[MF] Is the pinnacle of human experience...

[Kevin Perez]

Thanks again Ted.
   
  >  Kevin, I'm not sure I completely accept your premise that ZMM has  little
> to say about personal relationships.  I think I know what you  mean, (with all
> the focus on gumptionology  welding, tappets, and  philosophy) but perhaps
> what it says about relationships is indirect.
>
>   Recall also that Pirsig states his own personality/life  pattern was 
> stronger in the intellectual areas, and weak in the social  areas.  His passion
> for intellectual ideas admittedly led him to have  personal relationship
> problems with everyone, including himself.   That's not unusual.  The history
> of great thinkers in science and the arts  are full of personal tragedy... often
> associated with the mental/spiritual  sacrifice required to serve the art.
> That doesn't necessarily mean the art is bad.  Or that the artist  doesn't
> know that community is important, family is important, love is  important,
> personal relationships are important.
   
  Yes.  I think I might be more satisfied with his thesis if Pirsig had chosen to
limit his "inquiry into values" with the application of Zen to motorcycle
maintenance.  But he didn't.  His thesis is that Quality is the source of all
things.  In his exposition of preintellectual reality (ZMM, Chapter 20) he states,
   
       The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans.  The
     present is our only reality. The tree that you are aware of intellectually,
     because of that small time lag, is always in the past and therefore is always
     unreal. Any intellectually conceived object is always in the past and
     therefore unreal. Reality is always the moment of vision before the
     intellectualization takes place. There is no other reality. This preintellectual
     reality is what Phædrus felt he had properly identified as Quality. Since all
     intellectually identifiable things must emerge from this preintellectual reality,
     Quality is the parent, the source of all subjects and objects.
   
  Pirsig's Quality is the source of everything: philosophy, metaphysics, science,
technology, art, religion, mysticism, God, and people and their interpersonal
relationships.  He develops connections between Quality and science and
Quality and technology and Quality and philosophy and Quality and
metaphysics.  But the only connection he's developed between Quality and
everything else - the only one I've been able to see - is a connection to insanity.
   
       The current subject-object point of view of religion, conventionally muted so
     as not to stir up the fanatics, is that religious mysticism and insanity are
     the same. Religious mysticism is intellectual garbage. It's a vestige of the
     old superstitious Dark Ages when nobody knew anything and the whole
     world was sinking deeper and deeper into filth and disease and poverty and
     ignorance. It is one of those delusions that isn't called insane only because
     there are so many people involved. (Lila, p. ?)
   
  It's plain to see why he chose this connection, given his history and all.  For
Pirsig, it was the easy connection to make.  I think you're right Ted.  I think
Pirsig chose to limit the development of his thesis to things he knew about
first hand.  But I wouldn't be so quick to judge his failure to develop the
other connections, the connections to art, religion, mysticism, God, people
and their interpersonal relationships.  I don't see parallels between the
connections he did make and the ones he didn't make.  I think if he were to
have looked more closely at the "soft" stuff he'd see that his thesis really
isn't that original.  And because of the egoist issues that Phaedurs
suffered/suffers from I wonder about the genuineiness of his choice not to
develop these other connections.
   
  >  Is ZMM meaningful for working women & others in  struggle?  I don't know.
> I agree it seems male-oriented,  but I first heard of  ZMM in 75 from my
> former (first)  girlfriend, in 72.  She was a special ed. teacher, working with
> autistic  kids.  She thought it was a 'fine, fine book'.
> I think it may be harder to get the full feeling of it as the 70's recede
> into history.  That 'groovy dimension' was palpable then as a cultural
> reference point.  Young readers in to 00's and 10's may not understand 60's
> & 70's culture.
>
> How does "the whole thing look odd?" regarding relationships.   Can you be
> more specific?  What do you feel is missing, or what did you  want him to
> say?
   
  I'd like to look into this.  But it will have to be in tomorrow's post.  Got to get
ready for work now.
 
> In a general way, could we say that what you (or I) think is missing  from
> ZMM says as much about you (or I) as it says about Pirsig the author,
> Pirsig the narrator, or Phaedrus?
>
> (Thanks for the Merton quote.  I don't think Buddhism is the problem,
> either.)
>
> & thanks for the dialog...
   
  Thank you Ted!  I am truly enjoying this conversation.  I hope the others don't
mind.
   
  Take care.
   
  
Kevin

		
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