Quote preview background for Robert M. Pirsig
As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn__ have it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don__ imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A__. Originality on the other hand could get you anything _ from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.
Robert M. Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
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As a result of his experiments he concluded that imitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn__ have it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don__ imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A__. Originality on the other hand could get you anything _ from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.
RP
Robert M. Pirsig

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

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To build a church when a school house is needed is to perpetrate a theft upon education.To build a church when a hospital is needed is to take from the parched lips of the sick the cup of relief and from the suffering the merciful hand of help.When the object of man's conduct will be to improve the conditions of his fellow man and not the appeasement of a mythical God, he will become more understanding and more indulgent of the frailties, mistakes, and action of others, and by the same token he will become more appreciative of their efforts.He will develop a greater consciousness to avoid mistakes and to prevent injury. Life and its living will take on a greater significance, and our efforts and energies will be devoted to creating as much joy and happiness as possible for all living creatures.

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But the biggest clue seemed to be their expressions. They were hard to explain. Good-natured, friendly, easygoing...and uninvolved. They were like spectators. You had the feeling they had just wandered in there themselves and somebody had handed them a wrench. There was no identification with the job. No saying, "I am a mechanic." At 5 P.M. or whenever their eight hours were in, you knew they would cut it off and not have another thought about their work. They were already trying not to have any thoughts about their work on the job.

RP
Robert M. Pirsig

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

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What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that__ the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated.

RP
Robert M. Pirsig

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values