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Diana Nyad's swim

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secondhander

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Because hard work is not an end, it is a means to an end. Hard work is praiseworthy when it's for something praiseworthy -- hard work to produce something, to survive and thrive. But it seems to me that people in our subjective culture now think that hard work is praiseworthy in a vacuum. It's not. Hard work is not praiseworthy if it's not accomplishing anything objectively valuable. In Nyad's case, she is swimming a long distance, but why? In the process, she has contributed significant wear and tear to her body, and even may have put her life at greater risk. All that is fine, if it's for a greater value. But what was her value?

 

It so happened that she accomplished the swim and has made a name for herself, which she can now turn into publicity and use her name recognition to advertise for products and make a living. But is that really the best way to go about trying create name recognition to produce the value of advertising capital? And it's clear that that wasn't her chief aim anyway, so her reason for doing the swim is even less admirable. It seems that she was just pushing her body, just to push it, for no actual benefit for herself -- with no production of value in mind.

 

Her swim is an achievement -- but why? She achieved swimming from Cuba to the Keys. But for what purpose? In our culture, I bet they would praise someone trying to swim from California to China, and when he dies trying, they will praise him even more for the sacrifice and the hard work. Lunacy.

Edited by secondhander
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Why should proving to the world that you are capable of something that few are doing be the goal as an end in itself? 

 

"Francisco could do anything he undertook, he could do it better than anyone else, and he did it without effort. There was no boasting in his manner and consciousness, no thought of comparison. His attitude was not: "I can do it better than you," but simply: "I can do it." What he meant by doing was doing superlatively."

 

 

 

 

It seems to me, as I've said, that hard work is not the moral end goal, in a vacuum. Hard work is for a purpose, and is virtuous to the degree to which you are working hard to produce for your survival and thriving -- for your life, coherent with objective values.

 

Sports are played for fun or for profit. There is value in both of those, because the one sustains life, the other is an act of enjoyment and celebration of it.

 

You may say Nyad will make a profit, but (1.) is that a rational way to gain name recognition for a profit; (2.) Her stated purpose was not "making a profit."

 

You may say she did it for fun, but when your leisure activity puts you at a greater risk of death and does great damage to your body through wear and tear and sun damage and the like, thus perhaps hastening an early death, then is it a moral thing to do?

 

The point is, as I've argued, hard work is for the purpose of life, including surviving and thriving. But take all purpose away, and put "hard work" in a vacuum, and I don't think it is noble by itself. If someone were to take a sledge hammer and spend 10 years knocking down a decrepit building, giving himself sores and joint aches and problems in the process, just to say he did it, for no other purpose, is that noble? I'd argue it wasn't.

 

Nyad's swim is like the Rube Goldberg of productive work. 

Edited by secondhander
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Here is a video of a young, champion rock climber. Perhaps you think this is self-destructive as well?:http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/blog/index.php/2012/02/sasha-digiulian-the-sight-of-an-achievement/

 

You tell me. What grounds the value of hard work and productivity? Is hard work an end in itself, or a means to an end? What about leisure activities? Do you think that all activities are just as good as any other? Do you think that leisure activities that push the line of life and death are just as good as any other?

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