Hullo Roger,
Thanks for the challenge. You said "I am not sure what "on course" looks
like to you, and would value learning it." And now I am struggling to get a
handle on the way I saw the question originally.
In your original post where the question was raised you said "I agree that
we can't know for sure which changes are improvements until new ideas are
tried, however, I do suspect that there are patterns to success (In other
words, we can't be sure where DQ is, but we can be pretty sure where it is
very unlikely to be found. The solution isn't entirely random imo."
What comes to me now is that you have set up the question of how we might
navigate towards quality. This seems to me a significant orientation. Some
people would argue that quality just is; that in fact quality is what
emerges minute by minute in existence. From their perspective we do not seek
quality, but constantly react (or respond) to it. In the sense that Pirsig
argues that what does not have quality cannot even be experienced, this
appears almost axiomatic. You speak of "success" and "improvements", and it
seems that the variety of quality you are investigating is what we might
describe as 'excellence'. And this, of course, is where Pirsig started,
teaching writing.
Viewed from this perspective, the issue of "destruction, decay and
disorder" takes on a different complexion. In my view we should not get too
hung up on arguing about these terms, but rather see them as your initial
statement of what might appear the opposite of 'excellence'. Because if
excellence can be taught, and Pirsig does not seem to debate this, then it
means that we are able to navigate towards quality, and education enables us
to do this better. But this also implies that it is possible to miss the
mark, and end up in a low quality situation. And your initial comments
suggest that while we cannot remove the element of surprise from our
experience of quality, that does not mean that there are not better and
worse ways to steer towards quality as excellence.
So the question, as I see it, becomes more about how we might seek out
excellence, and less about whether or not decay is, or is not, part of
'quality'. I wonder does this make sense?
John B
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