Robert M. Pirsig
Quote
What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua... that's the only name I can think of for it... like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. "What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and "best" was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.
Related Quotes
Similar Crossword Answers
| Answer | Clues |
|---|---|
| ROME | 621 clues |
| ANGER | 330 clues |
| AMERICA | 251 clues |
| ENLIGHTENMENT | 179 clues |
| FAMILY | 141 clues |
| CONFIDENCE | 90 clues |
| HUMANITY | 74 clues |
| CHILDREN | 38 clues |
| AWARENESS | 33 clues |
| PHILOSOPHY | 31 clues |
| CONSCIOUSNESS | 19 clues |
| CHAUTAUQUA | 14 clues |
| CHILDHOOD | 13 clues |
| INSPIRATIONAL | 5 clues |
Similar crossword clues
- Robert Pirsig book 78.79%
- Robert of "Big" 71.43%
- Robert of "I Spy" 66.67%
- Robert Shapiro, e.g. 66.67%
- Robert or Peggy 66.67%
- Robert De Niro film 64.71%
- Robert or George 64.52%
- Robert and Pinky 64.52%
- Robert Plant "Big ___" 64.52%
- Robert ____ CSA 64.00%
- Robert Indiana painting 63.16%
- Robert M. Gates's org. 62.86%
- Robert Mueller's org. 62.86%
- Robert Burns' passion 62.86%
- Robert Palmer hit 62.50%
- Robert or Frances 62.50%
- Robert Cray's bag 62.50%
- Robert E. Lee's gp. 62.50%
- Robert Giroux, e.g. 62.50%
- Robert E.'s family 62.50%
Related word tools
Poet’s word, with inverted comma, for the end of the day
?
E
?
E
?
N
Hint 1 meaning
The old plural of Eye.
Hint 2 anagram
ENE
Hint 3 another clue
AND STILL ___
9 +1