Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance

This book in my view is an enjoyable read but annoyingly without footnotes/ references which makes philosophical analysis so much harder.

I saw shades of Melville's Moby Dick, Heidegger’s Being and Time and postmodernism.  

The whole book on my view might be regarded as a response to the Koan albeit with some modifications:    

And what is good, Phaedrus,

And what is not good—

Do we ask anyone to tell us these things?

Noting Koans are not necessarily meant to be solved as they cann be can be parodoxical statments that focus the mind in a non rational intutive mediative mode. 

They can provide one with the answer, over time, but the rtionale is to beak free from mundane anlytics and expernce enligtenment in the Zen Buddhist tradition.

What I liked and my thoughts on his Odyssey.  

Possibly a candidate to become an enduring classic and embracing ethical values as is appropriate to our technological age. As he sees lacking a dynamic societal response such as could be applied in consideration of his ‘quality’ metaphysics.

His approach to writing for me bears a resemblance to Melville’s epic ‘Moby Dick’, notwithstanding the latter is of a bygone era. Call me Ismael is the Narrator alongside periodic entries by Captain Ahab, punctuated with enormous detail on whaling versus details a similar literary style of Persigs philosophical probing laced with his motorcycle maintenance guide. .

Melville provides a critique on his Calvinist strict upbringing, its decimation of the environment and warns of encroaching nihilism. He is in search of values just as is Pirsig’s intentions appear under the title - An inquiry into Values.  

Similarly, the narrator is joined by Phaedrus and another unnamed one with ideas punctuated by detail on motorcycle maintenance to return to philosophical musings and social critiques.   

The ghostly Socratic character of Phaedrus adds another degree of complexity and interest. As an aside Pirsig suggests reading Lila for those further interested in the character of Phaedrus (the author's alter ego) where he is jarred out of his solitary routine by an encounter with Lila, a straightforward but troubled woman who is nearing a mental breakdown.

Pirsig first encounters Phaedrus (pages 80/81) in the form of strange wisps of memory morphed into an individual who was subject to shock treatment that destroys his personality - he is now dead. Thereafter he surmises in his ‘Chautauqua’ (in effect philosophy concerned with values and enrichment) how acutely aware that ideas are now only possible for him after restoration of his mental state from the prior burden of schizophrenia. 

What emerges along the arduous journey of competing ideas is a long list of western philosophy (a great refresher for any serious student and I don’t mean to be condescending) to encompass shades of Nietzsche Heidegger, Derrida and postmodernism. 

Where I have questions

But as a traveller down the road to pioneer new thinking it becomes rather difficult, I think, to make definite conclusions or fresh claims when so much seems to be already detailed by Heidegger and those that followed.   

The effective merger of east versus west thinking at first blush doesn’t seem to add much more to what’s already known in the post Newtonian world of today. One is aware of the dualistic limitations of the Greek thinkers just as Darwin’s theory of evolution has had to be twigged – it’s no longer just the survival of the fittest      

But, of course, one needs to explore further those thoughtful ideas that nevertheless require one to undertake a leap of faith.  You can't really mix up what in effect is mysticism with rationality can you? Or otherwise you must accept that as if it's a new religious way of thinking? 

Pirsig accepts this difficulty but finally concludes there is a seemingly simple intuitive solution - to separate the dynamic patterns from the basic static ones. What is in effect in his mind an amalgam of past and present tenses.  

This then becomes the final conclusion of his ‘Chautauqua’ which takes shape in his mind as an interesting read even if one doesn’t agree with his final outcome. After all, the journey is more important than arriving at the destination- well, mostly I guess?  But I like the conclusion from the Philosophy Now article which illustrates ultimately Pirsig’s brilliant thinking. 

 Dynamic Quality’ is the term he gives to the continually changing flux of immediately-experienced reality, while ‘static quality’ refers to any concept abstracted from this flux. The term ‘Dynamic’ indicates something not fixed or determinate, which means that Dynamic Quality cannot be defined, and therefore a true understanding of it can only be given directly in experience.” (Andrew McWatt)

Analysis

One can get an initial impression he’s embarking on a ripping good yarn on his motorcycle journey with a few philosophical musings just as Hollywood adapted Moby Dick to the big screen.

For Persig eschews the joys of motorcycling superiority to travelling otherwise by road cocooned away from any direct engagement with the roads surface, to experience the wind in your face and the environmental changes first hand so to speak compared to other read travel modes.      

He travels only the back roads where everyone and everything moves at a refreshingly slower pace as he pauses refreshed in the evening to read Emerson’s narrative on nature.

Seated at the wheel of his exceedingly powerful Honda breathing in those life giving smells and fresh air he muses the problem then, and now accelerating, is humanity’s disinterest in the details of technological development as to how we can stay in tune with what’s happening. Such musings became the catalyst to write his book sparked by the same malaise demonstrated by his fellow companions.     

