climbing – philosophy for everyone

Reviewed by Frank Fury

14 January 2011 archive

Climbing: Philosophy for Everyone

I wish I could say that reading Climbing – Philosophy for Everyone: Because It's There has inspired me to rectify the complete absence of rock climbing in my life and go scale the next mountain I encounter. Logistical considerations aside (there are not many mountain ranges in my part of the country that are available for such personal epiphanies), the book does not light that particular fire in me. This nonetheless should not serve as a negative commentary on what proves to be a most thoughtful and engaging collection of articles that serve to intellectualize what is thought by many to be a purely adrenaline-fueled endeavor. Climbing – Philosophy for Everyone: Because It's There is less meant to inspire one to go out and begin a meaningful rock climbing career if one hadn't had that inclination to start with and more to rationalize and justify what some believe is a reckless and morally unjustifiable activity.

In other words, the question that seems central to this anthology and which just about every single contributor addresses in some form or another is not "Why don't you climb?" but, more tellingly, "Why do you climb?" The contributors, each of whom are academics, philosophers and, most pointedly, avid climbers themselves judging from their articles, write with a very sharply perceived awareness that climbing needs to be justified; indeed, the first of the three parts of the anthology is titled "Why Risk Climbing?" and nearly every single one of the seventeen articles that compose the anthology treat this question in some form or another.

Though it is important to recognize that Climbing – Philosophy for Everyone: Because It's There is a recent offering within a broader series of "pop philosophy" books from Wiley-Blackwell that include such far-ranging topics as cycling, wine, dating, gardening, serial killers and porn (yes, porn), while these other topics may result in books that would generate readership due to their status as novelty pieces, climbing is especially well-suited to philosophical consideration for a number of reasons. That climbing as leisure activity suffers from the stigma of being a "gratuitious" risk (a word employed by numerous of the book's contributors) perhaps is what constitutes its dubious ethics and hence makes it susceptible to philosophical inquiry. Moreover, the subtitle "Because It's There" is borrowed from George Mallory's reply to a reporter who had asked him what compelled Mallory to climb Mount Everest.

Mallory's deceptively simplistic response, as one of the book's contributors Brian Treanor suggests, calls to mind "the difficulty of arriving at any easily communicable answer," which is, of course, a hallmark of philosophy. Hans Florine, a veteran climber and himself a writer of books about climbing, wrote Climbing's foreword and, in it, similarly paralleled the desires that both climbing and philosophy encompass: "[climbing] is about the journey, not the summit. Similarly, I suggest that the joy in philosophy is about pursuing the answers, not necessarily finding them." These natural associations I would argue are reminiscent of the methodologies that the contributors employ consistently throughout the articles. Though juxtaposing climbing and philosophy simply for the purposes of a pop philosophy series could come off as hokey or strained, this book reveals neither of these qualities. Invoking Aristotle, therefore, to explain what climbers aspire to (chapter five) or calling upon the Stoics to aid in explaining the freedom inherent in rock climbing (chapter one) ultimately works, for, as contributor Heidi Howkins Lockwood intimates, though climbing could just as easily beg for scientific explanation—"investigations of the external, physical world" as Lockwood puts it—what should stop us from thinking of climbing in much more existential terms as "an exploration of our relationship with the world"?

Of special interest to those who read this listserv frequently would be the book's consideration of climbing as sport. A handful of the chapters indeed raise questions about climbing's status as sport while other chapters employ a sport rhetoric in their analysis of the holds, styles, approaches, and strategies of climbing. Though a number of sport historians would not think twice when hearing of rock climbing being spoken of as a sport, contributor Joe Fitschen offers an interesting and indeed enlightening perspective. Fitschen cites long-time climber Chuck Pratt's words when Pratt was asked why he had taken to a life of climbing: "Because I am too short for basketball." The sporting impulse—the longing for competition, the need for achievement—is implied in Pratt's pithy response, and Fitschen uses it as a springboard to question why one rarely challenges football, for example, for the inherent health risks it poses to its participants.

No one ever confused the popularity of football in America with the popularity of climbing, however, and that discrepancy is very likely what lies behind the seeming double standard in our critical assessment of the fundamental dangers of sport. Indeed, as noted previously, if you are a "football person" than this book will not force you to reassess the landscape of your leisure pursuits and switch your allegiance to rock climbing as your patron sport. If the yearning to climb is not in you, then no single person or thing—this book included—can put it there and those who contributed to this book, I believe, would agree. If you think, however, that there is no reason for anyone else to climb or that climbing is silly or pointless or just plain crazy, this book just might make you think again.

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