Powerband

Leaning on a bookcase

Ω We all know that being a rock climbing superstar is basically the pinnacle of humanity; Thatcher and co. get all the glory and all the girls and all the gold all the time. But where would they be without the punters, choppers and bumblies? Bumblies make good climbers look good, without them good climbers would just be climbers! It’s about time the function of climbing spastics was recognised and rewarded and for this reason it is my pleasure to announce the establishment of New Zealand’s first ever anti-meritorious bouldering award.  The John Rawls Memorial Award For Ground-Up Bouldering And Social Justice will be presented annually to a deserving individual. This individual will receive a monetary prize consisting of the remainder of JP’s expenses account (lovingly granted to him by his generous wife) once his airfares have been deducted. The winner of the award will also receive an official ‘Veil of Ignorance’ cape provided by Christchurch’s only bouldering cape manufacturers Capeability™. They will be required to make a speech at the formal presentation (t.b.a.).

For those unfamiliar with the work and life of John Rawls, the following is some detail about the philosophy behind the award. John Rawls was a massive figure in American Political Philsosophy, holding a chair at Harvard until his death in 2002. He advocated a theory of social justice based upon principles of fairness that everyone ‘would’ agree to under optimal objective conditions (the so-called ‘veil of ignorance’). In other words, if we could all reason in the womb, prior to our knowledge of the place in society we would be born into, what conditions of social justice would we all agree to? Rawls thought this approach would lead all to agree upon a MAXIMIN policy for the distribution of wealth; accepting that not everyone will be equal, we should want those in the worst-off positions to be as well-off as possible. This is opposed to a ‘make the rich as rich as possible and wait for their dregs to trickle down to the rest of us’ approach. So, if your bums and losers are all wearing rolex watches and driving pimped-out lexi then supposedly society won’t be so unjust because everyone else will be even better off (iphones and Rolls Royces we presume). For those of you who think philosophy isn’t very sexy, I’d like to point out that Rawls married a fox.

The point of this award is to bring Rawl’s ideas to bouldering. Therefore, boulderers who have climbed V10 during the year will not be eligible (even those who have climbed a 10 but downgraded it to 9, nobody likes a show-off). Furthermore, those boulderers who have climbed something harder than V10 will never be eligible in any future presentations of the award. Only those boulderers who have performed the worst over the year will be in the running. So if you have an acquaintance ( we won’t make you call the loser a friend) who constantly falls off stuff you find easy, nominate them. If you know someone who always falls off after the crux, nominate them. If you are spotting someone and they keep putting their feet in the wrong place and barn-dooring off and missing the pads, nominate them. If you’ve heard of someone who is comfortably getting halfway up V9s (but presumably finding the top half less-comfortable), nominate them. If you know someone that can’t mantle, nominate them. If you wear socks inside your climbing shoes, nominate yourself. Ω