As time passes, this piece becomes more and more relevant. As humans, we are not getting more ethical. The outcome is all that matters and is quickly celebrated on social media. My guess is most of these words of yours will fall on deaf ears. Very few of the younger generation seem to care.
Tangentially, I made a related comment to a friend, perhaps poorly-timed and placed, on a post she made about how much fun E-bike mountain biking was in Croatia. My comment flowed from many conversations I've had with others concerning the trend of E-bikes. I was even on a pod cast a few years ago discussing them. In a moment of perhaps poor judgement, I quipped that although I'm sure they are "fun", I can't morally stomach them as I feel it is just another way to dumb down and soften our already rotund population. While she brushed off the comment, her husband eviscerated me on-line in a variety of insulting ways and has not spoken to me since.
While I admit that I came off elitist, etc. and it was not the place for the point I was making, the fall out was telling and lends support to the overall concept of your essay.
I don't disagree about the ethical trend, about the influence of the convenience-focused consumerism. Its crushing presence and normalization is difficult to resist. We were fortunate to live in a period where (communication about) social trends was geographically restricted, and also guided by the activity itself; urban culture hadn't yet affected mountain culture, and as Henry Rollins recently said, "I have no memory of ever seeing or hearing of a relationship with climbing and punk rock." These days the overlap is everywhere, for better or for worse. The unanimous acceptance of the consumerist mentality being applied to the natural environment galls me, and it's snowballing. The ethics we imposed on ourselves and the rules we made to keep the anarchy (of our own natures) in check — paired to the ethical trends initiated before our time — were good brakes that prevented us trying to satiate every appetite.
I've made similar comments about the younger generation and some of the brighter lights proved me wrong. Perhaps few and far between but my generalization was just that. I think the ones who don't care are somewhere in the middle years, the "fuck you, I'm gettin' mine" years, while the youngest have seen where rapacious consumption of experiences and resources leads, and what it leaves behind. We hypothesized these outcomes and get to say, "we told you so" to those deaf ears, while the next generation back are living with and trying to unfuck those outcomes.
Fighting the consumerist, Easy Button momentum feels like that old poster of the mouse flipping off the eagle in a last desperate act of defiance.
I am trying to pin point a time and/or action from our generation when the ethical game took a bad turn. I think many of us got pretty upitty with the “normalization” of bolted sport climbs. Even when I enjoy them, which I did on several occasions while climbing in Washington last summer, I still get a flash of concern, no doubt hard-wired into my brain from eras past. “The Murder of the Impossible” as Messner would comment. But one transgression that stands out for me and seemed to come with the sport climbing movement and the rapid increase in grades that accompanied it is the advent of chipping. How many routes have we walked away from simply because we lacked the strength and/or skill to climb them? Plenty, I’d wager. But it never occurred to me to literally dumb the route down to my level simply so I could say I’d done it. What is happening in the high mountains is similar in my mind although differs in that it does not permanently alter the canvas. But the mind set that sets it all in motion is similar.
I'm cracking up at the connection you make between e-bikes and cheating. Nobody can screw up a bike ride like an e-biker that is faster than all the self-powered cyclists, and yet has no concept of proper cycling etiquette. Bicycle paths in many places are rife with them. They are blissfully unaware of their disruptive and offensive behavior.
The offenders are usually doing so because of a lack of truly understanding or even having an awareness of their offensive behavior. Thus, in their minds there is no offense and their indignation seems warranted.
Democratizing an activity by making more powerful tools with which to perform the activity leads to a lack of respect for it. That which is revered by those that have sacrificed much, is regarded casually by the uninitiated.
Yes! Indeed, technological 'hack' to bypass the apprentice-journeyman-master progression does not lead to the same place nor produce the same experience/expertise. I suspect that it is in our nature to arbitrarily assign greater importance to the thing we have access to or are good at; in the case of e-bikes if we revere or respect only speed then etiquette becomes irrelevant, bike-handling no longer matters, and the experience needed to 'ride down the road', to see ahead, to understand what is about to happen within the group (flocking) goes missing. I was such a tool when I first started doing group rides and racing and it took a lot of miles in those settings to understand — the bare minimum to keep myself and others safe at those speeds — to the extent that I did. Often my lack of experience didn't matter in the beginning because I was off the back, not fit enough to stay in the peloton and potentially ruin things for a number of others.
