PDF Summary:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig

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Abridgements and Omissions

Previous readers of ZAMM may notice that certain events from the story have been condensed or omitted completely. Though these events serve certain functions in the text—to flesh out the Sutherlands and DeWeeses as human beings, for example—they have little bearing on the text’s central themes.

We have also attempted to distill the Chautauquas to their essential points. In doing so, we’ve omitted repetitions of ideas and unessential analogies or metaphors. We have, however, preserved Pirsig’s analyses of individual philosophers, even when the connection between these philosophers and Phaedrus’s ideas is tenuous.

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Chautauqua: Why Chautauqua?

Pirsig chooses to call his ruminations in the book a Chautauqua, which refers to a traveling tent show popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that featured an array of speakers and exhibits. Not only does this reference call to mind a bygone era, when knowledge circulated more slowly and deliberately (see “Chautauqua: Making Good Time vs. Making Good Time”), it also highlights the fact that Pirsig’s narrative has moral as well as entertainment value.

Shortform note: Pirsig uses the term “Chautauqua” in two distinct senses throughout the book. Sometimes he uses it as a catchall term for his philosophical project—in other words, he considers all his discourses combined a “Chautauqua”—and other times he uses it to denote specific discourses on specific topics. To keep consistent, we’ve decided to use the term in the latter sense. When we refer to more than one discourse, we use the plural: Chautauquas.

The group pulls over at a rest stop to stretch their legs, and Sylvia, recalling the cars they’d passed going in the opposite direction, comments on how sad their drivers looked; she even compares the...

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The travelers reach Ellendale and dismount their cycles. When Pirsig tries to engage in some banter with the Sutherlands about the cold ride, they give him the silent treatment. Finally, once breakfast is over, John speaks. He says they’re not going anywhere until it warms up. While John, Sylvia, and Chris take shelter in a hotel lobby next door to the restaurant, Pirsig takes a walk. Discovering a quaint but uneventful town, Pirsig returns to the restaurant parking lot and sits on a bench beside his cycle.

Chautauqua: The Sutherlands and Technology II

If the Sutherlands can’t handle physical discomfort, and they also can’t stand technology, where does that leave them? They condemn technology even as they depend on it—it’s the dependence that irks them.

A trio of farmers, breezing into town in a brand-new pickup, illustrates the irony. As Pirsig watches them, he opines that those farmers would know how to fix that pickup (among a host of other machines) if it broke down. The farmers value and understand technology—this, despite the fact that they depend on it far less than the Sutherlands (or Pirsig, for that matter). If all technology ceased to function, the...

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Unlike the Sutherlands—and much like Pirsig himself—Phaedrus viewed the world entirely in terms of its underlying form. To properly illustrate the qualities of this particular worldview, Pirsig deploys an admittedly broad but useful dichotomy:

* Classical Understanding. A person of classical understanding is rational, scientific, unemotional, cerebral, and technologically savvy. She is more concerned with the underlying form of things than the appearance of things—that is, she cares more about how a thing works than how it looks. Motorcycle maintenance, for example, is classical all the way.

* Romantic Understanding. A romantic, oppositely, is intuitive, emotional, creative, and artistically inclined. He is more concerned with immediate appearances than underlying forms—he values aesthetics over utility. Motorcycle riding, for example, is romantic.

Each mode of understanding features in the other. For example, a romantic sees the classical mode of understanding as boring, robotic, overly deliberative—oppressive. A classic, meanwhile, sees the romantic mode as silly, impetuous, irrational—dangerous.

The two modes are, by all appearances,...

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The party, it turned out, was a dream. Pirsig had been committed to an institution, and, by court order, subjected to electroshock treatment. He was told that he now had a new personality—which immediately prompted questions about the old one the treatment had eradicated.

That old personality, about which Pirsig continues to learn as he lives his new life, Pirsig has dubbed Phaedrus.

The riders pull over at a roadside stop in a canyon. The Sutherlands are angry at Pirsig’s slowness, but he shrugs them off. He tends to the progressing mechanical issues on his bike and they get on the road again. It’s still dangerously hot out.

But soon enough the road begins to slope upward and switch back, and the riders rise out of the barren landscape into green meadows with trees. A cloud appears above them, and a cool wind begins blowing. Suddenly there’s rain. It passes quickly, leaving its coolness behind. The riders reach the top of the climb and look out over a valley and river. After a trying ride, they’ve finally arrived in Montana.

The travelers check into a hotel in Miles City, Montana. While Sylvia and Chris do the group’s laundry, and John seeks a duckbill for his...

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Although this discovery is firmly rooted in classical thinking, its general features are also recognized by romantics like John and Sylvia Sutherland. The rapid changes scientific advance causes in our lives—through new technology, medicines, and products—can seem chaotic and bewildering. That’s because, according to Phaedrus, they are chaotic. They must be, because the scientific method doesn’t produce static truth but provisional and relative truths.

Thus Phaedrus and the Sutherlands—the classic and the romantics—are reacting to the same problem from different ends. They both recognize the endlessness and ultimate meaninglessness of classical thinking. But while the Sutherlands simply resist it, Phaedrus attempted to find a structuring principle different from it. In doing so, he alienated his peers and retreated into himself. Two years after completing his first year of college-level science, he flunked out of school.

The riders stop overnight in Laurel, within sight of the Rockies. In the morning, Pirsig thrills to the crisp mountain air and brilliant sunshine. Sylvia joins Pirsig and Chris for breakfast even though she’s eaten already (John is out walking)....

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Chautauqua: Phaedrus and the University

Pirsig remembers that Phaedrus hated to teach, mostly because he suffered from severe stage fright (he would often vomit before his classes). He didn’t appear nervous to his students, however; rather, his anxiety manifested itself as a strange, sometimes disturbing intensity. He had a reputation, and not a particularly good one, among the student body.

