ZAM part III first section

Intro: The Chautauqua at the end of Part II is to some degree a preview or abstract of the Chautauqua of part 3. He describes what he is going to do, in Part III he does it. The Narrator and Phaedrus both believe that the modern life is lacking in quality is that technology is based on reason and there is something wrong with reason itself. We need to invente a new form of reason, the way Columbus reshaped our view of the earth, and Newton invented Calculus. Phaedrus/Narrator also believe that this must be done by going back to the roots of reason-to the time of the Ancient Greeks. He believes that the mistake must have occurred first with Plato, and that what was lost was probably in the works of the Pre-socratic Rhetoricians. That is why the Narrator refers to his previous persona as Phaedrus, who was one of those Rhetoricians. Diggin up their graves, you will find ghosts.The problem is, because this society is founded on reason, when you question reason itself, there is danger that you will be seen, and possibly become, crazy.



ZAM part 3 first Section

This section can be divided in many ways. It is also about how it is possible to divide things in many ways. The first division that appears is between Phaedrus’ two approaches to the quality problem. The first phase was when he made no attempt to define quality, and simply used the concept as his aid in teaching. The second was the metaphysical stage where he tried to define quality. This was the phase that drove him mad. Chapters 16 through 20 describe how Phaedrus went through those phases. This story about Phaedrus is the main content of the Chautauqua for this part, but it combines Chautauqua and narrative. The other narrative is the Narrator and Chris walking up into the Mountains. This parallels Phaedrus’ ascent into the High Country of the Mind.

I) The Non-Metaphysical phase.
A) Writing about your thumb
1) no clichés
B) Eliminating Grades
1) Most students would drop out, but then they would come back once they had discovered what they wanted to learn. (Similar to Dewey.)
2)Parallels with Chris turning down work, YMCA camp since of adventure. They put him in a low grade, and he got “merit badges” that raised him to a high grade. Living for a future goal (such as grades) is shallow. Must keep what needs to be done in mind, then you will notice things like which rocks are unsteady etc. “The top of the mountain defines the sides”.
a) later he points out that he made a similar mistake when he tried to go to Mt. Kailash. The pilgrims who made it were filled with a sense of devotion to the mountain, not a desire to increase their own private enlightenment.(pp.205-206)
3) P. eventually realizes that what he wanted was to teach them to develop their own sense of what was good rhetoric. But if they already knew what was good, they had no business being in class. So he went back to giving grades

C) What is quality?
1) He asks his students this question, and they are outraged that he doesn’t know.
a) corruption in the Church of Reason. ---you’re supposed to imitate the search for truth, not actually search for it yourself.
2) His answer—we all know what quality is but we can’t define it.
a) He proved this by showing that the students all agreed as to what quality was.
b) This then made it possible for him to single out (not define) aspects of quality that everyone acknowledged. P. 202.
c) This made all the rules of rhetoric, which before seemed pointlessly anal, become worthwhile because they were now followed in the service of quality.
d) Phaedrus now felt his teaching was working because his students now were developing their own sense of quality within the classroom.
3) If quality is indefinable, then esthetics goes out the window, which is good because Phaedrus hated esthetics. (Critique of Judgment.)

D) Justifying himself to his colleagues
1) The Church of reason requires reasons for things, which means definitions
a) parallels Chris’s anger and wishing the trip was over.
2) A thing exists if a world without it would function normally.
3) The point of view that exists when quality is ignored he called squareness
a) The analytic knife starts to get too dangerous, creating lots of different distinctions. Square and Hip, Art and Technology, Classical and Romantic. Are they all the same? This confusion is paralleled in Chris anger at climbing the mountain.
4) He does some mopping up at the end of chapter 18 (p. 216). A real understanding of quality captures the system, and tames it in the service of quality. But he also says “all this talk about quality isn’t quality.” In the narrative, he refuses to answer Chris’s questions about what he thinks about. But their relationship has improved.

II) The Metaphysical Phase. (Chapters 19 and 20)

A) Begins with a description of the Narrator’s dream, and Chris saying that the Narrator was talking in his sleep. “I’ll meet you at the top of the mountain.” More on this later.

B) The Metaphysical phase begins with a constructive dilemma.
1)If Quality is objective, then Scientific instruments should be able to measure it.
a) ‘quality is all that scientists detect’ in Locke’s sense. (Red not Excellence) (Quality vs. Quantity)
2)If Quality is subjective, then it is just another name for whatever you like.
a) This would me that the difference between Britney Spears and Beethoven is just subjective.
b) let’s remove the word ‘just’. Why was “What you like” demeaned with the word ‘just’? Because Authority wants you to do what they like.

3)However, there are so many problems with the subjective-objective distinction, that Quality wasn’t any worse off than anything else.
a)Materialism wouldn’t stand up, because there are so many real things it considers ghosts.
b) Classical Formalism (Plato, Kant, etc.) says these ghosts are the realest things, but this start creating problems with his theory.

4) Quality no longer became the surface beloved by the Romantics.
a) people are often mistaken about quality. Real Quality was often below the immediate surface, like the reality described by the Classical view
b) We thus now have both Classical quality and Romantic Quality, which is starting to get messy and confusing.

C) This problem gets resolved by escaping between the horns of the dilemma: quality is neither mind nor matter, objective or subjective. It is a third entity that makes mind and matter possible
1) This gives him a certain kind of peace (He sings Holy Trinity)
2) This is paralleled by Chris and the Narrator coming to a soft clearing of grass on the mountain top “like a park”. Remember, however, that the Narrator doesn’t trust parks, they’re too tame.

D) He then decides that this Trinity is really a Unity, and that quality unifies everything. It is the ground of all being . This leads to a new map for Reality (see page 243 in my edition.). Romantic Quality is short term quality, Classical quality is long term quality
1) this leads to a shift in his experience. He realizes that quality is now synonymous with the Dao “It all gave way under him.”
2) In the narrative, there is a fear of Rock slides. Chris also reveals that the Narrator spoke to him in Phaedrus voice ‘I’ll meet you at the top of the mountain”. The Narrator is terrified that Phaedrus will return at the top of the mountain. He tells Chris they must head down now, because there is a danger of rockslides—which parallels his fear of sliding into insanity through a similar mystical experience.