Petrarch, Nina Williams, and Mountain Modernity
This article is the second in a series of responses to Episode 2.1 of the Genealogies of Modernity podcast.
In attempting to articulate what it means to be a modern mountaineer—to make “a radical separation from the past”—I am going to focus on two points derived from claims of 19th century climbers: first, a tension of the modern as opposed to the classical; second, an understanding of the modern as the secular, technocratic age to which the climber is responding.
The first point—the modern vs. the classical—is not necessarily an historical claim. One thinks, for example, of the tremendous growth of the classical movement in the contemporary educational world as a recognition that one can live in modern times and yet embrace classical ideals. By contrast, as Ryan McDermott argued in his original article on this subject: “In a very real sense, climbing has always been modern. As the GenMod project has reiterated, to be modern means to be new, to be in the now, and to be so in a certain style.” The modern is the one who self-consciously breaks from the past, who rejects tradition’s binding force, who sees his or her achievement as a mark of superiority over what has come before. This is the language we would find in the early modern philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Niccolò Machiavelli, and René Descartes, and the attitude that is lampooned by such early critics of modernity as Blaise Pascal and Jonathan Swift.
Gustave Doré, Ascent of the Matterhorn (1865)
I am not sure if McDermott’s thinking has changed on this point, but I do not think that Petrarch was a modern mountain climber in this sense. Petrarch is not modern but classical, for he sees himself as being in continuity with a tradition, as gleaning in the fields after the reapers of the past. Or, perhaps, Petrarch sees himself as standing on the shoulders of giants, which suggests a sense of doing something new precisely because one is working within a tradition. This is evident in his motivation to imitate Livy’s Philip of Macedon; in his keen awareness of being situated in a naturally political world; and in his obedience to his spiritual director, Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro, who had given him a pocket edition of St. Augustine’s Confessions as a means of reconverting him to the luminous love of the spirit rather than the darkened lusts of the flesh. In a word, the modern mountain climber is out to push the limits and set personal or communal records; the classical mountain climber is out to glimpse past greatness and re-commit to Truth. The modern thinks of greatness in terms of active amoral power, the classical in terms of contemplative moral actuality.
My second point is about the modern as a historical period: the modern period as the secular, technocratic age. Whatever motivated pre-modern peoples to climb mountains, I see modern mountain climbers as being bound up in a culture that presents them with competing philosophical anthropologies to shape their self-understanding. While the following is not exhaustive, they may see themselves as Machiavellian “peak baggers” conquering nature, as Rousseauians seeking to commune with nature and our noble savage past, or as Nietzschean self-creators building up their will to power. Alternatively, they may see themselves as rejecting modernity in a classical vein, seeking to contemplate the timeless principles uncovered by Aristotle, or to achieve union with the God who revealed himself to Elijah in a soft voice. Wherever such climbers turn for self-narratives, they are responding to a public culture that touts technology as the answer to our alienation from nature.
Fra Angelico, The Conversion of Saint Augustine
While my limited space does not permit me to go into detail, I would add a chapter on Outward Bound when telling the tale of mountain modernity as response to life in a secular, technocratic age. In brief, the founder, Kurt Hahn, saw outdoor education as a necessary antidote to modernity’s tendency to encourage sedentary and passive modes of life. By challenging youth to test their limits and put their talents in the service of the community as motivated by Christian charity, Hahn embraced a classical conception of greatness yet utilized modern methods for doing so. As I argue elsewhere, Outward Bound quickly succumbed to modern paradigms, replacing spirituality with self-empowerment and virtues with values, and in doing so no longer points back to the classical but forward to the postmodern.
Finally, my impression is that Nina Williams is modern as opposed to classical, seeing her goal as being to set new records and achieve an extra-traditional self-harmony. Williams offers us a Nietzschean response to modernity, seeing herself not as conforming to the moral demands of nature but rather building up her will to power for the creation of ever more modern ways of living. That being said, her goal of uniting soul and body shows a commitment to an embodied mode of living that harkens back to the classical world; this may signal a desire to move forward not as an over-woman conquering nature but as a woman fully alive in her embrace of nature.
Michael Krom, Ph.D., is Chair of Philosophy and Director of Benedictine Leadership Studies at Saint Vincent College (Latrobe, PA). He recently authored a second book, Justice and Charity: An Introduction to Aquinas's Moral, Economic, and Political Thought (Baker Academic Press), and currently works on the history and nature of Benedictine education.