I really love this and agree with it. The brave athletes that stood up against cheaters deserve respect, not only for holding themselves to a higher standard, but also for not allowing themselves to be swayed by the social pressure to conform within their sports. Athletes like Greg Lemond and Carl Lewis were outspoken in their day.
The idealist has an ethical bent that the pragmatist may consider silly. One believes in preserving and the other, unfortunately, believes in gratification with no significant thought given to preservation.
I do wonder why all of these technological advances have been so readily accepted when they drastically alter the nature of an experience. I suppose the shallow answers are obvious, and the core nature of humans being efficiency-seek machines isn't open to change. To quote you, "Why can't it be hard?" is a question that isn't asked seriously or often enough. Instead we hear, "Why slow yourself down? Why limit yourself?"
To what degree we have ‘efficiency-seeking’ baked in, as opposed to it being the result of a culture that worships productivity is hard to say. Though, my issue isn’t with the use of new technology, but the refusal to acknowledge the way it changes the experience. I mean, go ahead, buy a rocket shoe, but don’t then tell me that you are now a faster runner. Perhaps that is part of a generational shift? Or perhaps there are always those who care more about looking like they did something, as opposed to actually experiencing doing it?
When retro bolting starting occurring on climbs in Montana that had been lead and protected ground up without bolts (back in the 90’s) is when I realized that people’s need to climb a route “safely” would supersede all else.
It's aggravating to witness this reductionism. Separating the risk from the technical performance and calling the outcome or experience the same thing was something I never imagined happening forty years ago but that genie broke the very bottle that once contained it.
As time passes, this piece becomes more and more relevant. As humans, we are not getting more ethical. The outcome is all that matters and is quickly celebrated on social media. My guess is most of these words of yours will fall on deaf ears. Very few of the younger generation seem to care.
Tangentially, I made a related comment to a friend, perhaps poorly-timed and placed, on a post she made about how much fun E-bike mountain biking was in Croatia. My comment flowed from many conversations I've had with others concerning the trend of E-bikes. I was even on a pod cast a few years ago discussing them. In a moment of perhaps poor judgement, I quipped that although I'm sure they are "fun", I can't morally stomach them as I feel it is just another way to dumb down and soften our already rotund population. While she brushed off the comment, her husband eviscerated me on-line in a variety of insulting ways and has not spoken to me since.
While I admit that I came off elitist, etc. and it was not the place for the point I was making, the fall out was telling and lends support to the overall concept of your essay.
I don't disagree about the ethical trend, about the influence of the convenience-focused consumerism. Its crushing presence and normalization is difficult to resist. We were fortunate to live in a period where (communication about) social trends was geographically restricted, and also guided by the activity itself; urban culture hadn't yet affected mountain culture, and as Henry Rollins recently said, "I have no memory of ever seeing or hearing of a relationship with climbing and punk rock." These days the overlap is everywhere, for better or for worse. The unanimous acceptance of the consumerist mentality being applied to the natural environment galls me, and it's snowballing. The ethics we imposed on ourselves and the rules we made to keep the anarchy (of our own natures) in check — paired to the ethical trends initiated before our time — were good brakes that prevented us trying to satiate every appetite.
I've made similar comments about the younger generation and some of the brighter lights proved me wrong. Perhaps few and far between but my generalization was just that. I think the ones who don't care are somewhere in the middle years, the "fuck you, I'm gettin' mine" years, while the youngest have seen where rapacious consumption of experiences and resources leads, and what it leaves behind. We hypothesized these outcomes and get to say, "we told you so" to those deaf ears, while the next generation back are living with and trying to unfuck those outcomes.
Fighting the consumerist, Easy Button momentum feels like that old poster of the mouse flipping off the eagle in a last desperate act of defiance.