The college where he taught was a teaching-focused, rather than research-focused, school. Phaedrus hated that his teaching load didn’t allow time for contemplation and forced him to repeat his lessons year after year, but he nevertheless believed in the higher purpose of the university. In fact, he thought of his university as the “Church of Reason.”

His rosy view of the school had a lot to do with the politics of Montana at the time. The government was dominated by ultra-right-wing politicians who were attacking the traditions and standards of institutions of higher learning. They infringed on the free-speech rights of the university’s faculty, abolished admissions and grading standards, and cut the university’s funding. The funding cuts were felt especially in the English...

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Chautauqua: Phaedrus and Quality: The First Phase

Phaedrus’s initial ideas about Quality emerged from his teaching of rhetoric. One of his students, a dutiful but not especially bright young woman, was having tremendous difficulty writing an essay. She initially wanted to write on the US, but Phaedrus recommended she narrow her focus to Bozeman, then the main street of Bozeman, and finally the front of the Bozeman Opera House, starting with a single brick. It wasn’t until she wrote about the front of the Opera House that she discovered she had something to say, and she produced 10x the words she was required to.

The student was blocked because she was trying to repeat things she’d been taught. When the topic was too broad—the US, or even Bozeman’s main street—she assumed there was something she’d learned already that could guide her, and when she couldn’t identify it she became paralyzed. When she was forced to focus on something miniscule, however, she knew nothing she’d been taught would be useful and thus resorted to her own intellectual resources.

Imitation, Phaedrus decided, was the enemy. And grades, which signified how well a student had learned to...

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Poincaré was active during a time of crisis in the physical sciences, one wrought by the appearance of the Theory of Relativity, which undermined the laws of physics as they’d been understood for years. The seeds for this crisis, as Poincaré showed in his book Foundations of Science, were actually sewn decades earlier, when mathematicians were able to propose internally consistent geometries that were incompatible both with Euclidean geometry (the standard) and each other. What this meant was that a canny mathematician could create geometries that were equally as accurate and logically sound as the one taken for granted as “true.”

The riders coast through a series of towns—Butte, Anaconda, Phillipsburg—and eventually stop at church to take a rest. Pirsig notes how lonely it is on the road without the Sutherlands. He returns to the Chautauqua to occupy his mind.

Chautauqua: Poincaré’s Truth

Poincaré’s analysis of non-Euclidean geometries yielded this insight: that a given geometry was simply a set of conventions that was either more or less convenient for a given task; that is, no particular geometry was true but rather advantageous.

This...

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A second common setback is the “intermittent failure” setback. This is a malfunction that seems to fix itself right as you begin to repair it, then later crops up again (typically at the worst possible time). Intermittent failures are a gumption trap because you’re constantly being waylaid for a problem you think you’ve solved.

• Make Note of Correlations

  • Pirsig’s solution to intermittent failures is to pay close attention to what else is going on with the cycle when the failure occurs. Is the road bumpy? Are you making a turn? These correlations can help guide you as you develop hypotheses.

The third most common setback is the “parts” setback. This setback encapsulates a number of challenges involving parts: one, needing them in the first place; two, finding them at a reasonable price; and three, discovering the part you’ve purchased doesn’t fit.

• Befriend Your Local Parts Supplier

  • If there’s more than one parts store in your area, choose the one with the most helpful staff and get to know them. They can be a vital resource for advice (and deals!).

• Don’t Sleep on Wholesalers

  • Dealerships and dedicated cycle shops will...

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Pirsig wakes Chris and they hit the road. At a restaurant in La Pine, while Chris orders their breakfast, Pirsig changes the oil on the cycle. As the two settle down to eat, Chris asks why they’re riding. Pirsig says that they’re on vacation, seeing the country, but Chris doesn’t seem convinced by this response. He says they just keep riding and riding. And Pirsig doesn’t really have a good reason why.

Chautauqua: Phaedrus’s End (cont’d)

Phaedrus was admitted to the University of Chicago by an assistant chairman of the committee acting on the real Chairman’s behalf. The real Chairman, however, was less impressed with Phaedrus’s accomplishments. When he asked Phaedrus what his “substantive” field was, Phaedrus had no choice but to answer “English composition.” According to the Chairman, this wasn’t a “substantive” field but a “methodological” one. The interview ended, and Phaedrus returned to Bozeman to think about Quality and substantive and methodological fields.

Substance and method, Phaedrus quickly realized, are products of classical thinking—which means that Quality, the thing he really wanted to study, couldn’t be encapsulated either by a substantive or a...

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Chautauqua: Phaedrus’s End (cont’d)

Phaedrus had little opportunity to share his new findings in the near term—his rhetoric seminar was cancelled several weeks in a row due to the professor being ill. Despite the cancelled classes, the students had been assigned a new dialogue: Plato’s Phaedrus.

The title meant nothing to Phaedrus at the time, since he wasn’t known by that name then. And the dialogue itself didn’t do much for him: Plato had clearly depicted Phaedrus in such a way as to make Socrates look exceptional by comparison. Nevertheless, there were aspects of the text that Phaedrus enjoyed, including Phaedrus’s personality. Phaedrus, in Greek, means “wolf,” and the Phaedrus of the dialogue is an excitable and aggressive loner.

On the fourth week after Phaedrus discovered the Sophists, his rhetoric class was finally held—but with the Chairman of the committee as the professor. It was clear to Phaedrus that the Chairman was there to berate him for his philosophical positions and embarrass him.

Because the Chairman already knew Phaedrus (the dialogue), he opened the discussion by asking the class questions to see if they’d understood Plato’s message....