Robert Pirsig....

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Tim Liston
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Joined: Sun Aug 07, 2005 3:10 pm

Robert Pirsig....

Postby Tim Liston » Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:10 pm

Robert Pirsig died one year ago today. Those of us who read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance back in the day remember the book. I read it about a year after it came out. Back then (high school) I wasn’t ready to understand it, and I’m not sure I am now. Pirsig was brilliant.

You might know the backstory, Zen went through over 100 publishers before one of them agreed to take it. He got a $3,000 advance and not much encouragement. It then went on to sell millions of copies.

Pirsig himself was diagnosed a schizophrenic and underwent devastating electroshock. Do they still do that? He was fine to begin with; his “treatment” ruined him. It’s odd because I just read a very interesting article (click here) recently written by someone diagnosed with Asperger’s entitled “The Myth of Mental Illness” that among other things claims that “people with 'mental illnesses' usually don’t have brain diseases. They are just different. Medicines are no cure for conflicting values, aspirations and goals” and that “all psychiatric diagnoses are ethical judgments.” It also questions how boys can be diagnosed with ADHD and medicated because they don’t like sitting still in a traditional classroom setting. Duh….

RIP Robert Pirsig. Glad you made it well into your 80’s….


Mark Kindt
Posts: 2637
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2016 11:06 am

Re: Robert Pirsig....

Postby Mark Kindt » Thu May 03, 2018 9:28 am

Thank you for posting this note.

I, too, read this book when it was published. It is a fine discussion of the nature of "quality" written in a clearly classicist tradition. It is a book that should be read widely. It is justly notable and still widely-available.

It has nothing to do with Zen and for years has been misfiled in bookstores among Buddhist book titles.



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