I am trying to pin point a time and/or action from our generation when the ethical game took a bad turn. I think many of us got pretty upitty with the “normalization” of bolted sport climbs. Even when I enjoy them, which I did on several occasions while climbing in Washington last summer, I still get a flash of concern, no doubt hard-wired into my brain from eras past. “The Murder of the Impossible” as Messner would comment. But one transgression that stands out for me and seemed to come with the sport climbing movement and the rapid increase in grades that accompanied it is the advent of chipping. How many routes have we walked away from simply because we lacked the strength and/or skill to climb them? Plenty, I’d wager. But it never occurred to me to literally dumb the route down to my level simply so I could say I’d done it. What is happening in the high mountains is similar in my mind although differs in that it does not permanently alter the canvas. But the mind set that sets it all in motion is similar.
I'm cracking up at the connection you make between e-bikes and cheating. Nobody can screw up a bike ride like an e-biker that is faster than all the self-powered cyclists, and yet has no concept of proper cycling etiquette. Bicycle paths in many places are rife with them. They are blissfully unaware of their disruptive and offensive behavior.
The offenders are usually doing so because of a lack of truly understanding or even having an awareness of their offensive behavior. Thus, in their minds there is no offense and their indignation seems warranted.
Democratizing an activity by making more powerful tools with which to perform the activity leads to a lack of respect for it. That which is revered by those that have sacrificed much, is regarded casually by the uninitiated.
Yes! Indeed, technological 'hack' to bypass the apprentice-journeyman-master progression does not lead to the same place nor produce the same experience/expertise. I suspect that it is in our nature to arbitrarily assign greater importance to the thing we have access to or are good at; in the case of e-bikes if we revere or respect only speed then etiquette becomes irrelevant, bike-handling no longer matters, and the experience needed to 'ride down the road', to see ahead, to understand what is about to happen within the group (flocking) goes missing. I was such a tool when I first started doing group rides and racing and it took a lot of miles in those settings to understand — the bare minimum to keep myself and others safe at those speeds — to the extent that I did. Often my lack of experience didn't matter in the beginning because I was off the back, not fit enough to stay in the peloton and potentially ruin things for a number of others.
Well-articulated continuation of the sentiment.
I really love this and agree with it. The brave athletes that stood up against cheaters deserve respect, not only for holding themselves to a higher standard, but also for not allowing themselves to be swayed by the social pressure to conform within their sports. Athletes like Greg Lemond and Carl Lewis were outspoken in their day.
The idealist has an ethical bent that the pragmatist may consider silly. One believes in preserving and the other, unfortunately, believes in gratification with no significant thought given to preservation.
I really appreciate the commentaries that are coming with the older essays.
Are we going to wade into the topic of when shoes with springs and bikes with batteries become doping?
I do wonder why all of these technological advances have been so readily accepted when they drastically alter the nature of an experience. I suppose the shallow answers are obvious, and the core nature of humans being efficiency-seek machines isn't open to change. To quote you, "Why can't it be hard?" is a question that isn't asked seriously or often enough. Instead we hear, "Why slow yourself down? Why limit yourself?"
To what degree we have ‘efficiency-seeking’ baked in, as opposed to it being the result of a culture that worships productivity is hard to say. Though, my issue isn’t with the use of new technology, but the refusal to acknowledge the way it changes the experience. I mean, go ahead, buy a rocket shoe, but don’t then tell me that you are now a faster runner. Perhaps that is part of a generational shift? Or perhaps there are always those who care more about looking like they did something, as opposed to actually experiencing doing it?
One friend recently suggested that “performance enhancing” is synonymous with “experience reducing” and I found it hard to disagree.
When retro bolting starting occurring on climbs in Montana that had been lead and protected ground up without bolts (back in the 90’s) is when I realized that people’s need to climb a route “safely” would supersede all else.
It's aggravating to witness this reductionism. Separating the risk from the technical performance and calling the outcome or experience the same thing was something I never imagined happening forty years ago but that genie broke the very bottle that once contained it.
It really is reductionism. Still have conversations with climbers who believe bolts every 5’ to 10’ enhance the experience.