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ZAMM
August 11, 2023
MISSING_PIECES
BIBLES
This page needs a
"Zen and the Art of "SHAZ" to go with it,
Motorcycle Maintenance" (1974) doesn't it? Okay,
by Robert M. Pirsig what the hell:
SHAZ
From memory, having read this book twice
while I was a teenager, but not recently:
WBAI
This book begins with an excellent discussion
of the dichotomy between the technological and This dichotomy was even
the natural, and begins stepping through the more popular in the late
ways in which technology is bound up in our 60s/early 70s period than
humanity, using working on motorcycles as it's it is now. The way I first
central example. encountered this book was
hearing Mickey Waldeman
Two key examples: read these passages on
WBAI.
o Tightening a bolt with a
wrench the way we typically do Mickey Waldeman
it requires a sense of touch, was someone who
a feel for how tight is tight worked on her own
enough, but not so tight as to This example is motorcycle, and
risk stripping the threads. undermined somewhat all of this spoke
by the existance of directly to her.
the "torsion
wrench": there are
wrenches that
provide numerically
precise feedback
on how much torque
you're exerting.
An engineer can choose to
take this out of the realm
of "touch" and provide an
exact value of torque to
apply.
o He fixes a friend's problem with
tightening his handlebars by adding a
shim that he makes himself, cutting a
bit of aluminum out of a soda can.
His friend is outraged at this
desecration-- despite the fact that
this works-- and insists that he "get
that thing out of there".
Much of the book is written in the form of
an autobiographical novel, riding around
the country on his motorcycle, with his son
sitting on the back seat.
Memorable details:
In planning his trips, Pirsig likes to
avoid direct straight line routes and
favors curvy roads, because that means
hills and a more interesting ride.
At one point, his kid starts standing up
on the pegs, and Pirsig plays parent,
telling him to stop that "it's dangerous".
His kid responds "No it's not, I can tell."
Pirsig relaxes, thinking "He probably can."
He thinks about it, and realizes his son's
view of these trips has been completely
different than his own, his kid has
just been staring at his back.
A problem with a damaged part that
a local workman fixes with
judicious use of a torch, provoking I have trouble believing
Pirsig to comment "That's in the reality of the
beautiful!" and the workman details (as I remember
shooting him a skeptical look. them): a hole punched in
Pirsig figures: "He probably thinks a chain guard, a brief
I'm kidding. No one appreciates touch of the torch used
work like this any more." to soften the metal and
close up the hole--
My intuition would be
that the hole would
just tend to get bigger.
Perhaps: stand the part on
edge, apply the torch to the
top edge of the hole, trying
to get the metal to drip
downwards, then rotate the
part, continuing to apply the
torch to the top edge?
Pirsig doesn't describe
anything this elaborate.
A touch of the magic wand
and it's fixed instantly.
Later in the book there's
a description of a period
when our hero Phaedrus was Pirisg uses a device of
engaged in academic study calling his older self by
of philosophy, interested a different name: "Phaedrus".
in challenging the professor's
remarks about Plato. PHAEDRUS
PHAEDRUS_OF_EMERSON
Memorable detail:
Pirsig carefully listing the various
ways he might respond, including both a
list of intellectual moves and also a
list of non-intellectual social cheats, This is a very engaging
e.g. singing the beast to sleep with story, though the word I get
flattery. through the grapevine is
that no one at the school
remembers anything about it.
It would seem that
the drama of our
Phaedrus gearing up
to do intellectual
battle was somewhat
one-sided, with
Pirsig arguably
tripping out over
very little.
At the close of the book, Pirsig
presents a grand illumination, a New
System complete with hierarchical
diagrams of the old and new... and As usual?
it's a complete let down. Of course?
BOUNDARIES
Briefly, as I remember it, Pirsig objects
to Plato's dismissal of beauty as inferior
to truth.
The fact/value dichotomy, however useful
it often seems, has some severe problems,
and Pirsig proposes moving our perception
of value up above perception of fact,
he wants to move "Quality" to the center
of his metaphysics, perching it at the
top of his ontological tree...
I've never been able to figure out
what exactly you're supposed to *do*
with this-- if you go this direction,
how do you live, how do you think,
what implications does it have
for our epistemology?
This is probably the reason
I read the book twice.
I see Pirsig tried to take it
farther in the early '90s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirsig%27s_Metaphysics_of_Quality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance
"Phaedrus, a teacher of creative and technical
writing at Montana State College, became
engrossed in the question of what defines good
writing, and what in general defines good, or
'Quality', which he understands similar to
Tao."
Looking at the current version of the
wikipedia article...
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance&oldid=1168795529
I see it jams around with the
truth/beauty distinction, the greek
word "arete", the rational/romantic
dichotomy, and so on...
Isn't this just like it looks a lot like individual
Nietzsche's handling opinion but they're trying hard
of Dionysus vs Apollo? not to go too far off the rails.
Well, sorta.
TRAGEDY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance
"The title is an apparent play on the
title of the 1948 book Zen in the Art
of Archery by Eugen Herrigel."
That book had some currency in intellectual/
Mentioned in freak circles in that era-- I think a copy
the Last Whole was up on the shelves at the Brenner house.
Earth Catalog,
as I remember it. I've looked at it, but like a lot of Zen
literature, it doesn't seem to have any
place for me to hook into. It slides
through my mind without leaving much of
a trace.
ZEN_IN_THE_ART_OF_ARCHERY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance
About the book's back story (writer's
love stories like this one, try this
lever on your gumption trap):
"Pirsig received 121 rejections before an editor
finally accepted the book for publication-- and
he did so thinking it would never generate a
profit. It was subsequently featured on
best-seller lists for decades, with initial sales
of at least 5 million copies worldwide."
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