What Gives Quality?

Kelly,
I like your claim that the definition of quality isn't black and white because it is a term that is subjective and contextual: based on one's values, mindsets, environment etc. I agree with this because I think that a large part of quality (definitely not all of it) is the effect that an object has on a subject. The same object will have different effects on different people because this effect is received by the subject according to who he/she is. I think this applies with Jared's truffle example: even though he doesn't really like truffles, he still sees them as having quality. Truffles do not have a positive effect on Jared, but he sees them as having quality because he likes the positive effects that truffles have on other subjects. I think my definition of quality is too simple to cover all that quality is but it also doesn't limit what quality can be. I think that quality is the interaction between an object and subject that is beautiful.....but then what is beauty?
Pirsig describes objects with quality as having some self identifying factor that the creator has with his creation and that the audience has with the creation as well. I think that beauty has some self identification in a part of what it is, but I definitely don't think that self identification covers all that it is....kind of like quality. However, I do see Pirsig's definition to be true in a lot of contexts in my life. I see an object as having more quality if it moves me. This movement can be emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, etc. I think that self identification isn't the only aspect of quality because I don't identify with almost anything purely scientific (It's just not my thing) but I still see certain research in that field as having quality. I think that maybe I more identify with the passion that certain scientists have for their research and the amount of effort, thought, and time that they invest into it. I also have friends going for science-y majors and I love when they get excited about something that provides them with passion...in this example, it would be some scientific discovery or research. Soooo....maybe when a subject doesn't identify with a certain object, they still see that object as quality because they either identify with the creation of the object or they identify with the self-identification process that it has on other audiences? I haven't fully thought that out...obviously.
 I do think it's worth considering "what gives an object an essence of quality?" because as writers, we are creators. If writing rhetorically, we create opportunities for our readers to create thoughts, opinions, emotion, for themselves. I think rhetoric answers the why and how questions of that creation process. How will I give my writing  more ethos to my reader and why do I want my reader to know my credibility? I think why Pirsig (even though he does go too deep into the topic) is so invested into finding a definition of quality is because as any artist, the end goal is quality. I think that quality is a large part of what rhetoric is. As a writer, I approach my writing in a way that I want it to create a quality experience for my reader. I think the reason why quality drives Pirsig nuts, besides the fact that he overthinks everything, is because as rhetoricians we are striving for something that we cannot even define.
I agree with Jared that Pirsig does over think this concept but I do think that it is one that any artist should not overlook. However, I think that if we overthink the definition of quality, like Pirsig, then we miss out on making quality moments in our lives. Pirsig is so deep into thinking of rhetorical binaries, quality, etc. that he is missing the opportunity to create a quality experience with Chris. So I believe that their is a balance of how much thought we should invest into quality. We should understand its importance, what it means to us personally and what we are creating, but I do think that if it is analyzed too much, it defeats its purpose.

Values & Creativity

Hi Jared,

I completely understand your viewpoint. No, I don’t think your definition of quality is wrong. However, I do believe it is based on your values, beliefs and overall mindset and that those values don't mesh with the definition that is valued by other mindsets.

You said that maybe you are incapable of thinking rhetorically. I disagree. We’re all capable of thinking rhetorically, but maybe something deep within you is resisting that ambiguity because that resistance is based on an inner value you have.

Personally, I understand why he said that quality is undefinable because to me that word has different meanings for different people in different contexts. There is no universal quality because we all have different values, beliefs and mindsets, and different situations for which it is used. And people who are in the same Discourse have the same meanings for words depending on the situation that they're in. You may not identify with this way of thinking, but that's okay -- It'll probably happen eventually :).

I understand your frustration though – I don’t really understand why he was so hung up on “quality” and not other words that can hold different meanings for different people (like revision for example). At first I didn’t quite understand why it drove him crazy, but then I realized that maybe it was because that word wasn’t as black and white as he was used to and because it contained a window for looking at creativity (and perhaps feelings).

When I thought about that, I began to think about definitions of words and how we attach specific meanings to the words that we do. For example when we define what a word is, we’re placing it into a category. When we place it into a category, we’re being logical/rational. I wonder if maybe all words contain elements of ethos, pathos and logos. For example, perhaps the word “ice-cream” creates intense euphoria for a person because that is the meaning they get from it. They’re also putting it into a category when they interpret that word in order to get a specific meaning from it. In terms of ethos, I wonder if in order for a person to define a word in a certain way, they must find it credible in order to do so.

I wonder if maybe certain discourse communities interpret words using ethos, pathos and logos in the same way because the words they use and the actions they perform link with certain values/passions/beliefs.

And I had a thought while reading that last section that I wanted to discuss here:

Is the reason why “serious man” is called serious man because he’s not creative? I suppose I was thinking about how Phaedrus was trying to teach his students to think outside the box in order to learn instead of having to be told what specifically to learn. It also made me think about how Pirsig-N was so driven by rules and wasn’t into straying from rigid methodology.

