I have never had so much down time in my life as in the two and a half years I spent as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in the early 90s. We volunteers had no cars, no telephones, no computers, no internet, and no money. Our main sources of entertainment were shortwave radio, Fort Boyard, and books.
Volunteers traded books on their visits to each other, creating an odd sort of book club where everyone had read the same books, but at different times. There were a finite number of books in English in Tunisia, so I quickly became willing to read anything that crossed my path, even if it would not have tempted me in the past. Wuthering Heights, the Left Behind series, Last of the Mohicans, P.G. Wodehouse, year-old issues of the National Enquirer - it was better than sitting huddled around my space heater (winter) or lying on the concrete floor trying to stay cool (summer).
This is how I came to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Robert Pirsig's novel (today we would call it "autofiction") was published in 1974 and sold over a million copies in its first year, according to the New York Times' obituary of Pirsig. The book recounts a motorcycle trip the narrator takes with his young son and two friends, with a stop at the college where the narrator had taught English prior to a mental breakdown. I was an Engish teacher at the time, and I was intrigued by the novel's thought experiment in abolishing grades. The rest of the world, though, was fascinated by what drove the narrator to his breakdown: his exploration of the metaphysics of Quality, a journey he calls a "route through the mountains of the spirit." Pirsig builds on his metaphysics in a follow-up book titled Lila, or an Inquiry into Morals.
The Metaphysics of Quality borrows from Greek and Eastern philosophical thought. I'm not trained in philosophy or capable of doing this topic justice, so I'll confine this post to a discussion of how Pirsig's philosophy was popularly understood. Zen attempts to unite the concept of "classical" quality, which is inherent in an object, and "romantic" quality, which is subjective and therefore inherent in, or at least dependent upon, the observer. For example, a well-tuned motorcycle engine could represent "classical" quality, while the joy one finds riding down a country road could represent "romantic" quality. Quality is an "event," Pirsig says, "at which the subject becomes aware of the object...the event at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible."
In the first section of the book the narrator contrasts his view of motorcycle maintenance with his friend's attitude. Both men enjoy riding, but the narrator is moved to learn how to maintain his engine and troubleshoot problems after a clueless mechanic botches a repair, and he feels that this competency enhances his enjoyment. His friend thinks that concerning himself with "all that technology" ruins the joy of riding and refuses to learn how to care for his bike.
Zen's publication coincided with an increased focus on the worker in quality management. As we saw in previous posts, Taylor viewed the worker as a natural malingerer who could be managed and incentivized to peak performance. Deming recognized that worker performance was largely dependent on the system in which they worked. Total Quality Management (TQM) built on Deming's ideas by viewing the worker as an active driver of quality. TQM seeks to empower workers by soliciting their input on how to improve quality.
The history of quality is not a neat linear progression--Deming's career alone spanned decades-- and it's impossible to tell exactly how Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance influenced the development of quality assurance, but given its impact on American culture as a whole, it's not an unreasonable leap. Google Scholar lists more than 500 articles that reference both Deming and Zen. From The Long and Winding Road: The Evolution of Quality Management to Defining Quality to Quality: American, Japanese, and Soviet Perspectives and more, quality thought leaders across disciplines and decades have been influenced by Pirsig's work.
