I used to think that I knew what quality was. But after reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I realized I hadn’t even scratched the surface as to what quality really is. As Pirsig has said, quality cannot even be defined since it precedes every intellectual construction of it. Although this may be true, I will attempt to do so for the sake of this paper, both in terms of romantic and classical viewpoints.
In reading my paper, I hope people can better understand where they stand on the spectrum of classical vs. omantic. Also, I hope that readers will be able to have a better understanding of quality and values so that they can make their lives a little more convenient and less stressful. Quality, from what I can tell, is an attribute that determines whether something is enjoyable or is an inconvenience. It is based on subjective feelings, and it’s similar to the phrase beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It works like this, if something is very enjoyable, or does not cause any stress or inconvenience, then it has good quality.
If does cause stress or frustration, then it has low quality. It’s important to this paper, because the point of conducting the interviews is to see what different people think of when they hear Quality. Quality is what drives us to live, and not just live, but live with as little suffering as possible. It’s what forces us to evolve to experience even greater levels of quality. Without it there would really be no point to life.
In fact, there would probably be no life at all if there was no Quality. Everything is a product and a result of Quality.A romantic is someone who is creative and inspirational. They rely on feelings rather than depending heavily on facts to make their decisions.
The first thing that one might think of when they hear the word romantic is art. On the other hand, classical describes a person who relies on facts and are greatly interested in the details, like the process of making and keeping maintenance on a motorcycle. The first word that comes to mind when thinking about classicism is technology. One might even think about science or even medicine.The relationship between art and technology is a good indication for a person to figure out whether they are classical or romantic. The first person that I interviewed was my grandfather, George Sledge.
He is a little over sixty years old (I feel a little bad not knowing his exact age) and he is best characterized as a farmer. He loves doing yard work, he owns a farm by the way, and he especially loves to hunt. I wanted to interview someone who was quite old and had a lot of different experiences, and like a romantic, I went with my feeling that he would be a good choice.I first asked him what his relationship to technology was.
He said that technology does make his life easier, but he rather not have to depend on it as much as he does. He did say that he valued having it in his life, since he grew up in a time when technology was very limited. When I think of my grandfather in this way, I think of Phaedrus. My grandfather is the last person I would ever think of to rely on his feelings like a romantic would.
Like Phaedrus, he has a type of knife that he uses to takes things apart and admire the foundation of something (on a side note he used to be a carpenter).When I asked him where motivation comes from he said it comes from the desire for rewards and achievement. He also said that motivation is the desire to be better, whether that is doing a better job or being a better person. I think these answers make him sound both like classical and like a romantic. Both desire to be the best that they can be, so these answers by themselves don’t really help me define what he is. However, it does show me that he does think like Phaedrus does.
He showed that arete, or excellence, is the force that leads him to do things.Arete is where his motivation comes from. That’s why, as you could probably guess by now, I believe that my grandfather relates to Phaedrus the most out of all other characters in the novel. His answer to motivation is a corollary to my thesis. His desire to succeed and do well is because he knows succeeding leads to good quality. His desired goal is Quality.
It is the driving force that urges him to do well. The next person that I interviewed was my high school friend Jordan. Jordan is a music major, and he is also an avid fan of plays and art.I thought it would be interesting to interview him since he the first person that I thought would be purely romantic. However, after I asked him his relationship with technology, he did not sound in any way intolerant of it like a normal romantic would, rather he said that it is a convenience.
For example, technology helps him when he records his music and he even acknowledged the technology used in plays. After I heard these statements, I began to think of Jordan as a mix of classicism and romanticism.Even though he values the technology used in music and plays, he did say that he occasionally wished that he could see how the world would be if we didn’t have technology at all. Jordan also likes to go camping and hike.
When asked what was beauty, he said that nature is what comes to mind. I thought it would be helpful to ask him what wasn’t beautiful as well. Interestingly, he said that anything related to technology wasn’t beautiful. I then asked him what gives his life purpose. He said that living his life to the fullest and enjoying life as much as possible was one of his main purposes.This statement perfectly describes Quality.
It is Quality that makes him want to do these things, but he just didn’t realize it. Quality is ultimately leading him to do everything he loves doing. The songs he writes are a result of Quality. The plays that he likes were a result of Quality. They were all made that way because something made the creator(s) like it, and that was Quality. Like I said earlier, before the interview I thought he was a hundred percent romantic.
Even though he shows characteristics of both, if I had to call him one thing it would have to be romantic.Out of all the characters in the novel, Jordan mostly resembles the Deweeses. He is not like the Sutherlands in that he does not feel threatened by technology. However, he does not care about details and is not intrigued by the blueprints of something; he cares mostly about the finished product, a trait common among romantics. Tim Carmichael was my next choice for someone to interview.
The reason why I chose him was because I could not really decide if he was romantic, classical, or somewhere in-between, so I wanted to get a better understanding of what he is.When asked what his relationship was with technology, he said that he pretty much depends on it for everything he does. He said it makes his life easier and that it also is a great interest to him. He is a student at this university and is currently undecided on his major, but he loves cars.
He knows a lot about them and talks about them a lot. He likes to keep his car in good shape and provides maintenance for it regularly by himself. Also, he said without technology he would not be able to talk to his girlfriend, who is in Nashville, as much as he does.Tim also likes to play the guitar, and he used to draw for a hobby. I then asked him how he found solutions to his problems and he said that he thinks of the best possible solutions and analyzes the positives and negatives of each one. Whichever one has the most upside is the solution he goes with.
When I asked him what makes him think this is the best solution, he said that not only does he think it has the most upside, he also has a feeling that it is the correct solution, and that feeling is Quality. These two answers pretty much sums up my opinion on what Tim is.He uses a rational approach to find a solution to a problem, and then he uses his feelings to stick with it. Therefore, he has a mix of classicism and romanticism. However, he is more classical than romantic. He analyzes his problems and uses logic to come to conclusions.
The one character that Tim resembles is the narrator. Like the narrator fixes his own motorcycle, Tim fixes his car by himself. Also, he does not get frustrated when there is a problem with his car or any other device. When it comes to maintenance, he has the right attitude, just like the narrator.Because he plays the guitar and likes art, he is also characteristic of a romantic.
I did interview more people, but I brought up these three people because I wanted to talk about someone who was classical, romantic, and a combination of both, respectively. It was interesting to see that out of all the people I interviewed, none of them were purely classical or romantic. I think this shows that we have incorporated technology so much into our lives that everyone is on some level classical. I am sure there is some purely classical people, but I could find none in my interviews.Also, these interviews show that Quality is basically everything. We do the things we do because we enjoy them and they bring us pleasure.
We study to make good grades because we know the benefits of having a good education, which is essentially high quality. Quality is the invisible hand that leads us to do what we do. Without Quality we have no guidance. But Quality is not the same for everybody.
Each person has their own idea or belief about it, but each person does have one simple similarity in their idea of it, which is to live our lives with as much pleasure as possible and with as little pain as possible.