When one is “creative” is that when they use ethos, pathos and logos when interacting with other people (and/or their audience) in order to promote knowledge building with themselves and other people through conversations? If one simply tries to follow "the rules" to get to an answer without trying to be creative, will that hinder persuasion with the audience? Is that why Pirsig-N was un-able to reach/connect with his audience? (For example, he was reluctant to do anything against logic/ration  -- He seemed to disregard that bending the rules could promote bonding with his son and/or get him to think differently about that particular task) Because of these two questions, I wonder: are all texts (written & spoken) creative when the writer tries to perform an action to engage/persuade the audience to act in the desired way?  
  

Aren't we over-thinking this?

To begin with I think Persig is terribly over-thinking quality and unnecessarily complicating the term. Right off the bat I thought "heck I can define quality, what's the big deal?" So before I get too far into Persig's drawn-out and inconclusive ramblings, I'm going to take a stab at defining quality for myself.

Quality: A descriptive term that indicates that something excels at it's function.

That wasn't so hard was it? What worries me is that while I read through chapter 20 and was able to follow what Persig meant by quality being undefinable, I never quite believed him. Am I incapable of thinking rhetorically about the meaning of quality? Curious to see how else quality has been defined, I plugged it into google and the first definition I found was "the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something" and I don't see fault in that definition. Am I missing something? I encourage anyone to try and tear apart mine or google's definition, because I do want to know what all of the fuss is about.

When Persig defines quality as "just what you like" however, I was truly dissatisfied. I thought he was building up to some grand insight that I couldn't see myself, and was instead left with a definition that I don't agree with. My argument against that definition, is that I like a lot of unquality things, and I also dislike some quality things. For example, at the restaurant I work at we were sampling truffle infused foods like salt and honey etc. (By truffle I'm talking about the fungus and not the chocolate). I found them disgusting, but I could still appreciate their quality. There were other indicators that led me to appreciate their quality even if I didn't like this particular food. A: They are expensive, and I was previously lectured on how rare and sought after truffles are before sampling. B: All of my other coworkers absolutely loved it. So while I was gagging on the horrendous flavor, I couldn't come to another conclusion other than that truffles must be a quality ingredient. Although I suppose someone could argue that if I was left to my own devices and didn't have that context of the product's worth I would have made an opposing conclusion. That may be true, but really that's not the world we live in. My rhetorical lense is relative to my environment, which to me means that in this environment I can safely label truffle a quality ingredient.

I think the second question is really an instance of sociology. As I demonstrated in the truffle argument, I came to the same conclusion as my peers even though it was not something my taste buds appreciated. I also think my definition of quality is suited to this question. If we can recognize that something is excelling at its function than we can agree on the quality of that product. Commonly we can easily agree on what is quality and what is not because either A is obviously better than B or because of the influence of our peers. If Persig were to look at two motorcycles and one was newer, with less miles, and from a more reputable company than the other, I think he would quickly conclude that motorcycle has the higher quality. If say, at first glance both machines have a similar quality Persig might (if he were shopping in this day and age) look online at product reviews to see how others rate the quality of the machine. It's really a matter of trusting other people. If I'm unsure of something's quality, but someone I trust vouches for it, I'm much more likely to purchase that product than if I was looking at the item on my own. While this can be a scary thought process, if it were applied in a "if your friends jumped off a bridge would you?" sort of way, but I think everyone does this. We can't experience everything or have a knowledge of everything in our lifetime, and so we often look to other's experience to make our judgements. I think that's human nature.

The Logic in Rhetoric

Jared,
If there's one thing that I've learned about rhetoric, in this class so far, is that it is neither A or B and neither true or false. I think that this same concept applies to being a rhetoric man or a serious man...which creates even more blury-ness. I also think that there is some logic in choosing to rhetorical. For instance, to me it makes more rational sense to write in a way that please one's audience and challenges their thoughts and opinions rather than solely dumping information. However, maybe I think this because I tend to lack common sense and would consider myself more rhetorical. Also, rhetoric seems to challenge what is considered practical and common sense. Even so, I think maybe, even if slightly, being rhetorical is a rational choice.

In Kelly's post, she talks about how she alternates between a serious lens and a rhetorical lens, and this alternation is dependent upon her mood or the situation. This makes me wonder if it is possible to see though both lenses at the same time or it the lenses are only possible if seen through one at the time. Is the rhetorical lens purely seeing outside of the serious lens? Most of my confusion lies in where the serious and rhetorical man collide and where there is a definite distinction between the two.

