Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance

In the autobiographical novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, Robert Pirsig relates his journey of self-discovery and his exploration into a multitude of philosophical questions by recounting his interpersonal interactions during a cross-country trip in present while recalling memories of his past self. His past self, whom he refers to as Pheadrus, once taught at the Montana State University in Bozeman. This experience was significant to Pheadrus’s philosophical expedition and personal development because it is where he first began developing his thoughts of the concept of Quality and continued to analyze the concept of rationality. He develops the notion that a university can be seen as two entities: the …show more content…
One such demand is that faculty should now be hired and fired based on criteria like race to maintain some minimum level of diversity, without racial bias against certain groups in the hiring process having to be proven to exist in the first place. This diverts critical thought and discussion from the merits of different professors and how they can further the university’s core values onto how to the college will achieve certain percentages of ethnic groups among faculty without having to fire many existing members or cutting departments too severely to accommodate for the influx of new faculty members. Another common demand of social justice student groups is a formal apology from the administration on behalf of the entire university for not serving marginalized students properly, along with the formal acknowledgment of the various narratives championed by these groups (such as the existence cis-white-male privilege on campus and that it is the college’s duty to make sure students feel safe and not oppressed at cost of restricting speech). This demand is often made on the grounds that several individuals have perceived unfair treatment in a he …show more content…
Universities have expressed unbridled willingness to pander to the extremely vocal mobs of upset students who have: pressured administration and faculty by making defamatory remarks towards them online, vowed to get members fired, and threatened various forms of self-harm until they get their way. These tactics have only become viable approaches to getting a university to comply because universities have caved in time and time again in the recent months. They have proved that they view their students primarily as patrons or consumers whose desires should be catered to, rather than members of their community whose ideas should be discussed, criticized, and possibly integrated into their expanding philosophy. The Churches of private universities are fundamentally vulnerable in this way, but they can be preserved by faculty and students remaining strong in the face of harassment and continuing to express their opinions on their universities’ many