zenandtheartofmotorcyclemaintenance,robertm.pirsig.docVIP

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig What youll find here are a series of quotations from the book, interspersed with some questions, comments, and “asides” from me (indicated w/ two asterisks – that is, **). I hope those may lead you to think about some ideas and issues that we may have seen or discussed before in this course – think of them as ‘scaffolding,’ perhaps? – See Mercer, pp138-140? ( Authors note . . . although much has been changed for rhetorical purposes, it must be regarded in its essence as fact. Inscription And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good - Need we ask anyone to tell us these things? -from Platos Phaedrus Introduction to the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition In the intended ending it is not the narrator who triumphs over a villainous Phaedrus. It is an honorable Phaedrus who triumphs over the narrator that has been maligning him all the time. This is now made clearer in this edition by using a sans-serif type for Phaedruss voice. (xii) There is a narrator whose mind you never leave. He refers to an evil ghost named Phaedrus, but the only way you know this ghost is evil is because the narrator tells you so. (xiii) There is a divided personality here: two minds fighting for the same body, a condition that inspired the original meaning of schizophrenia. These two minds have different values as to what is important in life. (xiii) Part I Chapter 1 At age eleven you dont get very impressed with red-winged blackbirds. You have to get older for that. (4) ** What’s the key difference for the author between riding in a car and riding a cycle? We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on good rather than time and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes. (5) Ive wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didnt see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. (5) The main skill is to keep