[MF] Is the pinnacle of human experience a rational or irrational thing?

[Kevin Perez]

  One thing about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that disappoints me is its
  overemphasis on the rational and the intellectual.  This approach leaves out whole
  areas of human experience, namely faith, hope and love.  The following quote from
  ZMM demonstrates this.
   
       "Phædrus' mad pursuit of the rational, analytic and therefore technological
       meaning of the word "Quality" was really a pursuit of the answer to the whole
       problem of technological hopelessness. So it seems to me, anyway.  So I backed
       up and shifted to the classic-romantic split that I think underlies the whole
       humanist-technological problem. But that too required a backup into the meaning
       of Quality.  But to understand the meaning of Quality in classic terms required a
       backup into metaphysics and its relationship to everyday life. To do that required
       still another backup into the huge area that relates both metaphysics and everyday
       life...namely, formal reason. So I proceeded with formal reason up into
       metaphysics and then into Quality and then from Quality back down into
       metaphysics and science.  Now we go still further down from science into
       technology, and I do believe that at last we are where I wanted to be in the first
       place."
   
  This quote also captures the essence of the Metaphysics of Quality and its
  categorization of things intellectual as the pinnacle of man's experience.
   
  The following two quotes, also from ZMM, explain more than just the source of Pirsig's
  pathology.  They explain why the non-rational, high country of human experience,
  faith, hope and love, are not developed in the MOQ.
   
       "[...] the English faculty at Bozeman, informed of their squareness, presented him
       with a reasonable question: "Does this undefined `quality' of yours exist in the
       things we observe?" they asked. "Or is it subjective, existing only in the observer?"
   
       "Why he chose to disregard this advice and chose to respond to this dilemma
       logically and dialectically rather than take the easy escape of mysticism, I don't
       know. But I can guess. I think first of all that he felt the whole Church of Reason
       was irreversibly in the arena of logic, that when one put oneself outside logical
       disputation, one put oneself outside any academic consideration whatsoever.
       Philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is indefinable and can be apprehended
       only by nonrational means, has been with us since the beginning of history. It's the
       basis of Zen practice. But it's not an academic subject. The academy, the Church
       of Reason, is concerned exclusively with those things that can be defined, and if
       one wants to be a mystic, his place is in a monastery, not a University.
       Universities are places where things should be spelled out.  I think a second
       reason for his decision to enter the arena was an egoistic one. He knew himself to
       be a pretty sharp logician and dialectician, took pride in this and looked upon this
       present dilemma as a challenge to his skill. I think now that trace of egotism may
       have been the beginning of all his troubles."
   
  I see in this explanation the reason why the MOQ has its present delineation.  The elevation of man's intellect above all else has an egoistic motivation.  Pirsig's pursuit
  of quality seems to have been one-sided, ending only with explanation of rational
  quality.
   
  Any thoughts?
   
   
  Kevin Perez


			
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