Climbing - Philosophy for Everyone: Because It's There

Philosophy for Everyone #37

by Stephen E. Schmid (Editor), Fritz Allhoff (Series Editor), Hans Florine (Foreword)

Climbing - Philosophy for Everyone presents a collection of intellectually stimulating new essays that address the philosophical issues relating to risk, ethics, and other aspects of climbing that are of interest to everyone from novice climbers to seasoned mountaineers.

* Represents the first collection of essays to exclusively address the many philosophical aspects of climbing

* Includes essays that challenge commonly accepted views of climbing and climbing ethics

* Written accessibly, this book will appeal to everyone from novice climbers to seasoned mountaineers

* Includes a foreword written by Hans Florine

Genres: Philosophy, Climbing, Sports, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 16, 2010

Reviews

[محمد شکری · Rating 4 out of 5]

در مورد مجموعه پیش‌تر و در مرور کتاب پدربودن و فلسفه توضیح دادم. اینجا مستقیم به سراغ خود این جلد جذاب می‌روم.

درباره این جلد
زیرعنوان کتاب از (احتمالا) معروف‌ترین مصاحبه با یک کوهنورد به نام جورج مَلُری است که وقتی از او می‌پرسند چرا این همه خطر را به جان می‌خری و مسیرهای وحشتناک کوهنوردی را طی می‌کنی، و او در پاسخ فقط می‌گوید: «چون‌که آنجاست»! ازقضا ظاهرا این جمله مبهم حرف دل بسیاری از کوهنوردان بوده که می‌خواستند در جواب این سوال همیشگی و کلافه‌کننده به دیگران بدهند و در این کتاب هم بارها مورد اشاره قرار گرفته‌است
جلد «کوهنوردی و فلسفه» نیز شامل 17 مقاله در 4 بخش کلی است که مسائلی (عموما هنجاری و) چنان متنوع در نسبت با کوهنوردی را بررسی می‌کند که گاه حتی به ذهن آدم هم نمی‌رسد: ر

بخش اول) ملحق شدن، چرا مخاطره کوهنوردی؟ | چنانکه معلوم است این بخش به این پرسش بنیادین می‌پردازد که با توجه به مخاطرات (گاه بیش از حد) کوهنوردی حرفه‌ای، چرا اصلا باید آن تن داد. توجه داشته باشید که عنوان کتاب و موضوع اصلی آن
climbing
است و این واژه دربرگیرنده طیف وسیعی از کوه‌پیمایی، کوهنوردی به قصد فتح قله و حتی صخره‌نوردی است و بسیاری از این فعالیت‌ها ذاتا خطرخیز هستند (بجز تاملات فلسفی اطلاعات عمومی بسیاری هم با خواندن این جلد به دست خواهید آورد که تفاوت این موارد یکی از آنهاست!). یکی از موضوعات اصلی این بخش مفهوم آزادی و پدیدارشناسی انواعی از آزادی است که در کوهنوردی درک می‌شود و البته بررسی اخلاقی آن‌ها به عنوان میلی اخلاقی یا غیراخلاقی. یکی از مقالات جالب این بخش به این پرسش فمینیستی می‌پردازد که چرا در این داوری‌های اخلاقی معمولا زن‌ها، به ویژه مادرها، بیشتر ملامت می‌شود

بخش دوم) در جست‌وجوی قله؛ پرورش کوهنورد | به آورده‌های معنوی کوهنوردی (عمدتا) برای فرد می‌پردازد: از منظر اخلاق فضیلت ارسطویی، در تمایزگذاری میان لذت از مسیر یا آرزوی هدف، در به دست دادن عزت نفس و خودبسندگی و نهایتا از منظر ذن-بودیستی

بخش سوم) پاره‌کردن طناب، اخلاق کوهنوردی | اگر بخش دوم به آورده‌های (اخلاقی) کوهنوردی برای شخص کوهنورد می‌پرداخت، این بخش کنش‌های کوهنورد را زیر ذره‌بین تاملات فلسفی-اخلاقی می‌برد. تا به حال به این فکر کرده‌اید که تجربه آزادی در کوه می‌تواند روابط عادی و شهری فرد به جامعه و سازمان‌ها را پس از آن تجربه عالی دچار اختلال کند؟ فکر کرده‌اید کوهنوردی به عنوان یک ورزش پاک چقدر می‌تواند به محیط زیست آسیب برساند؟ به این فکر کرده‌اید که یک کوهنورد چقدر از نظر اخلاقی حق دارد از گروه جدا شود و تا کجا پیش هم‌گروهی‌های آسیب‌دیده بماند؟

بخش چهارم) کوه‌نوردی ترکیبی؛ فلسفه در زمین‌های گوناگون | این بخش کمی نامترکز است اما باز هم به موضوعات جالب و کمتر اندیشیده‌شده دیگری می‌پردازد: روابط انسانی-اقتصادی زیربنایی کوهنوردی حرفه‌ای،‌ پدیدارشناسی تجربه کوه، ملاک‌های امتیازهای بین‌المللی به مسیرهای کوهنوردی و معنای زیبایی کوه. شاید بتوان نام این بخش را «زیبایی‌شناسی کوه» در معنای موسع آن گذاشت

