64 Tiger Cub Motorcycle

FRS 106, Michael Littman – Spring 2012

Quotes

ZAMM – intro

“There is a narrator whose mind you never leave.”

He refers to an evil ghost named Phaedrus. (Phaedrus is the Narrator’s Past Self).

There is a divided personality here: two minds fighting for the same body.

Two minds have different values as to what is important.

Phaedrus was dominated by intellectual values.

“In Phedrus’s view …. the narrator doesn’t want to be honest, just an accepted member of the community.”

SCAS – intro

“The disappearance of tools from our common education is the first step toward a wider ignorance of the world of artifacts that we inhabit.”

This book is concerned less with economics than it is with the experience of making things and fixing things.

This book advances a nestled set of arguments on behalf of work that is meaningful because it is genuinely useful.

It also explores what we might call the ethics of maintenance and repair.

“… a calm recognition may yet emerge that productive labor is the foundation of all prosperity.”

SCAS – Chapter 2
“With its reverence for neutral process, liberalism is, by design, a politics of irresponsibility.”
SCAS – Chapter 4
“What it means to be a good mechanic is that have a keen sense that you answer to something that is the opposite of personal or idiosyncratic; something universal. In Pirsig’s story, there is an underlying fact; a sheared off pin has blocked an oil gallery, resulting in oil starvation to the head and excessive heat, causing the seizures. This is the Truth, and it is the same for everyone.”

A refutation of moral relativity.

ZAMM – Chapter 24
“We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people’s lives.”