According to the buying patterns I saw online, readers are thinking in the latter terms and placing it in the company of books on the thoughtful end of the running spectrum. Intrinsic value and running – the marketing team at Pegasus Books, the original publishers, must have wondered whether to present Running with the Pack as a running book for philosophers, or as a philosophy book for runners.
For Rowlands, our status as embodied creatures who have evolved in our particular way determines the kinds of intrinsic values accessible to us.
But the way Rowlands puts it is, “The inescapable conclusion seems to be that our modern sedentary life is one for which we have not been designed and for which, at least biologically, we are poorly equipped… We are happiest and healthiest when we live our history, and so become what we are” (p.67) – by for instance, running. The kinds of evolutionary reasons that have made this so have received significant attention over the past several years, especially thanks to the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (2010), about ultra-runners. That puts him at odds with the instrumental reasons many runners have for running – doing work that pays off but for Rowlands, “At its best, and its most valuable, running is play not work” (p.9). Rowlands identifies in contemporary society an obsession with instrumental values – the valuing of the utilitarian, efficient, productive – and says that this obsession distances us from the joys that are available to those who participate regularly in life’s intrinsic values. He’s also able to appreciate the important distinction between instrumental and intrinsic value, and he builds his case for the place of running in a flourishing human life in terms of this distinction. I’m not being rude here: in Running with the Pack: Thoughts from the Road on Meaning and Mortality, he himself writes, “I suppose the most important and obvious fact about me as a distance runner is this: I am not very good at it.” Nevertheless, Rowlands enjoys running. Mark Rowlands, for instance, is an undistinguished runner. However, plenty of slow runners love it as much as or even more than their more gifted compatriots. Initially you might think that it’s the fast ones – those who are ‘good’ at running – who enjoy it most. If you watch carefully you’ll be able to distinguish between those who run to accomplish something (calorie burning, usually) and those who are running because they love it. Go to your local park and watch the runners. SUBSCRIBE NOW Books Running With The Pack by Mark Rowlands Scott F.
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