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That's not what I read from the article at hand.

Harm was done by going forward; not only to himself but to his wife and children.

"Mallory had premonitions about what might happen. Before leaving for that fatal attempt on Everest in 1924, he visited Kathleen, the widow of Captain Scott, and confessed to friends he was in two minds about whether he should leave his own wife and small children in Cambridge. In a way many will recognize, he never quite made the decision himself but let others make it for him. The Everest committee were determined that their finest climber would be part of the team, and Mallory’s wife Ruth did not want to be seen to dissuade him from going."

And at the root of the tragedy it's implied lay technicalities yes, as Mallory didn't want to go with pragmatic complement George Finch again.

But the underlying culprit seems to be the apparent lack of choice he must have felt in context; boiling down all the way to Francis Younghusband and his goal to "conquer Everest" for Britain (not good old masculinity without skin in his game either btw).

"Now, it appears, Mallory had told the committee, as one of his deferring mechanisms, that he would not think of joining the new expedition if Finch was going; so they fired Finch to persuade Mallory, and he was left with little alternative but to prove he was a better climber on the day, whatever risks might be involved."

3 comments

Doing what others want you to do and going boldly into face great danger in the unknown is a respectable masculine behaviour though. There isn't anything toxic about that, it is the only way that the unknown is going to get explored. I agree that it'd be a much better idea if he'd stayed home to look after his wife and family. But the behaviour isn't toxic, it is still productive. Ill advised without a doubt.

But that is like saying a married man shouldn't join the army. There is a reasonable expectation that some married men will die horribly in service of their society leaving behind widows and orphans. Particularly in the pre-antibiotic era we're talking about when horrible death was a real possibility at any moment anyway.

At least the article implies that he was conflicted about his decision to go at it again. His surroundings pushed him towards that end; see quotes above.

- harmful (to him / his family)

- deplete of choice (context of strong social pressures / authority)

- no benefit other than for colonial grandstanding

I agree with 2/3rds of that but none of it is toxic. You aren't very well going to send women out to get themselves killed and being pressured into it is a good thing. Men aren't supposed to go out and get themselves killed for nothing, they're only supposed to do that when someone else tells them to. A key point of responsible manliness is accepting that you have a responsibility to support your community and that might require you to make some sacrifices. Hopefully not death, but that is very much on the table. If a death is going to be involved in that era they were going to be making sure that it is a man who dies because the alternative was a woman who are much more important at a societal level.

How else do you see them figuring out what is at the top of Everest? Someone had to go up and have a look. It is like spaceflight or exploring the oceans; death is highly likely for the first few people who attempt it but someone had to do it. They couldn't send a drone up - they didn't have them.

> no benefit other than for colonial grandstanding

This is the one I disagree on - they're dealing with the unknown. They didn't know very much about climbing tall mountains like the Everest. The point of that sort of thing is they don't know if there is anything worthwhile about the act or not, and they deal with that by doing it to see what happens.

The colonisation process was horrible but undeniably hugely beneficial to the European powers. "Colonial Grandstanding" of this sort turned out to be hugely net positive to the countries doing it on average.

The risk taking personality type has always been with us, and the thing is, they'll take risks whether it's necessary or not. I think we can all agree they're pretty good to have around when the shit hits the fan.

Again, I would suggest Wade Davis's book, which goes into this into much more detail and has a strong point of view on this.