Greetings to all.
At the end of ZAMM, the newly returned Phaedrus lets Chris ride the return journey not wearing his helmet. I was wondering what interpretations people have of this.
Is the helmet a metaphor that the narrator( who is against Phaedrus and the idea of thought) has placed around his son to prevent him from the harm of thinking beyond his own boundaries, and so Phaedrus then removes these limitations to let his son think?
Is it a backlash against the society that dictates "You should wear a helmet for safety when riding a motorcycle" ? - I find this approach rather hard to swallow, for as Drose wrote
"My child, who has a heart condition. My father, who has had two bypass
surgeries. My younger brother, who also has heart disease. My grandfather,
who died of brain cancer. These are my immediate concerns."
Family and loved ones do seem to be our primary concerns, so why would RMP endanger his son. Read his eulogy to Chris to see how much he cared for them.
Feel free to add new interpretations, or modify the two I have seen so far, as I think the way we interpret this is crucial to our understanding of Pirsig.
Bye
Si
ps. People appear to wish this "Root of all evil?" thread to die out, and having been away I appear to have missed participating. So here are a few ideas. Read Robert Tressell's "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" if you are at all socialist inclined, buried in the midriff of the novel he gives a model for a system that does without money. However he replaces it with a method of state issued notes that can then be used at the state owned shops (If I Remember Correctly), but at least their value is fixed. I wouldn't have thought that discussions of RMP's work would spread into Marxist thought, but for some people it appears to be so doing. I for one welcome it, but perhaps it needs its own forum. Without wishing to get personal, my main issue with the stock exchange is the gambling and hype and lack of moralioty(see "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "American Psycho"). The dot.com/dot.bomb phenomenon is an example of brokers who know how to use the system buying to create demand, demand raises the monetary value, then they sell at a profit. And all the while they have done nothing themselves within that company. And whilst it is valued at millions, the company actually hasn't made a profit. It doesn't make sense in any world except our own, and it can only end in failure and despair. In 1929, many honest workers were ruined by the gamblings of some dishonest people whom i would never wish to call workers, and it will happen again.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:42 BST