Quotes

ZAMM

Intro - First person narrative

1. Leave from Minneapolis. Lake Minnetonka. In the scene rather than watching. "What is best?"

2. Recalls aborted trip - no gas - learns to fix bike by self.  Radio-listening mechanics don't care.

3. Leave Red River Valley. Storm clouds in Breckenridge MN - keep riding. Stay overnight in small town. Ghost stories.
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4. Items to take on the trip.  They reach Ellendale ND.  

5. Gas in Hague, ND. Head South to cross bridge over Missouri River. Herreid, SD. Mobridge SD. Missouri River. Indian Reservation on other side of River. High Prairie.  Artistic appearance versus scientific explanation.  Beer can shims. What things are versus What things mean. Phaedrus described as evil.

6. US 12. Classic versus Romantic. Form versus function. Analytic cuts of Phaedrus's knife. Motorcycle classified as components and functions.  Components divided into power assembly and running assembly.

7. Bowman,ND. Marmarth, ND. Baker, MT 108-degrees. Sand piles are separated by size, color, shape. This is classical approach.  The romantic views considers appearance as a whole.

8. Miles City, MT. Tunes motorcycle in the morning.  Plugs are dark - why?  Later - oh,yes - altitude - lower density air has less O2 so do not need as much fuel - excess fuel causes soot which coats the plug - need to resize carburetor jets. Motorcycle made of ideas - so it comes from mind (ghosts).  Even steel is artificial - alloy produced by processing.

9. Yellowstone Valley thru Montana. Logic - inductive and deductive.  Inductive when bump causes misfires.  Deductive when battery is checked by seeing if horn works. Motorcycle repair demonstrates the scientific method.

10. Einstein. Scientific knowledge comes from Nature. But hypotheses do not. Scientific truths change over time. Stay overnight in Laurel MT

11.Head South thru Yellowstone. Red Lodge. High Country. Memory of time in Korea.  Decides to study Philosophy. "What is the truth and how do you know it when you have it?"  Hume as empiricist - example of sense-lacking human and ability to think.  Kant inspired by Hume's questioning branches off into the "Critique of Pure Reason". Motorcycle used to explain Hume and Kant's approach - the "a priori" motorcycle. But Kant's reasoning is troubling - "It was reason itself that was ugly and there seemed to be no way to get free."

12. Cooke City, MT. Narrator recalls Deweese whom he is about to visit - a fellow teacher, an artist. Fixes light switch by observation and intuition. Deweese is amazed.  Gardiner, MT.

13. Bozemon, MT. "Church of Reason" lecture.  Goal is to see truth.  Separate from buildings and place.  Avoided splitting by fields or departments, or students, or faculty.  Compares University purpose and practice from Church - minister like a professor - answer to employer or to own sense of right and wrong.

14.  Deweese's house.  Narrator has discussion with sculptor about welding.  Common interest.  Sculpting the rotisserie.  Peace of mind in assembling bicycle.  The craftsman doesn't follow instruction - like art.  Art of technology. Dialectic reason.

15. Bozemon, MT.  Visits classroom. Seed crystal.  Quality.  What is quality in thought and statement?  What are grades based on?

16. Climbing up mountain.  Writer's block.  Write an essay about one building - start with a brick.  Breaks the roadblock - instead of imitating - create something new.  Mechanical Engineering.  Motivation of this sort, once it catches hold, is a ferocious force.

17. Moose and cheese story.  Assigns essay to students - "What is Quality?"  Narrator proposes that quality cannot be defined.  Identifies writing principles.  Unity improved by outline.  Authority improved by footnotes.

18. Esthetics.  A world without quality.  No sports. No fine art. So it exists.  Hip and Square.

19. Climbing the mountain.  Is quality objective (in the object so that it can be defined) or subjective (just what you like).  Dilemma - suggests a third approach - it is neither but another category - there is romantic quality and classic quality - but quality is the source of objective and subjective points of view.  Reaches the summit.

20. Decides not to go to the top.  Narrator is fearful - Phaedrus was fearless.  "The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans.  The present is our only reality.  The tree that you are aware of intellectually, because of that small time lag, is always in the past and therefore it is always unreal.  Any intellectually conceived object is always in the past and therefore unreal. Reality is always the moment of vision before the intellectualization takes place." Preintellectual reality.  Hegel - Absolute Mind independent of objectectivity and subjectivity.  The Tao Te Ching ("The Way and Its Powers") of Lao Tzu.  Uses his idea of Quality to understand Tao. 

21. Narrator questions previous discussion. Narrator tries to connect the dots - religion, art, and science.

22. Poincare ("Foundations of Science"). Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometries - which is best? Three Forks, Butte, Anaconada, Phillipsburg, Maxville, Hall - all in Montana.  To Missoula Montana hill with letter M.  On to Lolo Pass, Montana.

