On Mon, 10 Apr 2000 13:45:20 -0400, you wrote:
> 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.
Or, having broken the back of his lifetimes work, he exploded. Like a
fish from the bottom of the ocean getting to the surface. Having lived
with so much pressure for so long he wasn't built to withstand it's
absence.
> 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.
I may be way off base here but the title reads so very clearly to me.
The *achievement* of quality leads to, or requires, a "Zen Like
State". As purists of early arcade gaming use that word. "Robtron
leads to a Zen Like state." I read Piersig as pulling back with great
dread from any religious stance and the Zen is the state into which
the narrator gets when he is repairing the motorcycle.
No expectation and no sense of past and future. Listening to the sound
of the engine, responding to the needs of his material. When I read
these descriptions I was put in mind of "Being nobody, going nowhere"
and listening to the descriptions of how to mediate. OMMV
I dare say the Piersig himself achieved this "Zen Like" state in
writing ZAMM. When I read the material it flows in that way.
> 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.
In his introduction to the 25th anniversary edition Piersig would
agree with you. The "narrator" is, for want of a better term, a
psychiatric survivor. He had said what must be said to get off his
ward and back to his son. Not only has he said it he believes it. The
person writing the story is NOT Phaedrus, this guy by his own
admission has never had an original thought. He's a lapdog seeking
petting and table scraps from the reader in much the same way as he
does from his friends at the start of the book. Throwing his child to
the wolves, it's all about other peoples perception of <the narrator>.
Not having read any other work of Piersig I cannot comment upon if
this is *his* personality. I can comment that it is not the
personality of Phaedrus. Phaedrus was prepared to do whatever was
necessary. In the finally showdown he actually shows that he is
prepared to do as LITTLE as is necessary. This shows far more
restraint than we intuit that the narrator would offer given a clear
shot at his *friend* John. These are not the same man. Or rather one
is the man untamed the other is the man broken.
>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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regards,
Ian
"Wax on, wax off"
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