8 ms·

I read it just a few weeks ago because of a recommendation. I was surprised to read that this book became/was a bestseller in the category philosophy. I think

by hulano 7y ago

I read it just a few weeks ago because of a recommendation. I was surprised to read that this book became/was a bestseller in the category philosophy. I think its an interesting book, but its hard to read and i'm still curious why it resonated with so many people? Or what specifically. One thing he mentions in the book has bee then electroshock therapy which was not as sever as he described it. He did not forgot his old him. I also had the feeling to follow his illness with the obsession about quality. But more in a way you follow a schizophrenic. It becomes very unclear to me if he was a genius or became crazy. I had a friend with schizophrenia, he was 60% smart and knew his facts and then 40% have been just crazy like he believes in a stargate and has connections to the chines government. The problem with this person was very simple: i stoppend trusting him even if he was right to some extend. I had the same feeling with this book. There is a high chance that his career downfall happend because he was in an illusion ale state. Especially at the end when he describes teaching in one university and taking the lecture in the other. That fued was probably very one sided and he imagined it. The others probably just saw some crazy dude. There have been thinks which resonated with me, like this logically cutting of things. The balance between western and eastern (or was it asian?) philosophy. I also really disliked how he handled his son. He did not sound like a good father. Im very unsure what i took from this book.