23. Phaedrus's appears - change of font.

24. Stuckness.  Screw slot ruined. Clearwater, Montana. Route 13. Grangeville, Idaho

25. White Bird, Riggins, Cambridge, Idaho. Classic and romantic understanding should be united at a basic level.  Socretes rejects passions and emotions to free the mind to understand nature.  Phaedrus takes a different approach.  Inner peace of mind is the whole thing.  Physical, Mental, and Value quietness.

26. Oregon. Baker, Unity, Prairie City, Dayville, Mitchell, Prineville Junction - all in Oregon. Gumption. Set-backs and Hang-ups. Out-of-sequence re-assembly. Notebook. Intermittent failure.  Parts setback. Internal gumption traps. Value traps. Truth traps. Muscle traps. Begin with value traps - Rigidity - Monkey trap as example. Ego. Anxiety. Boredom. Impatience. Truth traps - mu ("no thing") as answer to yes or no - ask a better question when answer is indeterminate. Muscle trap - mechanics "feel".

"The real cycle you are working on is the cycle you call yourself. The machine  that appears to be 'out there' and the person that appears to be 'in here' are not two separate things.  They grow towards Quality and fall away from Quality together."

27. Nightmare.  Phaedrus is emerging - Chris is frightened - so is narrator.

28. Crater Lake, Oregon.  Klamath Lake, then Medford, then Grants Pass - all in Oregon. Plans to send Chris back home after reaching San Francisco.  Recalls arriving at University of Chicago - applies to Committee on Analysis of Ideas and Study of Methods. Is accepted but convinced to apply to Philosophy department - is turned down. Mythos over Logos.

29. Forest of Oregon and then on to Crescent City, California (Route 101) and down the Pacific coast. Aristotle - Prof does not want to hear what students think - what does Aristotle say?  Narrator want to present his own ideas. Plato's dialogues.  Socrates opposes sophists.  Immortal principle.  Truth and Good are not the same.  Virtue - arete.  Dharma - the one. Sophists were teaching this. To Aristotle Good is a minor branch of virtue - reason, logic, and knowledge is prime interest. Cookery - Socrates uses it to show that Cookery and Rhetoric are both forms of pandering.  Narrator refuses to answer the Prof's question about personal taste in restaurants.

30. Arcata, California.  Plato dialogue. Phaedrus's quality is Socrates's soul (source of all things). Allegory of the chariot and the horses.  Seeker trying to reach the one - two horses, one passionate and stubborn and one temperate and noble. Temperate reason and dark passion (emotion).  Reason causes chariot to advance - Emotion interferes - Socrates tries to argue for the benefits of reason - but Narrator suggests that this is not truth, but an analogy. Narrator is arguing with the Greek philosophers - Quality is still left undefined. Hostility is really his element. Phaedrus ponders the problem and crashes emotionally.

31. Weott, California. Leggett, California.  Mendocino County coast.  Has discussion with Chris.  Tells about the plan to return him by bus.  Chris becomes agitated.  Phaedrus appears - everything will be alright.  Chris was calmed by Phaedrus appearance - he was seeking quality in his father - the narrator was not truthful - Phaedrus was true - were you insane?  No.

32. Ukiah, Hopland, and Cloverdale.  Route 101 into San Francisco.  Chris relaxes - stands up on the motorcycle pegs.  Gets a different view instead of looking at father's back - can see ahead.

Shop Class

Introduction.  Agency and Competance.  Carpenter's Level.

Chapter 1.  Brief Case for the Useful Arts.  A washing machine exists to serve our needs. To fix one, you need to ask what it needs. Narcissist vs Repairman.  Narcissist is prone to magical thinking and delusions of omnipotence.  A repairman puts himself in the service of others and fixes things.  The repairman notices things. Craftsman vs Consumer.  Craftsman is proud of what he/she made.  The consumer discards things. Smith-Hayes Act of 1917. Vocational ed vs General ed. Children of the managerial class and the children of laborers.  Taylor's Scientific management and the assembly line. Sophia (wisdom) meant skill to Homer - like a carpenter's skill.  The surgeon's judgement is technical and deliberative.  Could be said of any manual skill that is diagnostic, including motorcycle repair.  Problem solving versus Problem finding. Alan Blinder - jobs that are off-shoreable are less secure.  You can't hammer a nail over the internet.

Chapter 2. The Separation of Thinking from Doing.  Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century".  Taylor's idea of scientific management enters not as representative of science, but as the representative of management masquerading in the trappings of science.  Time and Motion analysis.  Ford doubles workers salaries - wages as compensation.  Degradation of white-collar work. Expert systems.  Best Buy's geniuses.  Creativity is by-product of mastery achieved through long practice.  (Musician or Mathematician).  What advice to give to a young person - Approach college in the spirit of craftsmanship - go deep into the liberal arts and sciences.  Learn a trade in the summers.  Tradesman vs cubicle-dwelling tender of information.

