Dunn offers a more skeptical but more believable answer to one of the questions we've been asking all semester: Why climb/explore/risk your life? Dunn argues that neither exploration and science are the real reasons for adventure. He claims that the real reason is "primordial restlessness" but that adventurers cannot articulate this. So, they resort to more concrete and noble causes, such as science. "In the name of science" is a defense that average people can accept as reasonable and even honorable. It might even relieve adventurers of their reckless stigma. However, Dunn insists that beneath it all is a restlessness. This explanations fits with other texts we've read. Many of the climbers have troubled romantic relationships before the climbs, and others' relationships fail upon returning from their adventure. The restlessness that these adventurers feel seems to make everyday life unbearable and turns adventuring into their retreat, the only temporary cure for their restlessness.
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