A Telling Title

         As Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance drew to a close, it proved the title to be a perfect fit to the novel. The Narrator begins to become concerned with things like his sanity and his relationship with his son. When this happens he becomes anxious and he refers to anxiety as being a trap. It certainly becomes a trap for him; it keeps him from being happy and living a quality life. It starts affecting him and showing its symptoms in different areas of his life. He starts losing energy, feeling down and no longer enjoying food. This leaves Chris feeling only confusion towards his father and there is uncertainty on both ends of the relationship. Once he accepts this sort of insanity, he finally starts to become a little more sane. He starts to connect with Chris and his anxiety about losing all sanity starts to fade. He begins to focus on having quality in all aspects of his life and puts care into everything he does. The end of the book is a very optimistic start to the understanding of living a life of quality. 

Evaluating an Evolution

      Reviewing the evolution of the philosophies that influenced Phaedrus was helpful in clarifying some of Phaedrus's ideas. The foundation of his entire philosophy is based on the two main ideas of Kant; the world is controlled by causes and rational acts are the basis for freedom. He believed that only rational people can be free because they can choose, based on right and wrong, how they want to react to a situation, what they should say, etc. Fichte was next in this evolution and, straying from Kant's view that the world is both objective and subjective, physics and reason, he stated that it has to be one or the other. You can either explain humans in terms of physics, with psychology or sociology, or you can explain them based on reason. After Fichte came Schelling, who had the idea of an absolute. He still believed in the division between subjectivity and objectivity, but he believed they were not incompatible with each other because they both were a part of the same greater idea, the absolute. This comes before subjectivity and objectivity; it cannot be explained and is beyond reason. Hegel feeds off of Schelling's ideas. He believes that the absolute is not where the start, which was what Schelling thought, but where you end. It is not beyond reason, but included within reason; the absolute is a product of reason. There is no division between subjectivity and objectivity because it is where the rational world aligns with the physical world. It is clear to see now that Phaedrus has been evaluating this evolution in order to make the next advancements in this philosophy. 

Initiating Interest

       From reading ZAMM and discussing it in class I have begun to pay extra attention to the influence of interest in educational institutions. Persig looks at interest as a factor of how well the student will gain knowledge and possibly receive desired grades, but he has yet to explain what factors influence interest. As I have not yet finished the novel, I do not know if he will delve into this topic, but I have started drawing my own conclusions based on personal experience. A comment from Dr. Clark during our class discussion took me off guard; he mentioned that one of the problems of needing interest in order to gain knowledge is that we cannot force ourselves to be interested in something. This caused me to start thinking about what influences my interest in a class. Why am I more drawn to one subject over another? One of the first things that popped into my head was that I am more interested in the subjects in which I am more successful. In these subjects I can continue to learn and move forward and go deeper, as, with subjects that I am unsuccessful in, I feel that I am stuck in one place and do not move backwards or forwards. This stagnant position is not appealing and I quickly lose any interest that I may have once had. There are also many changing effects to my daily interest in a certain subject. These interests could be triggered or hindered by: 

• outside conversations pertaining to the subject that change my perception of it
  
• the feelings that I have toward the integrity or character of my professor
  
• the people that are in the class (maybe friends that distract me from the subject, therefore, changing what I take away from the class)
  
• the amount of caffeine I intake before the class/the amount of sleep I have had
  
• past experiences with this subject or teachers that I relate to it
  
• what time and on what day of the week the class is scheduled
  
• how relevant I think the subject is to my daily life....
  

The list goes on and on. One thing that I notice is that many of these factors are manageable. Therefore, we should be able to change them in a way that, instead of hindering, they will trigger our interest in the subject. This makes me question Dr. Clarks statement that we cannot force interest on a subject, but then I have to ask why I would be changing those factors in the first place. If I changed things so that I would be more interested in the subject, what, if not interest, would drive me to change those factors? And this is where my interest in philosophy starts to scare me because I know I could think about this forever and never really get anywhere. 