Chapter 3. To Be Master of One's Own Stuff.  Lubrication - the story of the hand pump.  Too little oil - costly repairs - too much oil - waste.  Then automatic oil pump.  Dipstick.  Agency vs Autonomy.  Stereo vs Learning to Play an instrument.  Centrifugal advance.  Discipline and Play - in any hard discipline - gardening, structural engineering, Russian - submits to tough things.  Things vs Devices - A guitar is a thing - A stereo is a device.  Betty Crocker cake mix.  Build-a-Bear.  Adverisers try to get purchases predicated on agency but rather they are pushing autonomy.  The marketers seem to grasp that it is not the product but the practice that is really attractive.

Chapter 4. The Education of a Gearhead.  Diamond cutter vs Dog trainer - careful vs commanding.  Sort by differences in dispositions.  Apprentice.  Teenager learned to pack a bearing.  Father was a physicist - impractical theory - string theory.  Aristotle and stochastic arts.  Fixing is very different from building from scratch.  Doctors and mechanics fix things that are not of their own making.  Boosting performance of his VW.  Speed Shop - How fast do you want to spend?  Mentor.  Chas.  Crank journals nitrided. Match-porting.  Galling on cam lobes.  Mushrooming of valve stems.  Valve springs too stiff. Measured with vise, bathroom scale, and calipers.  Drawing of skeleton.  Learn to look closely.  Mentions Pirsig's idiot.  Any discipline that deals with authoritative, independent reality requires honesty and humility. Doctoring and wrenching.

Chapter 5.  Further Education of a Gearhead.  From Amateur to Professional.  University of Chicago.  PhD in History of Political Thought.  Starter motor problem.  Expert figured out that the problem was the bearings.  Took a job at think tank trying to promote fossil fuel,  Got the job because of credentials in the liberal arts - but the job felt illiberal,  Got his own motorcycle shop.  Writing service tickets.  How much to charge if your own poor judgement is to blame.  Repairs old Honda.  Master cylinder and slave cylinder.Not thinking of owner only of the bike.

Chapter 6.  The Contradictions of the Cubicle.  Production of goods versus Production of Brands.  InfoTrac Ziff Communications.  Worthless abstracts.  Paid a lot because of his academic credential.  His abstracts were critiqued by supervisor based on grammar and not content.  What College is For. A recruiter's comment: "We find no correlation at all between your degree result and how well you get on in this company."  Growing emphasis on symbolic distinctions rather than substantive accomplishments.  Credential seeking conflicts with Aristotle's assertion: All by nature desire to learn.  Collins: Higher education rewards middle-class self-discipline.  Teamwork.  Team activity. Building Egos for Team Strength.  Crew versus The Team.  de Tocqueville and "soft despotism".  Small business was the solution.  Crew made up of individuals with jobs that can be objectively evaluated.

Chapter 7. Thinking as Doing.  Experienced firefighters.  Knowing That versus Knowing How.  Ohm's Law and Muddy Boots.  Tight, dry, and clean.  Wet - use WD-40.  Sandy - blow out the contacts. Ohm's law is rule-like.  Practical solution is intuitive.  Chess master - memory of chess board.  Judgement of the expert.  Service Manual as Social Technology.  Chinese cards - learned responses without learning the content.  Mechanic is in similar situation.

Chapter 8.  Work, Leisure, and Full Engagement.  Nadia Comananeci's perfect gymnastics performance. One's attention is focused on intrinsic standards. Mortgage banker has leisure activities - climbs Mount Everest.  The Speed Shop - a community of fixers and users.  Chinese factory worker - doesn't see products used - compare with motorcycle shop where finished products are seen. Rolls-Royce worker has National pride in product. The story of the local banker versus the mortgage lenders of the 2005 era - sell off loans to a big conglomerate - no connection with the community - no trust.  Child psychology experiment using rewards for painting - those who did not receive award were more likely to continue - intrinsic interest rather than pursuit of rewards.  Author fixes motorcycles rather than wiring houses because of the whole experience of importance to society matches his ethics.  He likes it when he sees a customer using the fruits of his labor.

Concluding remarks.  Solidarity and Self-Reliance.  Do the arguments about meaningful work point to the trades? Banking example highlights problems with scaling up and depersonalization.  Building and fixing are embedded in a community of using. Aristotle - all desire to know.  Rickshaw experience in India - solidarity with fellow electrical workers.  Importance of Failure.  No one should be allowed to work in the White House who has not suffered a major disappointment. Failure common in stochastic arts - doctors and mechanics.  Republicanism is a spirit that looks with hostility on whatever erodes the stature of man.  Progressivism entertains a vision of a better world.  Progressive-republicanism is his ideal.

Acknowledgements. Many providers of service - mechanics, auto shops, tool vendors, heating company, metal working shops, etc.  Also, pipe organ maker, and Institute of Advanced Studies at University of Virginia - fellow visitors of UVa suggested sources for various chapters.

• how much to charge?

High County – Vista point, near Red Lodge MT

Switchbacks are fun on a motorcycle …

Red dot below is Grangeville, Idaho – Chapter 24.  Earlier in Miles City, then Bozeman, Butte, Missoula.

Grangeville, Idaho (chapter 24) to Prineville, Oregon (chapter 26).