‌ درباره ترجمه
من از نزدیک در جریان ترجمه و تلاش‌های مترجم عزیز بوده‌ام و چون متن انگلیسی کتاب را هم هم‌زمان خوانده‌ام اصلا داور خوبی برای بررسی این جلد هم (مثل پدربودن) نیستم. اما بهرحال بنظرم ترجمه بسیار روان است و مطلب را به آسانی منتقل می‌کند. ولی اگر نکته و نقدی درباره آن داشتید حتما به ایمیل مترجم که در انتهای پیش‌گفتار کوتاهش آمده منتقل کنید

نقد و ارزیابی کلی
این اثر هم مجموعه‌ای از مقالات با کیفیت‌ها و جذابیت‌های متفاوت است. یکی از نکاتی که جذابیت آن را از یک نظر از «پدربودن و فلسفه» بیشتر می‌کرد اطلاعات گسترده و ارجاع به حوادثی واقعی بود که جدای از تاملات فلسفی‌اش خواندنی بود. شکل کتاب بسیار مناسب وعده‌های کوتاه مدت مطالعه (مثل زمان‌های استراحت یا اتوبوس و مترو) است و امیدوارم به زودی فایل کتاب در طاقچه یا فیدیبو نیز عرضه شود

[Sean Goh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focused a lot more on traditional climbers and mountaineers rather than the indoor sport climbing we sheltered city kids are more familiar with, but the descriptions of struggling against adversity are relateable nonetheless.
_________________
Success is defined by how you climb and not what you stand atop. Their call to climb simply with as little impact as possible has become the predominant style and guiding ethic of many climbers

Climbing can expand our individual human potential. Resilience and self-empowerment emerge from our experiences surmounting fear, adversity, and our own mental and physical barriers. This enables climbers to accomplish greater achievements in their activities outside of the mountains than would have been possible otherwise. Through its lessons, climbing can inspire individuals and society to extend the limits of what is possible.
Climbing can also nurture empowering psychological growth. By teaching us how to better focus our energies, embrace challenge as a valuable force for personal development, and competently manage risk, climbing can improve the quality of our lives.

“Ask mountaineers why they climb and invariably they say that it makes them feel alive. It allows them to live in the moment. Ask those bereaved by climbing accidents if anything positive has emerged from the tragedy and, in one way or another, they usually echo the climber’s sentiment. If they love someone, they tell him. If they have a gift to give, they give it now . . . just in case. They take nothing for granted. ‘I can tell you what Death has taught me,’ says Terres Unsoeld in her one-woman play Making My Way in the Dark. ‘It’s taught me to hold on to life and make each moment count.’

Climbers and astronauts both are often absent for extended periods due to an all consuming focus, but the media treatment is starkly different.

In short, I think it is the belief that there is something wrong about pursuing risk as an end itself that motivates the asymmetry thesis and leads some to condemn climbing as a risk-seeking activity. However, this condemnation is based on a misperception of the activity; climbing and mountaineering have never been, at least for me, about seeking risk as an end in itself.

It is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle . . . anyone can get angry – that is easy – or give and spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.

Sherman sensed intuitively that the decisions we make while climbing have a cumulative effect – each time you back down it becomes easier to back down again.

Humility is the characteristic of those who have an appropriately modest view of their own accomplishments and importance. In some sense it shares characteristics with what Aristotle calls “proper pride”; it acknowledges both the extent and the limits of one’s powers. A humble person owns her successes and failures. She neither pretends that there is some cosmic significance to putting up her most recent route, nor engages in the self-denigration of insisting her accomplishments are without any significance.

Our control and dominance over the natural world leave us with few outlets for the cultivation of virtues like courage (because there is no risk), humility (because there is nothing we cannot or should not do), and reverence for the natural world (because we see it as nothing more than a bundle of resources for our technology). The loss of these virtues impoverishes us as human beings.

Long, exhausting, nervy routes serve as the purgatories through which they must pass to test and perfect their character. For climbing is about more than the completion of a difficult route; it is also about the completion of oneself.
Of course, it makes sense that climbing would be fertile ground for engagement with one’s inner self simply because it is, at least to some degree, an individual activity, where some things must be undertaken alone. True, there are often others in a climbing group, but each member of the group still has to do some things for him or herself. Unlike team sports, the actions of other members of the climbing group do not influence to a great degree the accomplishments of any individual member.
The group may provide support, but each member has to accomplish some tasks alone, and so is directly responsible for the consequences of those actions. In this way, “mountain climbing may be one example of an activity that combines group altruism with individual selfishness.”14

Heinrich Harrer, one of the first climbers to make a successful ascent of the Eiger, also stresses the responsibilities climbers have to one another:
Let us grant courage and the love of pure adventure their own justification, even if we cannot produce any material support for them. Mankind has developed an ugly habit of only allowing true courage to the killers. Great credit accrues to the one who bests another; little is given to the man who recognises in his comrade on the rope a part of himself, who for long hours of extreme peril faces no opponent to be shot or struck down, but whose battle is solely against his own weakness and insufficiency. Is the man who, at moments when his own life is in the balance, has not only to safeguard it but, at the same time, his friend’s – even to the extent of mutual self-sacrifice – to receive less recognition than a boxer in the ring, simply because the nature of what he is doing is not properly understood?

