Pirsig's former self in ZMM, Phaedrus, conducts an experiment while teaching
on getting rid of the whole degree-and-grading system. This system is
intriguing, and appears to work very well, however it exists independent of
the world, in a little vacuum, which wouldn't ever work.
Let's presume that we want to incorporate his idea of abolishing grades and
degrees from education so students are getting an education for purely
education's sake. With no degrees, a company will not know of any
creditentials with which to discriminate prospective employees. They will
have no idea of which graduates are better than any other in a particular
field as there aren't any degrees to certify that a student has completed
some minimum requirements to show that they would be semi-proficient in
thier field of study. Therefore, the company situation would have to be
reevaluated as well. If companies were no longer interested solely in making
a profit, they would not be conversely solely interested in getting the best
people to do the best work for them. They would be free to hire whomever,
and although their product at the time immediately at the hire of said
person might not be at the same Quality level, the new employee would be
able to further their education in that field, and eventually help the
company with more by having both educational background and practical
experience in that field. The company and the individual would both benefit.
But in order for a company to be no longer interested in profit, the entire
issue of money itself must be dealt with. My immediate response is to
abolish the idea of money in some fashion. So that is basically the end of
my train of thought on this subject.
However, in Lila, Pirsig states that money and fame are integral parts of
society and of Quality as we know it. So what resolution is there to this
dilemma?
It seems that somewhere in between ZMM and Lila there is a jump made from
Quality to Dynamic Quality. I accepted it when it was first presented, but
upon looking back and seeing how the idea of DQ has evolved, something seems
a bit off. Is all Quality Dynamic? Is it good for things to change at all?
Since DQ is the highest order of quality, anything that changes is good, no
matter what it is changing into or towards??
This confusion for me is at the root of the previous problem, as it seems
Pirsig first arrived at Quality in ZMM, then there were many transformations
and crystalizations, and then wrote Lila, after those changes had taken
place. I just sense a gap of some sort, that I haven't resolved for myself
yet.
Can anyone offer any insight?
Brian
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
