Robert M. Pirsig
On this date in 1928, Robert M. Pirsig was born in Minneapolis,
Minn. He was tested with an IQ of 170 when he was only nine years old.
He enrolled in the University of Minnesota when he was 15, but left to
join the army in 1946. Pirsig returned to the university and graduated
with a degree in philosophy in 1950, as well as studying philosophy at
Banaras Hindu University in India and earning his M.A. in journalism
from the University of Minnesota in 1958. He later became a professor of
English rhetoric and composition at the University of Montana, but
stopped teaching after he was briefly diagnosed with schizophrenia and
depression. He appeared to recover after some institutional care.
In 1974, Pirsig wrote the wildly popular philosophical book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values,
in which Pirsig details a motorcycle trip he took with his son, Chris,
while illustrating philosophical ideas. In the book, Pirsig writes about
his theory, “the metaphysics of quality,” which is still widely
discussed today. He married his first wife, Nancy Ann James, in 1954,
and they had two sons: Chris, who died in 1979, and Ted. Pirsig married
Wendy Kimball in 1978 and the two have a daughter, Nell, born in 1980.
In Pirsig’s novel, Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (1991), Pirsig
writes, “A person isn’t considered insane if there are a number of
people who believe the same way. Insanity isn’t supposed to be a
communicable disease. If one other person starts to believe him, maybe
two or three, then it’s a religion.” He is quoted in Richard Dawkins’
2006 book, The God Delusion, as saying more succinctly, “When one
person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people
suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”
“Religious mysticism is intellectual garbage. It’s a vestige of the old superstitious Dark Ages when nobody knew anything and the whole world was sinking deeper and deeper into filth and disease and poverty and ignorance. It is one of those delusions that isn’t called insane only because there are so many people involved.”
— Robert M. Pirsig, Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals, 1991.
Compiled by Sabrina Gaylor - www.ffrf.org
No comments:
Post a Comment