Subject: commonplace

From: "J.S." Dorward <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Aug 94 10:00:48 BST

Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance
                   By Robert M. Pirsig

Note :- words in capitals are in italics in the book.

"A person who's lived inside stone walls of a prison most of
his life is likely to see stone as an inherently ugly
material, even though it's also the prime material of
sculpture, and a person who's lived in a prison of ugly
plastic technology that started with his childhood toys and
continues through a lifetime of junky consumer products is
likely to see this material as inherently ugly. But the real
ugliness of modern technology isn't found in any material or
shape or act or product. These are just the objects in which
the low Quality appears to reside. It's our habit of assigning
Quality to subjects or objects that gives this impression.
     The real ugliness is not the result of any objects of
technology. Nor is it, if one follows Phaedrus' metaphysics,
the result of any subjects of technology, the people who
produce it or the people who use it. Quality, or its absence,
doesn't reside in either the subject or the object. The real
ugliness lies in the relationship between the people who
produce the technology and the things they produce, which
results in a similar relationship between the people who use
the technology and the things they use.
     Phaedrus felt that at the moment of pure Quality
perception, or not even perception, at the moment of pure
Quality there is no subject and there is no object. There is
only a sense of Quality that produces a later awareness of 
subjects and objects. At the moment of pure quality, subject 
and object are identical."

>From p293-294, transcribed by [email-masked].