From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jul 06 2003 - 20:41:21 BST
Rick and all MOQers:
Thanks for the giant quote, Rick. I'd like to focus on this part...
PIRSIG (LILA 247)
"..staggeringly complex underground networks of systems that made this whole
island happen: electric power networks, telephone networks, water-pipe
networks, gas line networks, sewage networks, subway tunnels, networks he
had never even heard of, like the nerves and arteries and muscle fibers of
a giant.... .....a different kind of organism that they saw every day and
thought of as beneficial, providing food and shelter and protection from
enemies, but an organism that secretly was raising there people for its own
sustenance, feeding upon them and using their accumulated energy for its own
independent purposes. Later he saw there was: this Giant."
It seems clear that social level values also hold together things like
tribes, religions and nations, but I'm glad Pirsig chose NYC as his main
image. The constant noise and motion of the place really makes you feel its
power. It just roars with energy. It really does seem to act as a living
thing, like it really could eat you up. I also like the choice because
people have lived in cities for so long and there are so many different
kinds of cities. Volumes could be written...
But I think the point to Pirsig's imagery here has largely to do with how we
all participate in it. We think it serves us, or more likely that we are
serving ourselves, but we all must serve it in some way in order to live.
And doing so is what gives our lives meaning. I mean, our ethnic identity,
vocation and such pretty define who we are, in conventional terms at least.
The first time Pirsig ran up Broadway he was running away from it all, with
a fear not unlike in his childhood dreams. But when he returns as the
author, he knows he's part of it. His only permanent address is there, his
income comes from there. He meets with a celebrity in NYC's celebrity
neighborhood to discuss Hollywood's values. He's not scared anymore. No sir.
He's knows what the farmer is up to, and its quite all right.
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