Quoting Matt Kundert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Emerson is the first place I'd look if I were situating Pirsig in the > American canon of writers. Pirsig's philosophical individualism is strongly > in the vein of what Emerson meant by "scholar." It is why I think of Pirsig > as distinctively American above all else.
"Emerson remained throughout his lifetime the champion of the individual and a believer in the primacy of the individuals experience. In the individual can be discovered all truths, all experience. For the individual, the religious experience must be direct and unmediated by texts, traditions, or personality. Central to defining Emersons contribution to American thought is his emphasis on non- conformity that had so profound an effect on Thoreau. Self-reliance and independence of thought are fundamental to Emersons perspective in that they are the practical expressions of the central relation between the self and the infinite. To trust oneself and follow our inner promptings corresponds to the highest degree of consciousness." --- Internet Encyclopedia of Philsophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/emerson.htm Yes, Pirsig is distinctively American. ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
