[MD] Patterns

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
As for those who may think Pirsig doesn't 
acknowledge the existence and importance of the individual (self)...

[Arlo]
Not this talk-radio crap again. We had been doing so well...

[Platt]
... the following from ZAMM should prove of interest:

[Arlo]
I wholeheartedly agree with Pirsig, we do need to 
return to encouraging individual excellence, integrity and worth.

I took a look at the totality of ZMM's sentiments 
back in 2006, and wrote a short bit on what we 
can consider to be this "individual excellence" 
Pirsig was getting at. I copied it below for those who did not see it before.

We also have to consider that Pirsig begins by 
saying this "Phaedrus went a different path from 
the idea of individual, personal Quality 
decisions. I think it was a wrong one...", but 
yet we know that Pirsig does not think it was a 
wrong one at all, as Phaedrus' path is truly 
Pirsig's path. We see Pirsig describing Phaedrus' 
path as  "the solution started with a new 
philosophy, or he saw it as even broader than 
that...a new spiritual rationality...in which the 
ugliness and the loneliness and the spiritual 
blankness of dualistic technological reason would 
become illogical. Reason was no longer to be 
"value free." Reason was to be subordinate, 
logically, to Quality..." Its quite evident that 
Phaedrus' "wrong path" is not "wrong at all" but 
the path that Pirsig ends at with the formulation of the MOQ.

And, we should also take ZMM in full, and recall 
that the root problem for Pirsig was that "Reason 
and Quality had become separated and in conflict 
with each other and Quality had been forced under 
and reason made supreme somewhere back then 
[Ancient Greece]". (ZMM)  And, this is important, 
the "lack of individual worth" he laments in this 
passage is a fallout from the mass production era 
that removed "artisanship" from labor. He writes, 
in ZMM, "[Individuals] are sustained by 
structural relationships even when they have lost 
all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a 
factory and perform a totally meaningless task 
from eight to five without question because the 
structure demands that it be that way. There's no 
villain, no "mean guy" who wants them to live 
meaningless lives, it's just that the structure, 
the system demands it and no one is willing to 
take on the formidable task of changing the 
structure just because it is meaningless." (ZMM)

He sums up this alienation in the following way. 
"Along the streets that lead away from the 
apartment he can never see anything through the 
concrete and brick and neon but he knows that 
buried within it are grotesque, twisted souls 
forever trying the manners that will convince 
themselves they possess Quality, learning strange 
poses of style and glamour vended by dream 
magazines and other mass media, and paid for by 
the vendors of substance. He thinks of them at 
night alone with their advertised glamorous shoes 
and stockings and underclothes off, staring 
through the sooty windows at the grotesque shells 
revealed beyond them, when the poses weaken and 
the truth creeps in, the only truth that exists 
here, crying to heaven, God, there is nothing 
here but dead neon and cement and brick." (ZMM)

So by all means, let's consider the totality of 
ZMM, of what Pirsig was saying there. Let's not 
only consider the value of "individual worth" but 
why Pirsig felt this value had been "depleted".

===========

In ZMM, Pirsig addresses this point [individual 
excellence] many times. For example, he says...

"I like the word "gumption" because it’s so 
homely and so forlorn and so out of style it 
looks as if it needs a friend and isn’t likely to 
reject anyone who comes along. It’s an old 
Scottish word, once used a lot by pioneers, but 
which, like "kin," seems to have all but dropped 
out of use. I like it also because it describes 
exactly what happens to someone who connects with 
Quality. He gets filled with gumption.

The Greeks called it enthousiasmos, the root of 
"enthusiasm." which means literally "filled with 
theos," or God, or Quality. See how that fits?

A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around 
dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the 
front of the train of his own awareness, watching 
to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption."

Okay. About "gumption", Pirsig noted two types of 
traps that drain it away, "set backs" and "hang 
ups". Let's step away from set backs, and focus 
on hang up. Mainly because I think by examing the 
characterists that create "hang ups", and drain 
gumption, we can posit that the reverse of these 
would be someone "in touch with Quality".

The first is "value rigidity". Someone trapped by 
this is not able to respond to Quality, so I'd 
posit that "value flexibility" is an important 
characteristic of a "Quality principled person".

The next is "ego", also a frequent cause of 
"value rigidity". Hence I'd posit that 
"egolessness" or "modesty" is another 
characteristic of the "Quality principled person".

Next, "anxiety" or fear of failure. Since this is 
the opposite of "ego" (in the gumption traps), 
I'd again posit that "egolessness" is again the Quality antonymic pole.

Next, "boredom". Hence I'd say (with Pirsig) that 
the characteristic opposite this is having a "beginner’s mind".

"Impatience" comes next, so I'd posit "patience" 
would indeed be a characteristic of the "Quality principled person".

So far, then, we have the "Quality principled 
person" as one who is filled with gumption, 
posseses value flexibility, is egoless, has a beginner's mind and is patient.

Also, as I posted many times, Pirsig's 
description of arete, as someone who is in touch 
with Quality BEFORE S/O dualism breaks that attachment, goes as such.

"Thus the hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, 
a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout 
heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must 
endure without too much complaining what the gods 
send; and he can both build and sail a boat, 
drive a furrow as straight as anyone, beat a 
young braggart at throwing the discus, challenge 
the Pheacian youthat boxing, wrestling or 
running; flay, skin, cut up and cook an ox, and 
be moved to tears by a song. He is in fact an 
excellent all-rounder; he has surpassing areté.

Areté implies a respect for the wholeness or 
oneness of life, and a consequent dislike of 
specialization. It implies a contempt for 
efficiency...or rather a much higher idea of 
efficiency, an efficiency which exists not in one 
department of life but in life itself."

So we add to our original list of 
"characteristics of the Quality principled 
person" and come up with the following.

A "Quality principled person" is someone who 
respects the oneness of life. S/he is patient, 
egoless and possesses a "beginner's mind". S/he 
holds her values flexibley, and can be seen as 
filled with gumption. S/he dislikes 
specialization, and is an excellect all-arounder.

But we can go somewhat further. Consider Pirsig's 
discussion of the wall in Korea. "It was 
beautiful because the people who worked on it had 
a way of looking at things that made them do it 
right unselfconsciously. They didn’t separate 
themselves from the work in such a way as to do 
it wrong. There is the center of the whole solution."

The aforementioned description is evidence in the 
craft of the individual. As the welder who did 
beautiful work on Pirsig's chain guard. So let's 
then consider this final description.

A "Quality principled person" is someone who 
respects the oneness of life. S/he is patient, 
egoless and possesses a "beginner's mind". S/he 
holds her values flexibley, and can be seen as 
filled with gumption. S/he dislikes 
specialization, and is an excellect all-arounder. 
In her/his work, she demonstrates no division 
between art and practice, and her/his work can be 
seen as possessing beauty because of their 
unselfconscious way of looking at things.