“The primitive tribes permitted far less individual freedom than does modern society. Ancient wars were committed with far less moral justification than modern ones. A technology that produces debris can find, and is finding, ways of disposing of it without ecological upset. And the schoolbook pictures of primitive man sometimes omit some of the detractions of his primitive life - the pain, the disease, famine, the hard labor needed just to stay alive. From that agony of bare existence to modern life can be soberly described only as upward progress, and the sole agent for this progress is quite clearly reason itself.”

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About Robert M. Pirsig

American writer and philosopher

Robert Maynard Pirsig was an American writer and philosopher. He is best known for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, published in 1974, and Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, published in 1991. His work is shaped by philosophical questions about values, morals, and quality. He also co-authored On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Selected and Unpublished Writings with his wife and editor, Wendy Pirsig, which was published in 2022.

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Books by Robert M. Pirsig

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

2000

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