Provocative subject line, is it not? Let's see if I can live up to it.
One way of looking at
Pirsig's breakdown is that the quality of his mind drove him to be above
any othjer knowledge, while at the same time he thirsted to be admired &
liked by anyone whose knowledge was below his. His showdown with the
chairman made this dichotomy so apparent to him that he disintegrated. In
writing ZMM, the same value structure could have held true.
The sad part is that Pirsig is intent on maintaining this intellectual
hierarchy, that he devoted a portion of "Lila" to another impressive
thinker, William James Sidis. I begin to think that high intelligence is
an addiction in its own right. As an addiction, it is very anti-Zen,
which makes me wonder why Pirsig used it in his title. I understand that
there was a lot more in the way of zen explanation in the original draft.
That would be interesting to read & I can't help but wonder why it was
cut. If Pirsig was using Zen to balance the intellectual
side of his nature, Zen would be an ideal vehicle for that purpose.
It seems that Pirsig's intellect couldn't even leave Joshu's "Mu" koan
alone. He had to take his knife & dissect it. You don't dissect koans.
You respectfully demonstrate your inability to answer them by being what
you really are. Any Zen master would have whacked Pirsig with a stick.
The most disturbing part of ZMM to me is its unrelenting dogmatism.
There's a book of philosophy by John Fowles called "The Aristos." It
begins by stating something to the effect that any proposal of Fowles is
open to rebuttal. Had Pirsig been open to such a
concept, he would have avoided a lot of anguish.
Pirsig has been through a lot. It saddens me to see him trapped on the
intellectual merry-go-round.
Sincerely,
Jeff Zweig
A mind poet stays in the house. The house is empty & it has no walls. The
poem is seen from all sides, everywhere, at once.-Gary Snyder
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