Dan said:
...Motorcycle maintenance is an excellent analogy for this ever-evolving
intellectual journey we all are (hopefully) on. .... Faulty logic,
contradiction, and lack of intellectual coherence in this philosophy forum is
the same as trying to tune a motorcycle with a monkey wrench. It just doesn't
work.
Eddo objected:
The problem in this analogy is that you compare anorganic quality patterns
"motorcycle maintanance" with social quality patterns "this forum". Inorganic
quality patterns obey the laws of nature and logic much more convincing than
the social patterns comming out of this forum which are much more dynamic. The
social quality patterns who survive are the intellectual quality patterns which
make common sense in the forum community.
Dan replied:
... I am not comparing inorganic patterns to social patterns. I am comparing
intellectual patterns to intellectual patterns.
dmb says:
Yes, the central metaphor in Pirsig's first book (motorcycle maintenance) is
supposed to be taken as a lesson in the art of rationality itself. To take the
bike as merely inorganic is to miss the point of this lesson.
“That’s all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel.
There’s no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone’s mind. …I’ve
noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this –
that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with
given shapes – pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts – all of them fixed and
inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does
machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees ‘steel’ as having no
shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and
any shape but the one you want if you are not [skilled enough].” (ZAMM, 102-3)
This metaphor is quite apt, I think, because the arrangement of concepts in
Pirsig's MOQ is very much like the arrangement of steel parts in the machine.
In both cases, getting the thing to work properly requires skill and patience
and a sense of the harmony that makes the whole thing fit together.
"To say that they [motorcycle mechanics or philosophers or whatever] are not
artists is to misunderstand the nature of art. They have patience, care and
attentiveness to what they're doing, but more than this - there's a kind of
inner peace of mind that isn't contrived but results from a kind of harmony
with the work in which there is no leader and no follower... The kind of
mechanic I'm talking about doesn't make this separation. One says of him that
he is 'interested' in what he's doing, that he's 'involved' in his work. What
produces this involvement is, at the cutting edge of consciousness, an absence
of any sense of separateness of subject and object. ...When one isn't dominated
by feelings of separateness from what he's working on, the one can be said to
'care' about what he's doing. That is what caring really is, a feeling of
identification with what one's doing. When one has this feeling then he also
sees the inverse side of caring, Quality itself." (ZAMM 296-7)
Ironically, this is exactly what Marsha refuses to care about; the proper
arrangement of concepts. This precision is what distinguishes a coherent MOQ
from a big pile of arbitrary nonsense. The utter shamelessness with which she
produces this constant stream of drivel is really quite disturbing. It almost
seems like confusion, discord and disharmony is her sole purpose in life. It's
like she wants this forum to be a failure, like she placed a million dollar bet
that she could break it beyond repair.
Dan said to Eddo:
The whole gist of Arlo's post was that we are here participating in an
intellectual discussion concerning the MOQ, not on top of a mountain meditating
or in a zen retreat hiding away from the world. I have no problem understanding
what is said here but that doesn't mean I agree with it.
dmb says:
Right, and Pirsig tells us in various ways that the artful mechanic (or
philosopher) that does not feel alienated from his work. Quite the opposite.
He's patient, careful, attentive, involved and feels a sense of identity with
the thing he's maintaining. If we compare Pirsig's characterization of the
artist with the attitude Marsha brings to the examination of the structure of
the MOQ, I think it's quite obvious that her apathetic carelessness and general
irresponsibility violates both the letter and the spirit of Pirsig's work. It's
about as far off the mark as one can be.
"If you want to build a factory, or fix a motorcycle, or set a nation right
without getting stuck, then classical, structured, dualistic subject-object
knowledge, although necessary, isn’t enough. You have to have some feeling for
the quality of the work. You have to have a sense of what’s good. That is what
carries you forward. This sense isn’t just something you’re born with, although
you are born with it. It’s also something you can develop. It’s not just
‘intuition,’ not just unexplainable ‘skill’ or ‘talent.’ It’s the direct result
of contact with basic reality, Quality, which dualistic reason has in the past
tended to conceal.” (ZAMM 284)
See, Pirsig is NOT saying that we should abandon classical, structured
knowledge, i.e. static patterns. He's saying that static knowledge is NECESSARY
but it's also insufficient. You gotta have that, but it's not enough. The
artful mechanic and the artful thinker also need to develop a sense of Quality,
a feeling for the work. You don't get anywhere by simply going with your
feelings. That was the big complaint about the Sutherlands and the romantics of
the 1960's in general. They felt alienated by technology, by scientific
rationality, by attitudes of objectivity and consequently wanted nothing to do
with it. They just wanted to run away from it. That is Marsha's mistake too.
How many times has she declared he lack of caring or demonstrated her lack of
involvement? I'd guess it's in the hundreds and, given the context, this
misbehavior is wildly inappropriate. It's offensive and, what's worse, it makes
no sense at all.
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