[MD] Romantic/Classic knowledge vs quality

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Declan]
Am I missing something?

[Arlo]
This may be slightly off your topic, but I've always thought the most 
important part of ZMM was in reuniting "art" with everyday activity. 
That is, what both the classisists and the romanticists got wrong was 
that "art" was divorced from other forms of human activity into a 
realm of particular behaviors. We (in the general sense) tend(ed) to 
see "art" as a very specific subset of painting, theatre, music, 
literature, etc. What ZMM resolved was that "art" was an 
aesthetic/Quality that could be (and should be) (and IS) an integral 
part of everything from building rotisseries to repairing a 
motorcycle to welding a chain guard.

In ZMM, both the classisists and the romanticists were seeing "art" 
from its old perspective, the classisist shrugged off "art" as 
un-important or trivial (syrup of style kind of stuff), while the 
romanticists were seeing "art" as a bounded domain of particular 
activity (drumming or painting or the like). The "rotisserie builder" 
and the "abstract sculptor", Pirsig reminded us, are both "artists" 
when they follow Quality in their particular activity. Thus the 
resolution to the romantic/classic divide is a larger view that 
begins with a redefinition of "art" and its relation to everyday, 
lived "life".

IMHO.