 

Comparing Philosophies on Education

          Pirsig and Augustine agree that the pursuit of knowledge is one of humanities most honorable quests. They both agree that the core of a real education is sincere interest and that enforcing education by scolding or beating cannot be used to gain the student's interest. Augustine illustrates this idea with his studies of Greek and Latin; he gets more out of his Latin lessons because he enjoys studying it and he has an attraction to it. He believes everyone has their own quest for knowledge and "a student of good quality does not follow another's studies but studies along his own paths" (Augustine). Pirsig illustrates this idea with Phaedrus's gradeless institutions. When he takes away the ulterior motive of grades, the students who have an actual interest in their studies are the ones that continue to pursue knowledge. They also both agree on the fact that we are not omnipotent creatures. We are not born with the knowledge of right and wrong and that is why we have instructors. Phaedrus believes these instructors are parents, teachers, philosophers, mathematicians, etc. Augustine believes that there is one ultimate Instructor, God, and that the pursuit of knowledge should be toward Him because "knowledge of God is greater than any other" (Augustine 75). Pirsig and Augustine agree that the human spirit longs for a knowledge greater than that of the physical world, of right and wrong or of a creator, but they disagree on what true knowledge is. 

Affirmative Action Debate

       The debate on Affirmative Action this Monday was the first encounter that I have had with the subject. One side of the debate fought for Affirmative Action, which calls for consideration of race or sex with employment, education, etc. This position takes into account that, in order for equal opportunity to be a reality, we have to realize that people are born with unequal opportunities. We have to be aware of these inequalities so we can give the people born with fewer opportunities a leg up in order for them to have the same chances as everyone else. This is a valid argument. Coming from a very privileged home, I can say that I have more opportunities then most and many of them I take advantage of. Some people could work all their lives for something that was just given to me on the basis of the family that I was born into. The other side of the debate was against Affirmative Action. This side argued that we should discard the race or sex cards because if you give them special opportunity then that is just as racist or sexist as giving them a disadvantage. This is just reverse racism or sexism. This side wants to erase all of the history and past afflictions that have taken place in this country. In my opinion, this history cannot be overlooked and we have to take into account that there are people that are born into underprivileged homes. I do think that, instead of focusing on race and gender, we should also consider family income. I believe that people need to work hard to be successful, but I also believe that a child born to incompetent parents should not suffer for their laziness. 

Zen??

        Reading further into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has proven to be a difficult task. Persig's thoughts seem to be so far into the "high country" that he does not know how to organize them in a way that does not overwhelm the reader. I have to cut my reading down into short pieces in order to properly digest the thoughts that Persig spits out. Even then, when I continue reading, I have trouble continuing on the journey through his thoughts because my footing is already unsteady. When Persig started comparing Phaedrus to Jules Henri Poincare I got completely lost. The whole concept of theoretical mathematics and absolute mathematical certainty was way over my head. I did come away with a broad understanding of some of Persig's ideas; if you got rid of value-free thinking then you would have no basis for intellectual pride, which allows for Quality. Quality and intellectual pride cannot both be sustained at the same time. I am in the process of unfolding all of his other ideas... get back to me in about 10 years and I might have untangled a tenth of this book.

General Ideas

       Persig and Augustine agree on some broad ideas of humanity. They have similar opinions on the effects of meditation in daily life. They believe that this meditation will lead to a life of quality and bring us closer to the truth. They differ on what you should spend your time on, but time and care certainly lead to a prosperous life and a spirit of well being.  Another idea that these philosophers agree on is that humans are capable of good if they only choose the right values to live by. They have to watch out for potential pitfalls. Persig and Augustine might not agree on what these specific pitfalls are, but they both believe in the power of change in a human being because that is the reason they are writing both these novels. The basic philosophical ideas written about in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the Confessions are analogous. They have ideas of spiritual well being, meditation, care, and the ability to change. 

