Yin & Yang of Quality

Hi Ashton,

I like what you said here:

“I think that there is reason in quality and quality in reason. It doesn't seem reasonable to only pursue reason without also pursing quality and I think that not using any sort of reason to pursue quality would have a negative effect on that quality. While Pirsig's binaries are helpful to me in understanding contrasts that exist in thinking, I believe that this binaries are interconnected and by themselves, cannot really function.”

I agree with you. You know, suddenly I’m reminded of the yin and yang symbol. Without one element of that symbol, the other cannot function. I seem to remember that this idea of dualism tied back to words in general. For example, without the word "night," "day" cannot exist. And the existence of those words (as I'm reading more and more about Discourse and discourse communities) come into existence because of interactions/conversations among people within the same Discourse. (-- at least I think I'm remembering that right)

In relation to what you said, at the very end of this reading, I surmised that quality is rhetoric.

Before I begin that though, I’d like to ask (anyone really): Why did quality drive Pirsig-N insane? I didn’t quite get a satisfactory answer from the afterword and the introduction and didn't quite catch on in the body, but I guess I’ll give an updated guess here: I think the reason why he wanted to pursue quality was because it wasn’t a clear cut in the middle. In other words it was neither all the way subjective nor all the way objective. He wanted to understand what made quality, quality. However, after talking with his philosophy teachers, he realized there were no right answers for that word, and when he realized he tried to define the undefinable, he caved.

In essence I think that while he was trying to run away from quality, he was also trying to run away from rhetoric because I think that rhetoric is neither all the way subjective nor objective, but a combination of the two.

In thinking about his choice to run from quality/rhetoric, he made a value change, and the interesting thing about that is that values are apart of quality, which is also an interaction between subjectivity and objectivity. Because he made his actions based on a value, he really wasn’t running too far from quality to begin with because he was still performing rhetoric when he chose to perform his actions based on his values.

And he was still performing rhetoric when he tried to make the vacation a motion instead of an action because they went on that trip with a purpose/goal to sight-see places and visit MSU.

Even when he tried to be neither impartial nor partial, neither objective or subjective, he was  still making that value choice that in part shaped how he interacted with other people. Because of his desire to be neutral, he stopped conversations and the overall relatability that Chris and other people would find meaningful. Chris wanted that interaction, that closeness, but Pirsig-N didn’t want to give it to Chris and because of his values, Pirsig-N could not see or understand why Chris was upset or sad a lot. (I’m not even sure he knew fully at the end to be honest)

The sad part of all of this for me is, if Pirsig-N didn’t change his ways at the end, he would not only have lost Chris, but he would have lost everyone else around him. I wonder if one needs to utilize the subject-object dualism in order to form conversations that are meaningful to not only them, but to other people as well and to get them to perform the actions that they want them to (such as get Chris to go on the bus home).

And because of all of this, I wonder if perhaps Pirsig-N really is serious man because he really doesn’t know he’s doing rhetoric even though he is.   

I feel like if he wanted to avoid quality/rhetoric, then he should just disappear and be no one who does not impact or shape the world in anyway by interacting with other people. However, I feel like that’s relatively impossible unless he lives in the woods (or an unknown island) far away from civilization … But … perhaps he would still be doing rhetoric when he eats, sleeps and survives because they’re purposeful acts of survival. They may be biologically driven, but if one gives into biology, would they then be rhetorical? Or would they not be rhetorical because the only audience he would have are animals who cannot find meanings in his language?

A parting side note: Also, Ashton, I got the same thing out of the reading when it came to experiences and values. Sometimes I wonder what holds me back from shaping and reshaping my values in some situations. Is it because of pride? Is it because of fear of punishment? Is it because I value protecting myself more than anything in the world? It's interesting for me to see how psychology and rhetoric can come in contact like this :).