As a technique, climbers check in with their breath in order to find their center, regain their control of the situation, and navigate through problems. In short, climbing is interwoven with meditation.
Whether the intent is to cultivate awareness and relaxation, integrate mind and body, or suspend the overactive mind, a climber can be informed by and benefit from Zen meditation.

“You’re thinking, but not in words. You’re thinking in movement and rhythm.”

I was having a discussion with a friend not too long ago which involved fantasizing about quitting our jobs and going on an extended climbing trip. He wasn’t so sure he could put climbing as his sole focus for that long. After thinking about it, I said it isn’t simply the climbing that is the attraction, though climbers are certainly obsessed enough that they could do it virtually full time. It is a way of life aligned with personal autonomy, freedom, and the escape from the alienation of wage slavery that draws people to climbing. Climbers who opt out of the mainstream economy do so because they value their autonomy and the sense of mastery that comes from focusing the mind and body on achieving a difficult climb.
They also value the community created throughout the world whenever climbers self-organize to create a climbing commons for each other.
Given its existence as a self-organizing community, and the fact it tends to attract individuals who are most interested in forging a life outside the boundaries of late-capitalist America, climbing allows one to tap into a way of life that transcends the nine-to-five; to experience risk; to engage with the natural world; and to become physically empowered.
However, climbing culture allows us to challenge the cherished values American culture holds dear – private property, radical individualism, survival of the fittest, and the maximization of personal profit. Instead, it suggests that mutual aid, self-organization without the force or power of the state, and the power of the gift creates a far more interesting and longstanding cultural commons. These are values worth climbing for.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die erste Hälfte der Essays habe ich KOMPLETT bunt annotiert.👌🏼 Besonders “Hohe Ziele und Selbstkultivierung”, “Es geht um mehr als nur ums ich”, “Über Klettern und Scheitern” und “Freiheit und Individualität on the Rocks” fand ich einmalig und mag ich immer wieder zur Hand nehmen, wenn ich die Worte in einer bestimmten Lebenslage brauche. Die zweite Hälfte hat mich von den Themen leider nicht mehr umgehauen. Trotzdem, wer gern philosophiert, wandert und oder klettert, hat hiermit seine Bibel gefunden.

[earthshattering · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought this book in 2010 when I was very interested in climbing. It took me 9 years to read it. This book is not great, it is not great at all. Most of it is mind-numbingly boring, and the rest of it is comical in an Alice in Wonderland, circular logic, delving into minutiae way. I kept saying to myself, "who cares?" when reading detailed essays with extensive reasoning over whether lichen should be cleaned off routes.

There were two essays that I liked, which is to say that I didn't want to get up and run while I was reading them. The first was "Are you Experienced?" because it is funny and points out the subjectivity and unreliability of our own judgments of our experiences and memories. The author gives the example of judging his own climb as bold and done in fine style, while his friend heard him say he was tired and scared while on the climb. The other enjoyable essay was "Making Mountains out of Heaps" on the environmental responsibility of climbers. The conclusion was that although one person cannot be responsible for the incremental degradation of a climbing area, we should all act as if our actions may push the area over the threshold of being degraded, thus assuming personal responsibility for the environmental impacts of climbing.

The worst essay was "What is a Climbing Grade Anyway?". My favorite quote is:
"So, if we were to ask if 'Serenity Crack is 5.10d,' were like 'Serenity Crack is in Squamish', then we would be asking whether ['Serenity Crack is 5.10d'] is false and we would have to assume that being 5.10d is a property that Serenity Crack could really possess, like being in Squamish. But assuming this means that we think that being 5.10d is a real property, like Squamish, and we want to know if Serenity Crack actually possesses it."
These are the joys that await you in this essay. In the footnotes the author notes that climbing grades are different for lizards and squirrels, which is one of the most useless things I have learned recently. Spoiler alert, Serenity Crack is not in Squamish.

Please don't give this to anyone unless you want to drive them mad or you don't like them.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of 17 essays split into 4 groups, three of whih were coherent and one of which is a catch-all for those that didn't fit into the others. As with a lot of collections of essays, this is something of a mixed bag. For me, the first section on "why risk climbing" was the strongest, while the book seems to fade badly towards the end. The section on ethics was particularly frustrating: climbing has its issues, but I felt the essays didn't get to grips properly. Sometimes the language felt a little inaccessible too, as if the writer was trying to impress rather than clarify. Nevertheless, it brought some interesting ideas and perspectives. If you are into climbing and have a little patience you will find something worthwhile.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may have been my first philosophy book. The first 2-3 articles and the penultimate article were ... not smooth reading for me. The rest were quite enjoyable to skim once I got into the right mood.