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From: ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Robert Pirsig
Message-ID: <1132@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Aug-84 19:27:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.1132
Posted: Sun Aug 12 19:27:23 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Aug-84 03:30:18 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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--
>> Robert Pirsig hasn't gotten very good reviews on the net.  I'd like to
>> present a dissenting opinion, just so others aren't discouraged from
>> reading him.  His book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the
>> best philosophical novel that I've ever read...

>> ...The book holds its own as
>> literature also--I couldn't put it down.  I was fascinated by Pirsig's
>> unrelenting pursuit of truth, a struggle so intense that it drives him
>> insane!  In sum, the book is not mumbo-jumbo or purple prose, but a book
>> with a substantial question and a substantial answer.  It can entertain
>> yet also make you think.  That's what a philosophical novel is for. 

>> Sebastian

[Sebastian noted also my observation that far more men like "Zen...",
and as philosophy, than women, who regard it as mediocre literature.]

My hypothesis about this effect has to do with sex differences in
thinking.  In my experience, men get locked into logical rules and
precedents, stick scrupulously to deductive inferrence, and often
generalize broadly, if not wildly.  Women look much more at the
unique details of a situation and make more case-by-case judgements,
often questioning assumptions and givens.  There is no value judgement
intended or implied in this observation, and there was no scientific
sample.  I think the debate in net.abortion follows this trend, though.
I can always guess the sex of the author after 1 paragraph.

So now we go to the heart of the matter, "Zen..."  Pirsig latches onto
an idea and follows it to absurdity.  So what is quality, anyway?
We know it implicitly, yet we don't.  I guess what the man was trying
to say was that it's all in patterns.  We learn patterns and rules for
patterns.  And thus we filter our senses.  Well, he could have said
"you are what you eat" and been done with it.

The book is readable, sure.  For me, I saw another guy who carries
around "Walden", and who thinks like a good machinist.  And there's
some basic lessons from Philosophy 101, and even some social contract
theory.  I have recommended "Zen..." to people who were not familiar
with the uses of linear thinking.  But, geez, for all Pirsig dwelled
on quality, he exercised very little quality control.

So there he is on the high plains, watching the horizon, thinking
"low wall of clouds, no mediating cirrus, a cold front" (or however
he phrased that bit), and I'm quite spellbound--I can't put the book
down either--because when I'm riding, that's the way the perceptions
go through my own head.  But it's not literature.  Poe's "Descent into
the Maelstrom" is literature.  OK, this is the 20th Century.  Byrd's
"Alone" (a diary of his winter in isolation at the South Pole) is
literature.  "Zen..." isn't a book, it's a shop manual.
-- 
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