criddell 7y ago
I really enjoyed the parts of the book that were actually about motorcycles and traveling. His discussion on quality didn't resonate with me at all.
- barrkel 7y ago
  The bit on quality might resonate more if you have to ask someone else to maintain your motorcycle. It's extremely hard to get someone else to care as much as you do. I think the decline of companies often comes down to the departure of people who really care.
  - criddell 7y ago
    I rode motorcycles for 30 years so this is something I've thought about. Any maintenance I chose to do myself was always because I couldn't afford to pay a professional. If you wanted a custom suit made, would you do it yourself or would you find a great tailor to hire? I'd certainly hire the tailor not because he cares more but because he knows what he's doing. What companies were you thinking about in your last sentence?
    - barrkel 7y ago
      I've had swingarm bolts not tightened on a scooter after a tyre change (one bolt come entirely free and lost on the road), a load of fairing clips missing after a service, steering head bearing notchiness not noticed on presale service, brake caliper bolts (!!!) not done up tightly enough or with threadlock so that the caliper came loose while riding - I only noticed because the ABS light came on. More insidious things like final drive in scooters getting prematurely worn due to use of impact wrench for undoing wheel nuts; doesn't show up as much until you start getting grinding noises after 6k miles. Like I said, delegating quality is hard, IME. I always do brakes myself now, making sure to clean the pistons and not minimize time spent. I've done 3 final drive rebuilds on three different SH300s with new bearings because the parts cost about £50 but labour is closer to £1000, was recommended by a dealer to scrap (!) a £4000 scooter when the bearings failed the first time at 10k. I've done a couple of steering head bearings replacements too. These things don't save me time, but they do increase my connection to the machine I'm trusting my life with - I commute by bike every day.
      - criddell 7y ago
        Wow! I've had much, much better experience with the shops I've dealt with. I'm the type of person that after putting everything back together has a little baggie of parts that I have no idea where they go. Mostly though, there are only so many hours in a day. Every hour I would spend in my garage with my motorcycle in pieces is an hour less that I spend playing my guitar, walking my dog, or playing board games with my kids. You know, quality time.
- probably_wrong 7y ago
  To provide a different point of view, his discussion on quality was for me one of the best takeaways from the book. As a bad artist, I've always been both annoyed and fascinated by the fact that no one can tell you what "good" art is. ZAMM presents for me a good definition (good art is art with good quality, where "quality" is further explored in the book) that one can actually use, and has been my to-do measure ever since. Of course, the author himself discards it at some point, but I find his concept of "quality as the relation between the objective and the subjective" to be a great first try. And we all know that perfect is enemy of the good anyway.
brandur 7y ago
For what it's worth, you're not the only one with that reaction. I got onto the book after it was recommended to me as a good way to get an introduction to philosophy. Not only was it not, but the philosophical content it did have didn't seem particularly interesting — the long deliberations on quality felt like inconsequential hair-splitting that was unlikely to any revelations of value. Afterwards, I read the Wikipedia analysis on its philosophical themes [1] and felt that it's far too charitable in attributing significant insights to Pirsig compared to the literal contents of the book. My guess is that the novel structure of weaving together a motorcycle trip with inner monologue and personal history combined with a dash of intellectualism was very compelling to a lot of people, and that's why it's taken such an outsized position in popular literature. (I'd love to be proven wrong on this though, so by all means tell me what I missed.) --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance#Philosophical_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_...
- novok 7y ago
  Disclaimer: I haven't read the book. I think it's also the era it came from. When it was created, it's ideas were not that wide spread and we didn't have the internet, so it was more profound. It's kind of like the matrix and bullet time. If you never saw the matrix and was born after it was made, bullet time might look like a cliche, even though it invented it. When I first saw it, I thought it was fucking bad ass because there was never anything like it. Also there a books out there that are good for beginners, but if your are more well versed in a field, you wouldn't find it that compelling. The beginners books although, are often necessary to get past emotional barriers to an issue.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Your point of watershed books and ideas, particularly ones which more-or-less created the world which came after them, seeming trite in retrospect, can't be emphasized enough. There are landmark moments (Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the invention of blue jeans) which ... are largely just obvious in retrospect, but because they've defined the very frames through which we understand the world. I'm not quite going to claim that ZAMM was all that, though I would argue that it was part of a revolution that could probably be scoped to include the period from the start of WWII to the first oil shocks of the 1970s, that created a world markedly different from that which came before. Put another way, 1938 is probably closer to 1857 than it is to 2019, culturally, socially, intellectually, and philosophically, despite both spans being 81 years. A dictionary definition of the word "pollution" in the 1930s would still have listed the original meaning -- referencing masturbation and of spilling seed on the ground (no, really: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution). The sense of "contamination of the environment" wasn't common until the mid-1950s. Today that's the principle association. Books like Silent Spring had a tremendous impact, and it's hard to see them now as they were when published (1962). ZAMM happened to hit and shape the Zeitgeist of the 1970s in ways that are hard to appreciate now.
lowercased 7y ago
> I had a friend with schizophrenia, he was 60% smart and knew his facts and then 40% have been just crazy like he believes in a stargate and has connections to the chines government. The problem with this person was very simple: i stoppend trusting him even if he was right to some extend. Wow... had similar experience with HS friend - we shared an apartment together after college as well. Good guy, smart, excellent in sales and business and decent with tech. We reconnected a few months ago, and... almost the exact same thing you just mentioned above. I know something's off with him, but couldn't put my finger on it. He's saying his mom's crazy, because she's saying he's crazy. There's been a lot of problems in that family for decades it seems, but there definitely seems to be some mental illness with him now (possibly been there for decades - I hadn't really talked to him much in probably 15 years after I left the state). Very sad, and I don't think there's anything I can do about it.
fierarul 7y ago
It's sad that your comment is the top one on a post where the book is clearly appreciated enough that the motorcycle owned by the author is added to the Smithsonian! Maybe instead of creating an account just to post your lukewarm question you could have tried doing some searches about why the book is appreciated or start re-reading it. Or maybe wait a few years.
- dang 7y ago
  I appreciate the desire to defend something you think is good, but it would be better to say what's good about it, and focus less on attacking the comment and/or commenter you think is wrong. That way there'd be more information in your comment and the rest of us could have a chance of learning something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- hulano 7y ago
  I had an account with much more 'karma' and stoped commenting. Not sure why it actually matters that i created an account just for this. Nonetheless, i read the reviews of new york times, german spiegel and others from archive because of my interest or curiosity why it was a bestseller. My main motivation was to have an real discussion about my thoughts. You can't do that with news articles from 40 years ago. What and what not the Smithsonian is getting donated, is showing or not showing is an interesting fact, something i wouldn't just ignore but its still not the authority in philosophy books. Have you read it? Do you have any opinion on it? Because i just read it (just = i finished it 2-3 weeks ago) which made the discussion for me even more interesting.
  - fierarul 7y ago
    I don't consider ZAMM a philosophy book and a lot are trying to criticise it from that 'formal' angle. If you try to read it for what it is it's much better. A lot of books/movies/cultural artefacts require a certain mood, life experience, nature or worldview. Trying to absorb or understand those artefacts without the prerequisites make it a bad experience. So, perhaps in a few years you'll view it differently. Or perhaps when you are in a different mood. Or perhaps your nature / worldview is incompatible with the 'angle' in the book and you will forever dislike it. I don't believe there is anything I could explain about how I viewed it that would make it better for you, especially since you just finished it and reached your own (negative) conclusions. But I think one should regard with some, let's say, respect certain cultural landmarks. They mirror something from the human spirit / experience and it can't be just coincidence they are appreciated.

