Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Post by icandoitbetter » Mon, Feb 07, 2011, 8:43 PM UTC

alnayyir wrote: post #23

alexophile wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that comparison, he is kind of the troll of philosophical history. The interesting thing about Nietzsche, though (esepecially in Geneaology ) is that he takes on so many different voices to address different existing philosophies such that you can't really say (although many have) that he's anti-semitic (In fact, IIRC he seemed to dig the old testament Jews' style) or anti-christianity . The difference between…

>adolescent Pointing out the hypocrisy and self-consuming nature of the greater moral system underlying western religion is scarcely adolescent and even in his day that took a good deal of courage to speak out like that. He was provocative, but not for its own sake.

Post by neutronicus » Mon, Feb 07, 2011, 9:03 PM UTC

davidmathers wrote: post #30

neutronicus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My only theory is that since these books have been published, the core ideas have worked their way through our culture so throughly that reading it now just seems like 'duh'. This is the way I felt reading Ayn Rand and not a single interesting thing there popped out at me as new or novel. Either that, or the ideas are presented within the pages as interesting and novel, but they're actually simple takes on simple q…

Orwell is revered precisely because he was both simple and correct. Whoever told you that Orwell was supposed to be some sort of intellectual challenge or deep philosophy did you a great dis-service, because that's entirely missing the point. He cut through complex or pretentious intellectual bullshit like a chainsaw through butter. Imagine your job was to explain the Bolshevik revolution to humanity. Not to intellec…

Post by yters » Mon, Feb 07, 2011, 9:08 PM UTC

alexophile wrote: post #51

davidmathers wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can't really say (although many have) that he's anti-christianity He wrote a book called The Anti-Christian . What else can you say?

He wrote criticisms of just about every major western belief system - if you take into account his larger body of work, saying he was anti-this or anti-that just seems disingenuous. Much of what he wrote was criticism for its own sake because that's what leads to progress. He wanted his critiques to hit hard; he wanted to be subversive. My reading, at least, is that he wanted to teach people to be critical of highly-…

Post by praptak » Mon, Feb 07, 2011, 9:13 PM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #25

Gilpo wrote: post #18

The cornerstone of originality within this book is how Pirsig introduces his philosophy of Quality. Yet, if you read ZAMM carefully, he never defines this term. Overall, a frustrating and thought-provoking read.

Well, that's sort of the point. psedo-qq/ Quality is that which is good, but if you try to put your finger on it, it sort of squishes out and you end up with empty platitudes and tautologies. / (my apologies, it's been 10 years since I've read it, and my copy isn't here) He goes into it in the class, teaching it but refusing to define it, and one level higher, does it with the book.

Post by wiredfool » Mon, Feb 07, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #26

prospero wrote: post #3

Out of curiosity, how did people who had already studied philosophy find this book? Nothing in it struck me as particularly revelatory, and I'm wondering if maybe I just wasn't the intended audience.

I think the more common reaction is the other way around. The book was revelatory when I read it (as a young teen), but when I returned to it years later, after studying philosophy, I was surprised by how shallow it really was. I think that books like this are life-changing if and only if they connect with you at the right time. Put another way, the number of life-changing books one reads tapers off quite quickly aft…