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pc
climber
East of Seattle
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 2, 2006 - 08:02pm PT
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For some reason I always thought Warren Harding came up with the quote: "At either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure clase"
Only to recently have it pointed out that some dude named Eric Beck authored it.
Anyone know about its origin?
thx.
pc
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Predates beck iirc...voltaire?
See also: Catfish
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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LOL... "...some dude Eric Beck..."
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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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I did a paper on climbing in high school ,that started with that exact line but I can't remember back that far. It surely wasn't WH, ( he worked and made decent money when he did), maybe RR ?
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Funny, but when I saw the thread title I just knew what quote you were referring to. Yes, I always heard it credited to Eric Beck, and that's what google offers up if you search the term.
eric beck in recent times:
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Tom
Big Wall climber
San Luis Obispo CA
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He defined conspicuous leisure as the waste of time by people to give themselves higher status. As examples, he noted that to be a "gentleman", a man must study such things as the ethics of batheading and the fine art of runout slab climbing, which have no economic value in themselves.
 RE: Thorstein Veblen, c. 1899
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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I thought it was Pratt?
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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The idea probably was voiced 100s of years ago, but Eric re-coined it.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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This incomparable quote is Eric's. I even heard him say it back in about 1973? or so, maybe even earlier. He was hanging out in Camp Four for awhile, as kind of a reprise on his earlier career, then. Brilliant character, and ever so funny.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Peter,
You should probably get some wall experience before you comment here.
Thanks
Juan
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pc
climber
East of Seattle
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Topic Author's Reply - May 3, 2006 - 01:18am PT
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Good enough for me. Thanks Peter. I googled somewhere that he "coined" it in '65. Wonder what the occasion was...
Juan, Do some homework ;)
pc
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mrtropy
Trad climber
Nor Cal
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Work like mores of a society are for the middle and working class. Hence I am stuck here. J
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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I remember climbing with the late Eric Beck on Daff Dome in Tuolumne in 1975 and recall him using that same quote about a leisure class at either end of the social spectrum. I remember too how he said he used to use the main frame computer at UCB to work a system of investment he had perfected on the stock market. Every time he needed a new car or something, he would go down to Berkeley, play the market with the help of the big main frame, and come back with enough to get whatever he wanted. He was a fiscal conservative before those guys turned neo-con under Ronnie. Funny guy with a real quick wit and a way with higher math. Far ahead of his time.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Hi Peter,
Eric and I shared a winter place in Squaw Valley in 1970 and he was using the line then. In about 1965, the year that he and Frank Sacherer re-routed the DNB and climbed it all free, he was probably one of the best free climbers in Yosemite. He had great stories to tell about climbing in the 60s. Great guy.
Best, Roger
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fareastclimber
Trad climber
Hong Kong & Wales
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I haven't scanned through this thread so I'm just going to chime in... I am very sure that this quote is from a well known sociologist/political scientist. I can find out - unless Beck is an academic?
Edit - right ok... I think radical is right on this... ah it's funny how quotes and knowledge can be accidently credited to another individual...
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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I did a little research, sent an email, and got a response from John Thackray:
"The famously attributed quotation is one that Eric used in his youth. But its true originator is Thorsten Veblen (alas, I can’t cite the work)."
As Roger suggested, it's likely that Eric restated the idea (since the exact phrase doesn't turn up connected to Veblen) but it's a good bet that Eric Beck read "Theory of the Leisure Class."
My wife, who spent childhood summers in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, rubbing shoulders with all the professors and heady academics who infested the area, referred to that time as "the leisure of the theory class."
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Dragon with Matches
climber
Bamboo Grove
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How about
"Courage is grace under pressure."
Was this really from Hemingway, as a google search tells us? Or was he merely repeating something ancient and timeless?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I think this is an interesting exercise in attibuting a quote.... there is a lot of energy around finding someone else who came up with it...anyone other then Eric Beck.
When you look at the list of possible originators, it makes me even more impressed at Beck's coinage. Candidates:
Warren Harding (our own I suppose)
Voltaire
Royal Robbins
Veblen
Chuck Pratt
F. Scott Fitsgerald
probably an idea that has been around as long as humans could have ideas, which is what makes it even more apropos. I don't know Eric Beck personally, but he sounds like a very interesting person with a sharp mind and an inquisitive nature. And he even climbs...
...the picture in the Roper book with Roper and Beck sitting together in Camp 4 discussing something does look like a meeting of athletic 60's nerds...
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Jerry Dodrill
climber
Bodega, CA
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A similar saying is that "snobbery lies at each end of the social spectrum." A friend from St. Helena told me this after attending one of my art events. He wandered across the street from the gallery to our local dive bar all dressed up with his date and ordered drinks. The local fishermen and dairymen just sort of looked at them like, "What planet are YOU from?" The same would happen to them, of course, in Napa Valley.
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Roger Breedlove
Trad climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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As a serious scholarly matter, we must try to resolve the attribution of "At either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure clase." (How about them apples?)
Besides, over the years, someone is always suggesting that the quote has another, earlier source, but no one ever offers one up.
I haven’t found anything which points to another source for this quote. No phrases come close and Veblen’s contribution, which Off White points to, offers the definition of the ‘leisure-class’ but misses the mark on Eric’s wry comment.
Thorstein Veblen, author of Theory of the Leisure Class, 1989 is responsible for introducing 'conspicuous consumption' into the sociological and economic literature. He may also be responsible for the term and definition of the ‘leisure class.’ (Googling ‘leisure class’ without Veblen, gets zero hits.)
Veblen introduces the notion of the “…decayed gentleman and the lady who have seen better days…whose alternative is beggary or privation. Wherever the canon of conspicuous leisure has a chance undisturbed to work out its tendency, there will therefore emerge a secondary, and in a sense spurious, leisure class -- abjectly poor and living in a precarious life of want and discomfort, but morally unable to stoop to gainful pursuits.” Even if Eric’s concept was imbedded in this quote, Eric would win hands down for pith.
Veblen also introduces the idea that the servants of the upper leisure class assimilating the manners of the upper leisure class, which had a leveling affect on the character of society as a whole. But this did not turn them into a lower 'leisure class."
These are only links I could find in Veblen’s work to connect a leisure class to the ‘other end’ of the social spectrum. And Eric’s quip has nothing to do with either of these.
(As a note, some one copied the entire book into a searchable word file available on the net.)
If we are going to find an antecedent notion of the ‘lower’ leisure class, it probably needs to come from a source in a social society where a lower 'leisure class' was possible. I am stretched thin here but examples might be the early lay-about Christians who took the promise of a second coming as an imminent event, actors and entertainers in Shakespeare’s London, and maybe something from Voltaire’s time. There might also be something in Fitzgerald’s time in the Roaring 20s. The 60s also clearly fit.
Any social history sleuths in ST land?
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