by hulano 7y ago

criddell 7y ago

I really enjoyed the parts of the book that were actually about motorcycles and traveling. His discussion on quality didn't resonate with me at all.

barrkel 7y ago
The bit on quality might resonate more if you have to ask someone else to maintain your motorcycle. It's extremely hard to get someone else to care as much as you do. I think the decline of companies often comes down to the departure of people who really care.
- criddell 7y ago
  I rode motorcycles for 30 years so this is something I've thought about. Any maintenance I chose to do myself was always because I couldn't afford to pay a professional. If you wanted a custom suit made, would you do it yourself or would you find a great tailor to hire? I'd certainly hire the tailor not because he cares more but because he knows what he's doing. What companies were you thinking about in your last sentence?
  - barrkel 7y ago
    I've had swingarm bolts not tightened on a scooter after a tyre change (one bolt come entirely free and lost on the road), a load of fairing clips missing after a service, steering head bearing notchiness not noticed on presale service, brake caliper bolts (!!!) not done up tightly enough or with threadlock so that the caliper came loose while riding - I only noticed because the ABS light came on. More insidious things like final drive in scooters getting prematurely worn due to use of impact wrench for undoing wheel nuts; doesn't show up as much until you start getting grinding noises after 6k miles. Like I said, delegating quality is hard, IME. I always do brakes myself now, making sure to clean the pistons and not minimize time spent. I've done 3 final drive rebuilds on three different SH300s with new bearings because the parts cost about £50 but labour is closer to £1000, was recommended by a dealer to scrap (!) a £4000 scooter when the bearings failed the first time at 10k. I've done a couple of steering head bearings replacements too. These things don't save me time, but they do increase my connection to the machine I'm trusting my life with - I commute by bike every day.
    - criddell 7y ago
      Wow! I've had much, much better experience with the shops I've dealt with. I'm the type of person that after putting everything back together has a little baggie of parts that I have no idea where they go. Mostly though, there are only so many hours in a day. Every hour I would spend in my garage with my motorcycle in pieces is an hour less that I spend playing my guitar, walking my dog, or playing board games with my kids. You know, quality time.
probably_wrong 7y ago
To provide a different point of view, his discussion on quality was for me one of the best takeaways from the book. As a bad artist, I've always been both annoyed and fascinated by the fact that no one can tell you what "good" art is. ZAMM presents for me a good definition (good art is art with good quality, where "quality" is further explored in the book) that one can actually use, and has been my to-do measure ever since. Of course, the author himself discards it at some point, but I find his concept of "quality as the relation between the objective and the subjective" to be a great first try. And we all know that perfect is enemy of the good anyway.

brandur 7y ago

For what it's worth, you're not the only one with that reaction. I got onto the book after it was recommended to me as a good way to get an introduction to philosophy. Not only was it not, but the philosophical content it did have didn't seem particularly interesting — the long deliberations on quality felt like inconsequential hair-splitting that was unlikely to any revelations of value. Afterwards, I read the Wikipedia analysis on its philosophical themes [1] and felt that it's far too charitable in attributing significant insights to Pirsig compared to the literal contents of the book. My guess is that the novel structure of weaving together a motorcycle trip with inner monologue and personal history combined with a dash of intellectualism was very compelling to a lot of people, and that's why it's taken such an outsized position in popular literature. (I'd love to be proven wrong on this though, so by all means tell me what I missed.) --- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance#Philosophical_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_...

