine and people from that industry began piling into the event and said they're going to ruin it but said every migrationist is going to ruin it. >> charlie: do you get feedback that people say it changed my life and somehow they were infused with values, ideas, relationships that made them re-think what they were doing with their life? >> incessantly. >> charlie: incessantly. it sounds like a conversion experience, in religious terms.

you know, when they say we're a cult, we reply it's a self-service cult, you wash your own brain (laughter) radical self-reliance. >> charlie: what's the cargo cult? >> i do the themes, and it took the phenomena of the cults in melanisia in which the indigenous people were so disoriented and oppressed -- >> charlie: great story. -- the prichet british and amers occupied the islands -- >> charlie: during world war ii. >> yes. and the only explanation they could come up with for it was a supernatural one and they looked at them as perhaps "avatars," ancestors who came from the skies and when they left, they were gone.

and, so the people who lived there began building air strips and planes out of bamboo thinking to sympathetic magic to attract their return. and i just said, isn't that the way we live today? we don't know where anything is made, we don't know where it comes from. they say it's all stored in the cloud, and we live on our cell phones, carrying them around, and, really, we know the way we live isn't sustainable, and we're just hoping more cargo will save us. and we merely want to suggest that acquiring more things probably isn't the path. but we didn't -- >> charlie: do you want to be a proselytizer? >> well, we want to change the world. >> charlie: change the world?

yes, we do. we just transferred the event. it's been privately held all these years by myself and my partners, and we just surrendered ownership and have given it to a nonprofit that has been created, the burning man project, and it's aim is to disseminate our culture of a global scale. >> charlie: so there will be burning mans everywhere? >> that's just the beginning. we look at our advantage as an immersive experience that brings change to individual's lives individually that helps them form lailingsships socially when they leave, there are burning man communities on five continent now, and we didn't tell them to do this, they did it, and we just organized to help it keep happening. and we imagine that just as a beginning emulating our city, creating immersive experiences

of another way you can be, an ethos. globally, grou, would have trems leverage on events. on a granular level, we're a little like silicon valley, we imagine we create the platform but it's the people who create the apps. we create the context, the people create the content. >> charlie: where did you get all these ideas? >> for me personally, it was being raised by dust bowl immigrants who -- my father was born in 1899, they came west in a model a ford, worked as migrant workers. i knew a lot about self-reliance, but then coming to san francisco when i was young, and then later took to live there, i have been there many years. i walked into this bohemian scene i'd always dreamed of and that had a big effect.

the principles themselves weren't written in 2004, and we never had an ideology. we don't have one yet. we didn't start with one. it's not outside your experience. it all emerged in what we did in the heart and finally the minds we brought to regard the result of our actions and the community isn't very tolerant of central authority but they just inhaled these things. so there must be a real resonance there. >> charlie: of course there is. take a look at this. this is an image of the man on fire from the 2013 festival. >> it's standing on a flying saucer, the man is. that was cargo cult. the aliens had come in a flying saucer and they were going to give us consumer items and save us. >> charlie: the temple of juneau, they're at the burning manifest val in 2012 created by david. >> a good friend of mine. he built many of these and the

other people jumped in and now it's inevitable. >> charlie: how long does it take them to do this? >> oh, about three weeks. >> charlie: the next is a trojan horse from one of the largest independent projects, and the burning street, engulfed at the conclusion of burning man 20126789 the next is the angelo fish art car created by mark whitman. the next chatter box art car. church trap, another interactive piece by rebecca, 2013. >> the church is supported by a giant stick and the pews are inside so it's precariously perched like a primitive mouse trap. you can interpret it from there. >> charlie: larry from google proposed a tech burning man in

may 2013, key note teach, here's what he said, we don't want our world to change too fast but maybe we could set apart a piece of the world. i like going to burning man, for example, an environment where people can change new things. i think as technologists we should have safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society, the effect on people without having to deploy it to the whole world. what it is is a laboratory. >> it is a laboratory, and the interesting thing is there's technology and there's art and then there's this fascinating interzone where art and technology are working with one another. then people take drones and say how can we turn drones into art? there's a lot of that. it's very cross disciplinarian. i think the thing about our art is that it is interactive. that means not until people act

in relation to it and involve themselves with it, it actually elicits reactions. it's not done till that's done. it generates community around itself, and that's a new standard for public art, really. art that requires community for its creation, engenders community in its advent, that links people together. you know, statutes of culture, he wrote, don't do that a anymore, but this is -- we have another organization, this placing art in cities around the world. >> charlie: what's that called? >> the black rock arts foundation. >> charlie: right. and we were going to fold it into the burning man project and then we'll be done. >> charlie: it's this idea as it always is, when someone comes up with a great idea and it

grows and gets bigger and people you wouldn't expect fells to be at the found -- expect necessarily to be at the founding come and make it a part of what they are and it becomes in somebody's judgment too "main stream." are you aware of that and know or you don't care? >> well, it's a false claim. i agree that what can happen over time in any institution is that it will cease to be a matter of discovery and become something that's merely received. but i think -- but, of course, what brings us is culture and community and i think as long as we design a new institution as measured be w that culture, as being what it wants to manifest, as animated by that, that's really an interesting challenge. it may last for 100 years, so we have to find a way that the

burning man can reinvent it'sself and the institutions of burning man can keep reinventing itself and rediscovering things as we did as founders. but as far as it being main stream -- >> charlie: i can't imagine. well, i don't know what they -- by main stream, i guess they mean mass produce, mass consumed, denatured, authentic, things like that. but we've always been -- the reason we have drawn so many people is that we represent it the original antithesis of that. that's why we seem so novel and attractive to people. that's the very essence of our success. so i'm not really worried about that happening. >> charlie: there's also finally this, while you become global and huge and big and all that, but i'm interested in this small-town initiative. what is it? >> well, it started in nevada,

and a stake, you know, in these economic times. and my people originally came from a very small down in nebraska. and we thought it would be a good gesture. we also thought it -- it might help towns economically to come from afar to see, you know, the elephant or whatever it was. and, so, you know, we run, as i say, sort of an international city, but we thought that it ought to be relevant for small towns as well and, when we started out, we were a little hamlet out there, after all. we were a little town. we haven't forgotten where we came from. >> charlie: thank you for coming. >> thank you. >> charlie: pleasure to have

you. this is "nightly busine

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