The Voices Within

If you had read Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert Pirsig, you would have a clue as to what I am talking about. In the book, Phaedrus, the narrator classifies human understanding into two types: Classical and Romantic. In classical understanding, a person sees the underlying form and not the immediate appearance, unlike romantic understanding. Take for example, the cases of Art and Science. Art is more “romantic” as opposed to Science. From this we infer that the human mind which is subjective is a form of romantic understanding and the intellect which is objective, is a form of classical understanding.

One needs to understand that both classical and romantic understanding have to exist together! A huge split has occurred in the world because of our misconstruing the entire concept.  When I say world, it not only means the outer world. One also needs to understand the fact that one can’t exist without the other.

Now that you have an idea as to what the two kinds of human understanding are, I would like to delve deeper into the topic. I would like to put forth my thoughts on the subject.

God and abstract ideas are the only entities that defy the laws of human understanding. We associate human beings with their corresponding forms and the first thing that strikes a person when talking about another is his appearance. So that would correspond to romantic understanding. We,  human beings exist such that we give importance first to the romantic side and not the classical one. I don’t think people can deny the fact. What, I can hear you asking, happens to blind people then? Simple. They hear a person’s voice and judge him which again falls under romantic understanding. But human beings must see to that they don’t become slaves to their sense organs. The sense organs, which help boost  romantic understanding, may delude a person and make life miserable. Rather than controlling the organs, man, in the name of intellect, gets controlled by them. A man deluded by the sense organs and in turn, by the romantic form, starts leading a hypocritical life.

Abstract ideas like quality and value, on the other hand are classical. You don’t associate pictures to such ideas. The same can be said of God. (By proclaiming so, I wish to make clear that I am not an atheist or an agnostic) I wouldn’t go to the extent of giving a shape to Him. He’s above all that, in my opinion! The point is, why make God another victim of romantic understanding by associating Him with images?

Is it hypocritical to give importance to romantic forms? No, not all. If the sentence were “Is it hypocritical to give importance to romantic forms alone?”, the answer would be a big yes.  As I had mentioned previously, there should be a right mixture of classical and romantic understanding. Humans at first glance, undoubtedly get attracted by the forms. By this, I don’t mean to say one needs to shun romantic understanding at all, because he/she can’t. That’s the way the mind works.

Let’s take for example, the case of books. Supposing a normal person is made to choose between two books. One, Wuthering heights by Emily Bronte or Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. What do you think the average person would go for? Twilight, undoubtedly. Why do you think comics make it big? Or why do you think a normal person has an aptitude for languages and not for other subjects like Science and Maths? Blame it on romantic understanding! In all these cases, the human mind gets attracted by creativity! One is likely to pick up a fantasy fiction novel when compared to a serious novel! I am speaking about a normal person here. I am likely to pick Bronte or Camus or Balzac or any damned author. (Why do I say damned? These people failed to look at the romantic side of human understanding.) I might as well stop with this example because I were to continue talking about books, you might get bored at some point.

Thousands of years ago, primitive men made the best use of romantic understanding. They associated romantic understanding with religion to make people get interested in God. They created images  and sculptures of Him and created parables so people would get acquainted better with their religion. By stating this, I don’t mean to say such parables are fictitious. They may have been true but I personally think the contribution of primitive men to religion must have a special mention here.

Would I call myself the classical kind or the romantic kind? I can’t say! If I were to say that I fall under the former category, that would sound hypocritical because I happen to be a Homo sapien who’s no different from others. I wouldn’t vouch for the latter too, because then again, your intellect gets controlled by the sense organs that pave the way for romantic understanding. When I say romantic, I mean things like creative pursuits. The main basis of art, poetry and literature is romantic understanding. I am perhaps 80% classical and 20% romantic. I don’t have a clue what makes me say so. It might be perversion. Or I might be 60% classical and 40% romantic. But then wait, how can I rely on my thoughts alone to come to a conclusion? Even if I were to consider myself as an intellectual, wouldn’t the stream of thoughts lead me astray by being transient? Is there another medium with which a person can think clearly without getting digressed? Some medium that helps us hold on to our thoughts? This , in my opinion, is the biggest problem with classical understanding. When you get inundated by thoughts, the intellect gets challenged even more, which ultimately results in more thoughts, more views. It’s a bootstrapping problem. You view a thing in various angles and this only exacerbates matters. One second you are happy with the thought that you think suits the thing best but the next moment, before you even know what’s happening, the thought gets transcended to another. When that thought isn’t satisfying, you move on, coming back to square one in the end. You absolutely have no idea why you thought of the problem in the first place. You start thinking about something and end up finding out something else. Romantic understanding seems much better. But I don’t wish to sacrifice my intellect. Even if classical understanding helps me understand nothing, I will only be too happy to stick to it. Now, what’s the thershold of classical understanding? Fanaticism. Insecurity. The feeling of being lost.. but in what? In oneself, maybe! Just like the way one clings to a religion. I wouldn’t call it insanity. To be insane you need to be sane first. How does one measure sanity? Or rather, what is sanity? What does one do in order to be sane? What do you get as a result of fanatic Classical understanding? Sanity in the insane world. Your intellect won’t tell you if you are sane or insane. How can it when you are lost in yourself? The others can’t, too, because they are too busy worrying about your non-existent romantic thinking that their intellect gets attacked by thoughts of jealousy.  So, insanity and sanity are to be understood the other way round when they are spoken.

According to Robert Pirsig, there are two forms of understanding, as we have been discussing all along. According to my hypothesis, the classical and romantic understanding are themselves divided further;  radical classical and romantic understanding and conservative classical and romantic understanding. Radical classical understanding and radical romantic understanding produce non-conformists and Conservative classical understanding and conservative romantic understanding, conformists. People falling under the category, radical classical and romantic understanding, are fanatics, true to the name. I trust you would have got an idea by now.

Your thoughts on the subject are appreciated! If you have any questions as regards my hypothesis, have your say by commenting! But let’s not get too much radical or conservative!

PS: Fo your convenience,  I have uploaded the article  as a pdf on Scribd. Happy reading!