novok 7y ago
Disclaimer: I haven't read the book. I think it's also the era it came from. When it was created, it's ideas were not that wide spread and we didn't have the internet, so it was more profound. It's kind of like the matrix and bullet time. If you never saw the matrix and was born after it was made, bullet time might look like a cliche, even though it invented it. When I first saw it, I thought it was fucking bad ass because there was never anything like it. Also there a books out there that are good for beginners, but if your are more well versed in a field, you wouldn't find it that compelling. The beginners books although, are often necessary to get past emotional barriers to an issue.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Your point of watershed books and ideas, particularly ones which more-or-less created the world which came after them, seeming trite in retrospect, can't be emphasized enough. There are landmark moments (Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the invention of blue jeans) which ... are largely just obvious in retrospect, but because they've defined the very frames through which we understand the world. I'm not quite going to claim that ZAMM was all that, though I would argue that it was part of a revolution that could probably be scoped to include the period from the start of WWII to the first oil shocks of the 1970s, that created a world markedly different from that which came before. Put another way, 1938 is probably closer to 1857 than it is to 2019, culturally, socially, intellectually, and philosophically, despite both spans being 81 years. A dictionary definition of the word "pollution" in the 1930s would still have listed the original meaning -- referencing masturbation and of spilling seed on the ground (no, really: https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution https://www.etymonline.com/word/pollution). The sense of "contamination of the environment" wasn't common until the mid-1950s. Today that's the principle association. Books like Silent Spring had a tremendous impact, and it's hard to see them now as they were when published (1962). ZAMM happened to hit and shape the Zeitgeist of the 1970s in ways that are hard to appreciate now.

lowercased 7y ago

> I had a friend with schizophrenia, he was 60% smart and knew his facts and then 40% have been just crazy like he believes in a stargate and has connections to the chines government. The problem with this person was very simple: i stoppend trusting him even if he was right to some extend. Wow... had similar experience with HS friend - we shared an apartment together after college as well. Good guy, smart, excellent in sales and business and decent with tech. We reconnected a few months ago, and... almost the exact same thing you just mentioned above. I know something's off with him, but couldn't put my finger on it. He's saying his mom's crazy, because she's saying he's crazy. There's been a lot of problems in that family for decades it seems, but there definitely seems to be some mental illness with him now (possibly been there for decades - I hadn't really talked to him much in probably 15 years after I left the state). Very sad, and I don't think there's anything I can do about it.

fierarul 7y ago

It's sad that your comment is the top one on a post where the book is clearly appreciated enough that the motorcycle owned by the author is added to the Smithsonian! Maybe instead of creating an account just to post your lukewarm question you could have tried doing some searches about why the book is appreciated or start re-reading it. Or maybe wait a few years.

dang 7y ago
I appreciate the desire to defend something you think is good, but it would be better to say what's good about it, and focus less on attacking the comment and/or commenter you think is wrong. That way there'd be more information in your comment and the rest of us could have a chance of learning something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
hulano 7y ago
I had an account with much more 'karma' and stoped commenting. Not sure why it actually matters that i created an account just for this. Nonetheless, i read the reviews of new york times, german spiegel and others from archive because of my interest or curiosity why it was a bestseller. My main motivation was to have an real discussion about my thoughts. You can't do that with news articles from 40 years ago. What and what not the Smithsonian is getting donated, is showing or not showing is an interesting fact, something i wouldn't just ignore but its still not the authority in philosophy books. Have you read it? Do you have any opinion on it? Because i just read it (just = i finished it 2-3 weeks ago) which made the discussion for me even more interesting.
- fierarul 7y ago
  I don't consider ZAMM a philosophy book and a lot are trying to criticise it from that 'formal' angle. If you try to read it for what it is it's much better. A lot of books/movies/cultural artefacts require a certain mood, life experience, nature or worldview. Trying to absorb or understand those artefacts without the prerequisites make it a bad experience. So, perhaps in a few years you'll view it differently. Or perhaps when you are in a different mood. Or perhaps your nature / worldview is incompatible with the 'angle' in the book and you will forever dislike it. I don't believe there is anything I could explain about how I viewed it that would make it better for you, especially since you just finished it and reached your own (negative) conclusions. But I think one should regard with some, let's say, respect certain cultural landmarks. They mirror something from the human spirit / experience and it can't be just coincidence they are appreciated.