Part II
I had planned on doing this thread in several parts. I was curious to see if a deeply philosophic discussion of motorbikes would pique anyone's interests, and I thought Pirsig's book would make a good point of departure. I am not at all sure I've suceeded with either, but I like to finish things, so interesting or not, here goes...
Earlier, I mentioned Pirsig's take on the Classic/Romantic split. A bit later he suggests that this has a philosophic base in the split between Western and Asian philosophy. Western is rational; Asian is aesthetic. Or so it is said.
Next, he strikes at the core of the split, citing Hume's postulate that since without perception, we cannot know anything of the universe; thus, according to the purest logic, the universe cannot exist outside our perception. This, of course, disagrees with common sense, even though logical. It was not until Kant that Hume was successfully refuted. Kant argued that there do indeed exist perceptions that do not depend on external sense data, like time and space.
This perception of something undefined yet still emphatically real is the springboard into the heart of ZAAMM: Quality.
Everyone knows that quality exists, but what is it?
As a word, it means, "having value, degree of worth, and essential characteristic of something, etc." Pirsig knows that, obviously. He is really asking, "How do we know all that?"
In his career as a teacher of rhetoric, before the question drove him mad, his former personna, whom he calls "Phaedrus" found he could get interesting and useful results in his classes using the indefinability of "quality" because he could get his students to think outside the box, as it were. However, he ran into some serious challenges with the faculty, who laid a rhetorical trap for him by asking whether quality was objective or subjective. If it was objective, then why could it not be detected by any scientific method? If it was subjective, then it was just, "what you like" (and therefore without value.)
Phaedrus siezed on that last, realizing that was itself a quality judgement and not based on logic or evidence. He declared that quality was senior to the objective/subjective split, and these were, in fact, artificial demarcations.
Now we get to motorbikes.
This artificial split shows up everywhere. The engineers design a functional machine, and the stylists wrap it in a superficial "style."
Pirsig thinks that we can have utilitarian objects that are very beautiful, and beautiful objects that are very utilitarian. To me, this shows the appeal of bobbers, café racers, and street fighters. It's a machine aesthetic. It can be done when individuals decide to enhance quality for themselves. I sure have seen some gorgeous work here!
Pirsig suggests that this requires a certain state of mind, this is, one supposes, the "Zen" part of the book. When achieved, it leads to greatness.
It took him more than half the book to finally lay out his thesis. He then follows this with a series of anecdotes about "gumption": the attitude you need to be an effectice mechanic, and the various ways you can lose your gumption in the day to day little defeats machines can throw at us.
Finally, Pirsig tells the story of how his former personna went crazy, and he offers the most effective refutation of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle I have yet read. He shows that it was then that there was the rational/aesthetic split, and he disagrees with these philosophers attitude towards those whom they labled "sophists."
In the end, Phaedrus reasserts himself, and Pirsig's son, Chris, who had been being a brat, calms down. He has his real father back.
It was a touching ending.
So there. That's my lightning summary of the book and it's relevance to motorbicyling.
, Thanks for sharing, I bought I honda last month, good for enheice my know of maintenance!
