One Climber, One Vote: The Case for Democratic Grades
- Matthias Deligniere
- Apr 28
- 6 min read
The strongest climbers often claim the right to decide the grade. But are they actually right? Between philosophy of perception, collective intelligence, and beef carcasses, a few well-tested ideas suggest that the climbing crowd may be more reliable than the elite. Grades are not aristocratic. They are democratic. Here is why.
A while back, a new route had just gone up at my gym. As usual, everyone could try it before the grade was announced. I sent it — climbed it cleanly, without falling — but it felt harder than it had looked from the ground. I had to fight all the way to the anchor. Trying to be careful, I suggested 5.11c, maybe 5.11d — roughly 6c+/7a in French grades. That triggered a small storm of sharp comments: “Why not call it 5.12b while you’re at it?” The grade was set at 5.11b. End of discussion.
Holds and Biases
That little episode captures the tension between two ways of thinking about grades.
The first is basically aristocratic. It assumes that the “right” grade should reflect the simplest possible method, and therefore the lowest reasonable proposal. But the stronger you are, the easier the climb will feel. So the strongest climbers end up setting the grade for everyone else.
Across from that is a more democratic model. It starts from a much simpler premise: everyone gets a say, regardless of ability, and the grade should settle around the average of those opinions. That means the final grade may be higher than what the strongest climbers think.
Of course, you will often hear strong climbers defend the first approach. That makes sense. They are protecting their turf. As for me, I lean toward the democratic model. Partly because I am not one of them, and I have no desire to be steamrolled by the strongest people in the room. But mostly because there are serious arguments against the aristocratic view.
Start with the word itself. Aristocracy means rule by “the best.” But as a friend once reminded me, a climber can be very strong and still be almost impressively stupid. So it is not clear why physical ability should give their opinion any extra weight.
The obvious reply is that getting strong takes time. It means climbing a lot, encountering different styles, and building experience. So maybe the strong climber — or more accurately, the experienced climber — can claim a special status. The strong climber is not just physically strong. They are a better climber because they have climbed more.
It is entirely possible that stronger and more experienced climbers perceive holds as bigger than they actually are
Which brings me to my second point.
In Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty argues that our perceptions are not neutral reflections of the objects around us. They are shaped by our bodies, our histories, our experience, and everything we have learned to do. And because perception comes first, it affects our ideas and judgments about the world.
This idea, often discussed in English as “embodied perception,” sits at the center of a 2014 study by Rob Gray, published in the International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology and cited in an excellent video by Kris Hampton, the American climber, coach, and content creator. Gray argues that what we perceive is not a faithful picture of “what is out there,” but rather a reflection of our ability to act on the objects around us. In sports, that means experts and less advanced athletes may literally perceive the same objects differently.
To show this, Gray draws on several experiments. In one example, golfers perceive the hole as larger or smaller depending on their own ability.
Grades: A Fool's Trap
There is no reason to believe climbers are magically exempt from these biases. On the contrary, as Hampton points out, it is entirely possible that stronger and more experienced climbers perceive holds as bigger than they actually are. For them, the difficulty shrinks in proportion. So we have to let go of the idea that the strongest climbers are automatically better at grading. Their strength and experience may actually push them to underestimate the difficulty.
The same is true in the other direction. Beginners and weaker climbers will tend to overestimate it. In short, no one has a clean, objective ability to judge the difficulty of a movement, whether we are talking about hitting a golf drive or climbing 5.10a.
“Basically, the routesetter proposes a grade. They do not grade it. After that, the whole group of climbers determines the grade. So it is the community that gives the grade”
A climber interviewed
So much for the aristocratic model. The strongest climbers are not “better” simply because they are strong. Their voices do not get special treatment.
Does that mean we should prefer a democratic grade, where every voice counts equally? Maybe. But then we have to accept that Gary, two months into climbing and three 5.10a sends to his name, is just as relevant as Claudine, whose tick list is packed with 5.12b routes. Rejecting the aristocratic model means admitting that beginners and bad climbers get the same say as the best and strongest climbers.
Is that really reasonable?
Grade-A Beef
In one passage of Politics, Aristotle argues that the opinion of an uninformed crowd can be better than the opinion of the best person in that crowd. Bring together a large number of people with different views, let them speak freely, and you will hear all kinds of opinions. Among them, the best answer is more likely to appear than it would be if you asked only one or two specialists. The crowd increases the odds of finding the right answer because it multiplies the number of answers. A kind of collective intelligence emerges from all that individual ignorance.
Sir Francis Galton confirmed this by accident at the end of the 19th century.
Galton, an English aristocrat who wanted to prove that crowds were stupid and that power should be given to “the best,” came up with a small experiment. At a country fair, he asked people to estimate the weight of an ox carcass. Among the 787 guesses he kept, some were more ridiculous than others. But against all expectations, and much to our aristocrat’s disappointment, the crowd’s average estimate was accurate to within a pound. The expert butchers were farther off.
With grades, as with beef, we might conclude that the crowd’s opinion is actually the better one.
The average of the beginners, the strong climbers, the tall, the short, the young, the old, the disabled climbers, everyone — assuming each person gives the most honest and independent opinion possible — is more reliable than the view of the strong climbers, the experienced climbers, the 5.13 and 5.14 climbers, and everyone else who claims to be “better” and reserves for themselves one very specific power: the power to “call the grade,” the way others claim the right to “lay down the law.”
Because grading is power. It is a tool of control, a way for a few people to impose their opinion and judgment on everyone else.
That is why grading cannot be an individual act. As one climber told me recently, “Basically, the routesetter proposes a grade. They do not grade it. After that, the whole group of climbers determines the grade. So it is the community that gives the grade.”
In that sense, grading looks a lot like voting. Each person proposes, just as each person votes. But the grade itself is like the election. It belongs to the group, based on all the opinions expressed. Grading is the sovereign act of the whole community. It cannot be seized by a minority on the grounds of special competence, because the group as a whole is always better than even its best individuals.
So the next time you wonder how hard the thing you just climbed really was, give your most honest opinion without letting yourself be influenced by everyone else. Then compare it with as many other opinions as possible.
Because the sum of your judgments will be far more reliable than the word of the best climber in the world. And in doing so, you will have fulfilled your duty as a climber-citizen.
