Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance By Robert Pirsig Analysis

When people go to shop for a new coat, they won’t select the first one that fits them. They will be looking for a coat with Quality - this is obvious. Once the search for Quality has been established, people separate into two categories. One group takes on a materialistic attitude and searches for Quality in the aesthetics and design of the coat. The questions in their mind include: Do I look good in this? Will others think I look good in this? The other group takes on a more spiritualistic approach to the situation. They look for Quality in the materials and craftsmanship of the coat. We find these people asking these types of questions: Is this real leather? How strong is the stitching? Does it have enough pockets for what I need to carry? In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig contrasts these two categories of people. As classically minded man, he would interject to this discussion of coats that, “It’s the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don’t know where to start because no one has ever told them there’s such a thing as Quality in this world and it’s real, not style.” Pirsig’s story includes his past self, Phaedrus, and his trip to becoming insane (292). Phaedrus focused too much on the classical side of life, ultimately mentally isolating himself from the rest of the world. In this book, we see the difference between thinking romantically and classically and how this impacts our lives.

John and Sylvia, friends of Pirsig, think extremely romantically. They are present for most of the Chautauqua and are juxtaposed against Pirsig’s classical personality. While Pirsig constantly checks and...

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.... By taking this path, Phaedrus mentally separated himself from everyone around him - his family, his friends, his colleagues, and his professors.

Phaedrus was on such a distant thinking platform that, even though familiar people physically surrounded him, he was so mentally distant that he gained nothing from human interaction. This isolation from everyone on such a spiritual level is what ultimately drove Phaedrus to insanity. His quest to define Quality was impossible, and his classical mind was the catalyst that had him bent on attempting to achieve the impossible. In this story, we see extreme romantic and classical minds juxtaposed against each other, and in each case, the person seems unhappy. To achieve Quality of life, one must first achieve happiness. To do this, as we learn from Pirsig, one should have a healthy balance of classical and romantic thought.