Zen and the Art of Mac Maintenance

Well, this conflict with technology is a fresh frustration in my mind this week because my hard drive completely died and erased everything off my macbook. I can look back on it as a learning experience of what type of person Phaedrus would link me to. I had all the signs of a romantic during my technological crisis of obtaining the "white screen of death" on my new macbook pro. Of course, I was instantly stressed out and incapable of figuring out any way to repair my faulty possession, in which I had placed so much of my trust. I know nothing about technology and was too afraid to try anything on my own for fear of digging it into a deeper grave. So I whipped out my trusty cell phone, which, somehow, worked despite my electronic eradicating super power, and called my boyfriend. Phaedrus would say that Keith has a classic view towards technology; he respects its power and enjoys its many functions. He was there in no time, equipped with only a pocket knife and a nerdy excitement to start the surgery on my beautiful baby. Being a Windows user, he had no prior experience in fixing a Mac, but, after a little bit of research, he was plunging into the open carcass of my newly deceased laptop. Meanwhile, I was in the corner hugging my knees and rocking back and forth. I guess Phaedrus is right; I need to realize that my computer is more than just a pretty little notebook that I can boss around and stuff every bit of my life into. It is just a bunch of wires and screws and circuits and bolts. If I want to be happy with technology I shouldn't run away from it just because it is not serving my immediate needs. I did exactly what Jon does with his bike when something goes haywire; I put it in the hands of someone that I thought was more capable, but by doing that I could have mistakenly put it into the hands of someone with testosterone and a pocket knife. That wasn't the case this time; Keith did not do any harm to my laptop, but I would have been a lot more zen if I had known anything at all about the inner workings of my own laptop.

The Quest for Quality

Pirsig asks a valid question, "What is quality?" and it was surprisingly difficult to answer. We all seek after quality in every aspect of our lives. We want to do quality work at our jobs and have a quality family and we find quality in all the things that we spend our money on. It is this idea that the thing that we find quality in is somehow better than the other things that are performing the same duties or serving the same role in our lives. It is hard to grasp the concept of quality because it is unique to each person. This is where we get the saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." There is no one thing that is quality. Quality is relative to what a person values and this is dependent on their culture, religion, beliefs, etc. It is determined by what we feel is superior. So whatever we worship or whatever idols we have, whether that be a god, money, technology, drugs, attention, appearance, that is what we will use as our quality guide. If the thing that we have resembles this idol or brings us closer to this thing that we worship, then it has quality. This can be a very dangerous concept, if we are confused about what quality is we are likely to think that something has quality when it does not. But if we are all capable of creating our own definition of quality then who's to say that something does not have quality? Can we say that anything does not have quality? Does this mean everything has quality? What about humans? Do all humans have quality or can they lack quality? Are there degrees of quality? All of these questions are for us to answer individually. That is why we cannot define it, the concept of quality goes as far as the mind can wander.

Senses and Thought

There was a section in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" that I could not get out of my head after reading it. Pirsig gave an example of a boy born without any senses to explain different philosophers' views on how the human senses are related to thought. This boy does not have any feeling, taste, sight, hearing, and he cannot speak. He is fed through a feeding tube and is kept alive with the assistance of others. The question that he poses is whether this boy will have any thought. One philosopher felt that he would have no thought, that sensory reception was a necessary precursor for thought. Another philosopher had this idea that there are many things that we can think about that cannot be perceived with any of our four senses, such as time. Both of these views have valid points. I pursued another point of view and asked my friend Keith what he thought about this boy and his thoughts, or lack there of. He believed that this boy would have no thought because he would have nothing to think about. He said the second philosopher's argument did not apply to someone without senses. Time is directly related to senses. You see it when you watch people grow taller and change with age, when the seasons change and when the sun moves across the sky and turns to night. He would not have any thought about time if he has never experienced the results of it. This is a valid point as well. I found this idea so intriguing and I could talk about it all day, but I have not yet made my own philosophical conclusions on this matter.