There is, in other words, and upside and a downside to men's greater taste for risk. I don't know how many of the men falling or freezing to death up on K2 had children, but I know that no children are going to lose their mother up there on the mountain this time.
Women -- feminism aside -- have always looked at this male propensity for risk with a double-edged vision. On the one hand, we cannot help human nature: The successful man, who braves risks and emerges triumphant carries a fascination for both women and other men that, well, the evolutionary biologists can have a field day with. At the same time, we look askance at the way our own desires pull us into a relationship with this strange, opposite sex, with his odd priorities and who does these bizarre things for reasons that no woman, I think, can ever fully understand.
The saddest part of it all is how senseless these 11 deaths are. The Marines rushing into urban conflict in Anbar province I can wholeheartedly admire. The firemen who ran into the burning towers of 9/11 and lost their lives, I remember in my prayers with gratitude and admiration.
But somehow we live in a world where not enough men find real avenues for masculine achievement. They are moved to take enormous risks, like climbing K2, for no particular reason in a world that (apparently) offers them insufficient real outlets for their heroism.
To the 11 dead on K2: Salute! We used to send such men out to explore new continents, conquer frontiers or defeat the barbarians.
Now 11 good men have lost their lives climbing a mountain for no particular reason. Because it was there, they no longer are.
What a magnificent waste!