His ‘Chautauqua’ takes shape in his mind now as he is reminded these ideas are only possible having cast off his prior burden of schizophrenia. Ultimately to crystallise in his metaphysical concept of ‘quality’ manifests as he sees it in the static and dynamic patterns we experience as ‘being in the world’.

Persig’s philosophical odyssey, like Melville’s epic narrative, has different narrators- Pirsig and another unnamed with frequent entries by Phaedrus – a ghostly other self up to a point or alto ego if you will. 

Persig’s fascinating narrative continues on ably accompanied by his ghostly narrator Phaedrus who weaves his way in and out of the philosophical musings. Despite the reference to ghosts the authors note what follows is based on actual occurrences. He goes on to say that much has been changed for rhetorical reasons.

Phaedrus first entry into the Odyssey is after discussions ensue over his accompanying troubled son Chris who asks Pitsig- Do you believe in Ghosts?

Phaedrus has become Pirsig’s character as an individual discovered from health records who loses his personality after shock treatment for his mental condition. But from prior records one is able to piece together his past life which echoes Pirsig’s youthful life and his mental problems.   

Pirsig explains in graphic detail how Phaedrus lost his memory from shock treatment to treat his mental illness. So it is the ghostly Phaedrus who echoes Pirsig’s previous life. But subsequently Pirsig posits that Phaedrus fails in his PHD thesis in comparison to his version. But the question remains: does that version also fail? Academia mostly thinks so if the paucity of any real research other than the Philosophy Now article is any guide?

But that can be true for many great thinkers and writers whose brilliance is only discerned by a future generation. I suspect that may be true for Pirsig.     

But I guess for the millions of readers of that era living during a time of turmoil in America didn’t care much about the finer detail as its enjoyment resonates each step of the way to add clarity, even if it’s only seen as challenging the status quo.     

But in the context of the post mental illness freedom Pirsig now feels, Brian, an  occasional morning café tea companion and whose life is now dedicated to helping troubled youth informs me – I couldn’t be sitting here now and have this conversation without input of the chemicals that calmed and eliminated those voices and bipolar mood swings that gave rise to prior bizarre behaviours. Mental illness comes before ideas he surmises just as does Pirsig.  

Unlike Brian, the shock treatment received by Pirsig means he is more acutely aware that those affected can’t always recall all the earlier memories as the treatment changes the brain structure to the extent some feel they aren’t the same person as before. That sort of treatment was largely given then in ignorance as today it is rarely justified unless considered absolutely necessary because of the known risks of memory loss.   

The ghostly Phaedrus in parallel with Pirsig provides further perspectives in the form of a Buddhist koan

What is good and not good? Noting Koans are not necessarily meant to be solved.

What emerges subsequently to justify his conclusion are shades of post modernism to deconstruct the philosophical idea of subjects and objects with his perception that all we see are patterns of quality. He views this outcome as an effective merger of east versus west thinking.  

The three narrators all aim at substantiating the view - in reality  ‘being in the world’ is synonymous with “Quality.”

Phaedrus’s embolden approach is from one who is considered a genius ( IQ 180) but in his attempt justify this view rationality he suffers a mental breakdown and is admitted to an institution which liquidates his personality. See page 80.  

That was known technologically as ‘Annihilation ECS.’ A whole personality had been liquidated without a trace in a technologically faultless act that has defined our relationship ever since. I have never met him.

But fortunately Phaedrus has left behind a legacy—trunks of notes, recollections of him by family and friends, even fleeting memories that, like flashes of lightning, illuminate the narrator’s quest for him- language and the reality he calls “Quality.”

Quality then he concludes is analogous to the Chinese “Tao” of Zen thought. He feels the Church of Reason was wedded to logic as philosophical mysticism is ineffable and can only be understood by non-rational means- by experience.  .

Here I sense shades of Kierkegaard and likewise the basis of Zen practice.

Phaedrus then tries to imagine the debates in ancient Greece between the rhetoricians and dialecticians - a debate as to whether or not reality could be captured in words. But the consensus is that it is not possible as good is ever changing.  

The narrator’s focus turns to discern that the ‘Buddha ‘exists independently even within analytic thought to provide analytic direction. An attempt is made to combine rational analysis with an expanded rhetoric to experience Quality by an alternation between past and present tense. That is being in the world represents a combination of static and dynamic patterns of quality. 

Therein it is acknowledged you can’t combine something that is ineffable with rationality in his brilliant conclusion taken from Philosophy Now.  

The answer according to Pirsig is quality – an amalgam of static pattern with the dynamic. The static can be defined whilst the dynamic can only be experienced even though we can discern what we believe are personal degrees of that dynamic quality.  From an article in Philosophy Now.   

Dynamic Quality’ is the term he gives to the continually changing flux of immediately-experienced reality, while ‘static quality’ refers to any concept abstracted from this flux. The term ‘Dynamic’ indicates something not fixed or determinate, which means that Dynamic Quality cannot be defined, and therefore a true understanding of it can only be given directly in experience.” (Andrew McWatt).