Welcome to the bedlam Declan
26 Jan. you said:
> In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsig spends a lot of
> time discussing romantic and classic knowledge/intelligence. Im not
> sure how Id summarize his main message on them though: that both are
> equally good, and when one (or peoples) neglects one and emphasises the
> other too much, its a bad thing. .... snip ....
You have received a lot of replies (from unauthorized sources ;) so
it's about time you listen to this self-appointed "Mullah" of the
MOQ. (I'm joking of course, but have been so long around that I
can afford it)
--------------
You will know that the said Romantic/Classic was not the first
chess opening of his new world order. The absolutely first was the
insight of a reality AHEAD of the present world order, the latter
Pirsig came to call Subject/Object Metaphysics (SOM). He called
this pre-everything reality QUALITY and then - and only then - he
started on a new metaphysics based on Quality as
realitys'romantic "groundstuff" and the first tentative split was the
said Romantic/Classic (later replaced by Dynamic/Static dualism in
LILA, but they are really one and the same)
You ask if both are equally good, and if people neglects one and
emphasises the other too much. This is an impossible question.
The main thing is that the 'romantic/classic' (or whatever variety
one of choses of an dynamic/static dichotomy) is BETTER than
the Subject/Object one. There can't be too much of one, rather
one is dependent on the other. "Without stability nothing lasts, but
without instability nothing changes" Pirsig says somewhere.
Then you ask:
> Im even more uncertain how he relates Romantic/Classic knowledge to the
> idea of "quality" that he develops. Is he saying that romantic
> intelligence/knowledge is that which first recognises quality (or was
> that some other "sense").
Regarding the Quality Idea's relationship to the Romantic/Classic
dichotomy it's as said: Romantic=Romantic Quality ...etc.
Pirsig doesn't use "intelligence" but "intellect" and in the said R/C
diagram you will see that he equals "Classic Quality" with
"intellectual quality" and this again is the SOM. I don't know how
much you can digest, but this has resulted in a decade-long
controversy in this discussion. I have forwarded the so-called SOL
interpretation that says that this shows that the intellectual
level=SOM.
> If I recall correctly, in the railroad analogy, the railway tracks
> were quality, the cutting edge of the train was romantic knowledge (?)
> and the rest of the train was classic knowledge?
(NB! From now on I use Dynamic instead of Romantic and Static
instead of Romantic. OK?)
Pirsig tried a lot of analogies in ZAMM, one was the train one, but
this leads into muddy waters. The MOQ's Dynamic/Static dualism
is supposed to replace the Subject/Object dualism, but Pirsig often
wants Quality to be a monism and that thus the split becomes
between Quality and what can be said about Quality. You will see
that DMB is in this blind alley.
> > That's Dynamic Quality, the pre-conceptual, pre-verbal experience
> > from which everything else is derived. This is the mystical reality at
> > the front edge of all experience, of direct everyday experience.
Nothing is pre-conceptual or pre-verbal - we are suspended in
language - anyway in the case of the train analogy this leads to a
dualism between the Quality tracks and the the Dynamic/Static
train. This is of course not so, the Quality Reality is the train with a
dynamic leading edge and a trailing static rest. Full stop!. If the
dynamic aspect is "mystical" I don't know, it IS the ineffable part of
experience. But as said by Pirsig: No dynamic without static. and
vice versa.
Bodvar "Bo" Skutvik ..
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