When you discussed your confusion in distinctions between philosophy and rhetoric, it made me laugh because when people ask me what this class is about, my description has been, "Oh, it's a rhetoric theory class." They look at me stumped, like I have spoken a foreign language, so I say, "it's like a writing/philosophy class." It's interesting because I'm trying to provide clarity for something that I'm not clear about. I agree in that I don't know where the distinctions are, but I also think that clear distinctions do not exist. I think that's why rhetoric seems so difficult to define and why we have been reading what it means to different rhetoricians. It seems that my definition of rhetoric is constantly being challenged and redefined, which is one of the characteristics of rhetoric.

You bring up a valid question, in the midst of all this blury-ness, why does it matter? Why so many studies of rhetoric? My best answer to that is that and why I'm most interested in rhetoric is that I'm interested in the conversation that I am having with my audience. However, I know that it's not that simple and I think I'm questioning the complexities of it because it seems that everything we define in the study of rhetoric, the narrative and rational paradigms and rhetorical and serious man, becomes blurred.

Why so serious?

Kelly,

I'm glad someone else can identify with the serious man, because I'm starting to think I might be one. It's not something I'd have expected considering my major. I love writing and language, I love telling a story, and I love how everything weaves together, so I expected studying rhetorical concepts to be right up my ally. For me I think the distinction between rhetoric and philosophy has become a hangup in my mind. The lines between these thought processes are blurred, but when I try to find out where that blurry line relatively falls, the line seems blurrier still. It's as if the two are apart of the same thought process in spite of being separated schools of thought. They appear to me like twins; one dons a mask and claims difference from his brother. I think perhaps this is the reason that it feels like a fight not to reject this subject and by my own definition, become a Serious man. I'm trying not to do that though. There's the looming fear that being a serious person automatically damns me as a bad student (Pirsig did say phaedrus liked his bad students best, so maybe that's why I've always gotten along with my professors...But I digress).

Kelly, I'm impressed in how you defined the rational and narrative paradigm, and I wish I could take an equally elegant stab at it. The paradigm to me is another illusive concept. While I see it as a way of thinking that views life as a primarily story based event while remaining analytical and rational as the story forms, I'm still lost in the point of it all. This is what drives me crazy about philosophy and rhetoric, this unending spinning of concepts and ideas. I hate having questions I can't have answers to, and I find that this is a consistent theme in rhetoric.

I'd also like to mention that I'm interested in what Locke said about words not only being the signs of ideas but also the start of many. Which is an interesting thought. Considering I think in English, it seems very strange to consider what sort of thought process (if any) we could have without a language to express them. While Locke wasn't saying that these are the only roots of thought, it still felt that without language, thought wouldn't have a leg to stand on. However, don't we think of children as having thoughts before they can communicate properly? Also, would we likewise agree that even though dogs don't know a human language, that they still have minds filled with unique thought?

-Jared

Rational & Narrative (& Everywhere In Between)

Hi Erin,

I tried responding to your post last night right when I saw your post, but I was way too tired. Let’s try it this time! :)

“The rational paradigm seems to be intertwined with the classical understanding through the focus on the facts and the functions of the subject. These views are not concerned with long, drawn out philosophical explanations but rather explanations that are short and to the point.”

I agree with this statement and some of the ideas you had in the rest of your piece.

Before I say my thoughts, though, I’d like to define Narrative and Rational Paradigm from my perspective. I believe that the rational and narrative world paradigms both contain different types of stories. Both stories are told and interpreted by others with different types of actions. The rational world paradigm does not make actions based on emotion but more instead with logic and an analytical mindset. Thus, the stories are created by the person (as the result of written or spoken text (or action) or are the spoken/written texts themselves) within either the rational or narrative paradigms, and those actions are considered ‘stories’ when they make sense to someone within that way of thinking.

I feel like the rhetorical man lives within the narrative world paradigm. From my perspective, both are able to understand and use ethos, pathos and logos in their appropriate situations.

The serious man lives in the rational world paradigm. The qualities we discussed in class of the serious man are classical, technology-focused, grappler thinker, analytic, after the moment, serious and scientific. I think Pirsig-N is the serious man in this book and he is seeing the world with his serious man lens. The stories he sees are the actions and the meanings he gets from those actions. For example, in his rational world paradigm, how his motorcycle works is a story to him because it is one of his values.

In class we discussed these traits that countered the serious man: emotion (pathos), empirical, casual conversation, wandering around aimlessly, going with the flow, groovy, romantic, spectator, doer, holistic, in the moment, contingent and artistic. (Not the same as the rhetorical man by the way, but I’ll get there later)

Up until now I believed that both oppositions are describing types of people in the rhetorical lens. However, now I want to add that when someone isn’t following the traits of one lens in any given moment, the person with that lens tends to describe them as the opposite (I think). For example, I believe we’re reading this book so far with Pirsig-N’s lens. To him, John is “going with the flow,” but maybe to us in our current lens, John is being normal and “human.”

