Writes Chris Hippensteel, in "To Confront My Fear of Heights, I Crossed a Chasm on a Cable/A jittery hiker signed up for a via ferrata tour on the cliffs of an Adirondacks gorge. Here’s what he learned on the ledges, rungs and exposed bridges" (NYT gift link).
So it's like a roller coaster or a horror movie — packaged, safe fear. You're not really experiencing what Kierkegaard was talking about because you've got a harness and are always clipped to the cable. You don't have the freedom to jump.
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I've tried to read Fear and Trembling several times. I just couldn't follow his argument. Probably because I've never experienced any deep existential or spiritual crisis.
That being said, is Mr. Hippensteel anxious in the window seat at 35,000 feet when a bit of turbulence hits ?
It looks like he has soren butt in that AI image.
The fear of heights is, obviously, an entirely functional reaction and not something to be conquered so much as calibrated to one's agility, fitness, and survival-vs-security needs. Those who start with armchair philosophy over simple biological-evolutionary interpretations of life tend to wander off topic.
Human prehistory: Lucky to survive into adulthood and die of old age instead of getting hit in the head, stabbed, infected, dying during childbirth, or falling off a rooftop.
Human virtual and social media era: Lucky to experience true cause and effect relationships, as everything is an algorithm with modeled rules and as 'money' is an abstract number and as no one other than cell phone tower workers need to climb on steel cables except for recreation.
I made the image...
I distinguish fear of heights from fear of falling. And what K was talking about was a fear of *freedom*. When you're on a via ferrata, there is no freedom.
Heights vs. falling? A distinction without a difference IMO. Humans are pre-wired for a bunch of things formerly known as 'instincts,' ranging from the rooting reflex, Babinski reflex, snakes, etc. Falling is linked to heights directly.
Additionally, babies avoid cliffs very early. See the 1960 research below where baby humans and other animals reacted to a pit covered with glass. The height/falling fear is a core survival need for complex animals that move around on uneven ground.
Also see how this has been turned into adult tourist attractions of glass walkways along cliff edges at the Grand Canyon, in Switzerland, China, etc.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/visual-cliff-experiment.html
Height vs falling is a real distinction. I have no problem being in an aircraft, a building, or even standing on a roof. Don't ask me to get near the edge though.
The innate fear of heights is closely related to that of snakes and spiders.
Or maybe Kierkegaard is just wrong about why people experience vertigo.
I mean, in my case, I definitely experience anxiety about too much freedom at times: I want metes and bounds, rules, norms, and I suffer from analysis paralysis regularly. But that's not at all what's going on for me when I stand close to a dropoff.
It's an interesting idea, but, standing at a precipice, a normal person becomes instantly and acutely aware of the possibility that something might go wrong— and with it, the dizzying breadth of human fallibility. They don't sit their thinking, "Geez...I hope I don't jump."
You have the freedom to unhook your carabiner and then jump.
Years ago I took a philosophy course at the University of Wisconsin which included Kierkagaard.. The lecturer pronounced the name as a Danish person would. This left us students divided over the correct pronunciation to use in discussing him, some opting for Danish and some for standard Midwestern English..
As dbp said, you can unhook the carabiner and let go whenever you want.
I wonder if any participants ever unhook the carabiner while clinging to the ladder to get the full effect.
Will I? Why not? Jump.
Isn't this how Joe Rogan started in show business?
Speaking of playground gyms, talk about untethered danger--back in the day, when they were all metal and located on blacktop behind your average elementary school (mine was in a small town in Illinois, back in the '60s). No tethers there. And we'd do all kinds of dangerous things. We'd also used those old, metal stand-up bike racks, also on blacktop, as balance beams, probably inspired by the Olympics. (Yes, I had scabs pretty throughout my entire childhood--knees, elbows, palms, shins, occasional chins.)
Definitely freedom, though.
In the middish aughts, when we lived in Iowa, we traveled to Monmouth, IL, to visit that small town. First, we walked from the house my family had lived in to my elementary school. This was to prove to my husband that, yes, in fact, I had indeed walked, sometimes ran, a mile to school (that trek was four times a day, because there was no cafeteria and everyone went home for lunch).
When we got to the school, there was a new playground, all bouncy soft service, no sharp ends, etc. etc. But when you walked to the other side, the original playground was still there. (Had they just not removed it yet? I'll never know, having never been back since.) I'd say: "You'll never guess which one my very young son at the time gravitated toward," except of course you will!!!
That pull of freedom, the frisson of danger... .
We did let him play on the old-style equipment. It was fun.
But we did hover around him, in a way in which my parents never would have, not in a million years. It wouldn't have occurred to them, and we went there all of the time, even outside school hours, without a second thought on our part or our parents".
Are kids allowed to have scabs today? I mean, outside of organized sports, maybe?
Althouse, I like that your image has him on a wooden roller coaster (or am I "mis-seeing" that?). That's a cool image.
If people had more dangerous childhoods in more modern times, would they be more or less inclined to thrill-seeking hobbies? I don't know the answer, but now the question is knocking about in my mind, however unbidden.
Soren obviously never met Timmy the Whale.
Timmy died from the anxiety of being misgendered.
41% of misgendered whales beach themselves. It's proven science.
So Hippensteel went to the chasm and gazed into the abyss and the abyss gazed back into him and now he's more scared than ever.
Dreams (or nightmares) of falling are what instill the fear in the first place. My fear of heights is triggered in situations where I'm unable to catch myself in the event of mistake or supervening human intervention rather than a fear of jumping intentionally.
Don’t get me started on my fear of heights. It’s odd and particular. No roller coasters, no high towers to climb and look at a view, hate any roads with drop offs. But…I handled doing a ropes course up in trees and climbed up a high telephone pole to stand up with no help at the top. Because I knew I was latched in. The reasoning part of my brain kicked in. I wonder if I could ride the ski lifts at Mammoth ever again.
When I was young I would jump off a 40 foot cliff into the ocean wearing full scuba gear. (Put your mask and fins over one of your arms so you don't lose them.) But as I got older I developed a fear of heights.
If you really want to challenge your fear of heights, try this tour.
https://chatgpt.com/c/6a638794-145c-83ea-820b-3630a8a653f1
Soarin' Kirkegaard?
I believe Sartre’s response was To claim that the person on the precipice had to struggle against the urge to fling oneself over the edge. Kierkegaard’s The sickness unto death was strangely uplifting when I wrestled with despair
I know on first thought that the idea of fear of freedom seems absurd. But once released from the hell of despair, it is freedom that beckons and it could be very frightening. For me that fear was at the core of everything. I think that it is fear of freedom that drives people to fanatical ideologies. In fact, it drives people to anything that binds the terror whether it be drugs or alcohol or success or prestige and of course sex.
It’s too bad anti-depressants weren’t available then. They cured Existentialism.
"Dear Soren, the thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night. Your pal, Nietzsche"
The offer of death is always sobering. You can hop onto the carriage before your turn, but, no worry it you don't. The carriage will kindly wait for you if you decline on that particular day.
Ann Althouse said...
I made the image...
Damn it! I was so pleased to think Kierkegaard did roller coasters.
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