Dangerous books part 7: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

 

This review is motivated by reader request.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance tells the tragic story of a man’s quest for Truth. The quest is a driving force within him, keeps propelling him forward even when he meets with obstacles such as people who do not want to hear truth, institutions that fear truth, and even his own inner resistance to the loss of the security of absolutes.

He tells the story of his quest through a motorcycle journey across the country with two friends and his son. Their travels mirror his own intellectual travels, where, “plans are deliberately indefinite, more to travel than to arrive anywhere.” His quest is also his personal history, full of adventure, passion, sadness, confusion, rejection and, finally, satisfaction.

He remembers that as a college professor his scientific research led him to first question the validity of the scientific method, and then the reliability of reason itself. To question scientific method and reason, however, is to attack the very foundation of higher learning, and so he is deemed a trouble maker by the administration because, “institutions…tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions.” An individual who can not be controlled is a threat to the institution.

He tries for a while to lead a conventional life, to fit in, but the drive to discover truth will not leave completely. Eventually, he is back at it, until he is finally declared insane. In a hospital’s psychiatric ward the “cure” him through electro shock therapy that erases his previous personality and memories. They give him a new personality, that of a sane man, a man with no passion, no creativity, no grand ideas or visions. What they do not know is that his old personality, though a ghost to him now, is not completely dead. He slowly emerges from the author’s memory until his old personality reclaims him.

In a moment of self-realization he says, “what I am is a heretic who’s recanted, and thereby in everyone’s eyes saved his soul. Everyone’s eyes but one, who knows down deep inside that all he has saved is his skin. I survive mainly by pleasing others. You do that to get out. To get out you figure out what they want you to say and then you say it with as much skill and originality as possible and then, if they’re convinced, you get out.”

Ultimately, though, he discovers that it is better to be a heretic than a sheep in the institution. This freedom is incredibly frightening, but he is also finally at peace with who and what he is.

The book’s reflections on what are Truth, Quality, Love, and Reason are far too complex to recount in a short review. You must read and then search for yourself. Be careful, though, because this is a truly dangerous book. It could lead you to a place from which there is no return.

This series delves into books you’re not likely to find in your church library, unless you have a really cool church. Most of them have been banned at one time or another. If you have a book to suggest for this series, please let me know in a comment.