In my perspective, Phaedrus fits the opposite of the serious man with his pursuit of philosophy when he moves away from the scientific lens that sees a select few “truths” in the world.

In my blog response to Jared last week, I discussed the possibility that serious man has ethos and logos whereas the rhetorical man has ethos, pathos and logos. However, now I want to make another adjustment. I believe that the serious man does not realize they are performing rhetoric because they do not subscribe to that way of thinking. Every human being performs rhetoric when they do something with a purpose that results in some sort of action (or story, depending on the specific meaning with get from the action). I still believe that ethos and logos are traits of the serious man, but the serious man is still performing ethos, pathos and logos when they communicate with other people based on the reactions they earn from other people (frustration from Chris etc). The serious man may value ethos and logos much more than pathos (at least Pirsig-N might), but they still have pathos as one of their values because they are passionate enough in their values toward their lens/ways of seeing the world. (Plus they can feel anger, but perhaps cannot relate/reason why?

I need to say this though: I can definitely see how I’m a serious man in some moments of my life because at the beginning of the text when I tried to analyze this book, I thought Persig-N’s behavior was normal/appropriate. Sometimes I thought how he treated Chris was appropriate as well. However, when I snapped out of that mindset, I thought about Pirsig-N as a human being, I realized how unkind he was being in my other lens. For example, I wouldn’t have thought that Chris had a mental illness. I would have assumed he was just a kid who wanted attention from his father. If I was Pirsig-N, I would have tried to be kind and let him have breakfast for dinner instead of letting him go to bed hungry. I would have tried to be understanding/relatable and ask him how he was doing on the trip etc.

Okay, I admit, I’m the serious man a lot. When I get into an analytical mindset, I’m not very receptive to other people’s emotions. It doesn’t really click to me. I can be impatient and non-sympathetic, depending on my mood/mindset. Almost always, though, when I go on a walk or have some time to transition from that mindset, I realize how unkind I may have been and then I try to make amends with that person. I’ve often thought that I need to find some way to strike a balance between being too analytical and just being human when I talk with people when I’m in the middle of analyzing something because I understand that it can turn people off.

All in all, I’m a very loving person and I try to be understandable, but a lot of the time I just lose sight of my emotions and how I affect other people when I try to be analytical/ask questions/play with ideas. (Like this post, I suppose. I apologize.)

Also, I want to say that I think that Phaedrus & Pirsig-N are perhaps two different lenses that the author uses to see the world. I wonder that if we merge those two lenses together, we may get Robert M. Pirsig. (I predict that we’ll see that merge at the end of the book, but we’ll see)  

Lastly, as referenced earlier, I do not believe that the rhetorical man is the same as Phaedrus by the way. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps the rhetorical man are people in everyday life who can be a Phaedrus or a serious man form moment to moment. For example, Robert M. Pirsig is the rhetorical man because he has both the serious man and opposite of the serious man within himself (as do I when I realize my analytical mindset and my non-analytical mindset).
                                                             

Narrative classical

Narrative and rational paradigms are uniquely intertwined to the '"classical" and "romantic" ways of knowing. As Pirsig said, "A classical understanding sees the world primarily as underlying form itself," (73), which makes me see the classical understanding as very clear cut, rational take on an individual’s surroundings. The romantic understanding, on the other hand, "sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance," (73). The rational paradigm seems to be  intertwined with the classical understanding through the focus on the facts and the functions of the subject. These views are not concerned with long, drawn out philosophical explanations but rather explanations that are short and to the point. The narrative paradigm on the other hand has much more freedom than the rational/classical views. Narrative paradigms, in my opinion, seem a little more complex. Narrative paradigms have the ability to complicate a situation more than rational. With narrative and romantic paradigms the focus could be buried in the embellishment and nuances of the narrative. With my comprehension of narrative paradigms thus far, I cannot see how narrative and classical views are intertwined. However, I do see a few similarities in the romantic and narrative views. Romantic and narrative views are more subjective than classical and rational. These views give the user much more flexibility and a wider range of motion when constructing thoughts and ideas.

The similarities and differences between people in the classical/rational and narrative/romantic mindsets would obviously become crystal clear when these different groups work on projects. For example, I think that if a group of rational/classical people were given a project to describe something, they would have very similar results all around. The results would be fairly clear cut and to the point, focusing only on what really matters. If a group of romantic/narrative minded people were given a project I think they would all come to varying conclusions that are somewhat similar in the values that they are entrenched in.

         

My comprehension of romantic and classical worldviews and narrative and rational paradigms has a ton of room to grow, I think it is a little narrow as of now. I am eagerly anticipating to hear what others have to say on the subject so I can gain new perspectives on the subject.