Quality. what is it?

[andy]

read the search of one man for this, in The Zen of Motorcycling. He determined that quality has to be defined as:"Conformance to standards". Your highest quality tool is worthless to a Neanderthal who doesn't know how to use it. The club or rock that's worthless to you might be very useful to a Neanderthal with the strength to make it do what you cannot. How useful are your bare hands against an infuriated Spanish fighting bull, in a ring with you? Masutazu Oyama's hands beat such a bull to death.

[ABCF]

Hey I read that, back when I was 14 & Mas Oyama never beat a bull to death.

In fact, if you search on this very forum, that's been discussed and debunked.

[Aslan]

read the search of one man for this, in The Zen of Motorcycling. He determined that quality has to be defined as:"Conformance to standards". Your highest quality tool is worthless to a Neanderthal who doesn't know how to use it. The club or rock that's worthless to you might be very useful to a Neanderthal with the strength to make it do what you cannot. How useful are your bare hands against an infuriated Spanish fighting bull, in a ring with you? Masutazu Oyama's hands beat such a bull to death.


Bzzzzzt!

I'm sorry, but that's incorrect!

(Judges rule that you've already been corrected on this point on this very website - shame on you!)

Thanks for playing, maybe next time you can win a prize.

:devil:

[Wylycoyte]

Did anyone else find the yammerings in Zen & TAOFMM to be as dull as I did? I kept hoping he'd fall in with a group of marauding bikers, or perhaps fall prey to one.

[Aslan]

It was an ok read. There are better books out there. It's just so 70's....like much of what someone's expertise appears to be.


:devil:

[Wylycoyte]

I dunno...there's Led Zepplin 70s, there's Shaft/Truck Turner/Foxy Brown 70s, and then there's Zen & the overly-long title 70s.

I think I'd dislike the latter no matter what the era.

[lucille]

Here, from an author, Richard Hooker, are a few words about the philosophy of quality or excellence:

The most articulated value in Greek culture is areté. Translated as "virtue," the word actually means something closer to "being the best you can be," or "reaching your highest human potential." The term from Homeric times onwards is not gender specific. Homer applies the term of both the Greek and Trojan heroes as well as major female figures, such as Penelope, the wife of the Greek hero, Odysseus. In the Homeric poems, areté is frequently associated with bravery, but more often, with effectiveness. The man or woman of areté is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties: strength, bravery, wit, and deceptiveness, to achieve real results. In the Homeric world, then, areté involves all of the abilities and potentialities available to humans. We can, through the frequent use of this term in Homer's poems, make some tentative conclusions about the early Greek world view. The concept implies a human-centered universe in which human actions are of paramount importance; the world is a place of conflict and difficulty, and human value and meaning is measured against individual effectiveness in the world.


Greek Philosophy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aristotle
Plato
Socrates
Aristotle, areté is explicitly linked with human knowledge. Plato repeatedly returns to the question of areté , and the evidence of his earliest writings suggest that Socrates, Plato's teacher, was equally obsessed with the question. Various Platonic dialogues deal with questions such as: Can areté be taught or learned (Meno )? What is areté (The Republic )? The famous Socratic paradox, "Virtue is knowledge," is in Greek, "Areté is knowledge." This would be the foundation of both Socratic and Platonic philosophy: the highest human potential is knowledge and all other human abilities are derived from this central capacity. Aristotle also locates the highest human potential in knowledge: theoretical knowledge. If areté is knowledge and study, the highest human knowledge is knowledge about knowledge itself; in this light, the theoretical study of human knowledge, which Aristotle called "contemplation," is the highest human ability and happiness

[andy]

*** it has. The man had pics of it in his books, ****. You aint even READ them.

[andy]

you have no PROBLEM quoting jerks who've been DEAD for hundreds of years, and SOMEHOW what happened with GUNS in the 70's is ALL superceded by your WONDROOUS new knowledge. ****.

[Wylycoyte]

**** it has. The man had pics of it in his books, ****. You aint even READ them.

Yes, I saw the shetland pony with horns on it that you're calling a "Spanish fighting bull" in his books when I read them back in high school. I've also seen the allegations of him sawing horns partway through and of killing them by wrestling them to the ground and twisting their horns. *****.

[Aslan]

you have no PROBLEM quoting jerks who've been DEAD for hundreds of years, and SOMEHOW what happened with GUNS in the 70's is ALL superceded by your WONDROOUS new knowledge. ****.

Well, there's been a whole lot of technology changes since the 70's. It's your refusal to come to grips with these changes that get you in trouble.

You tend to ignore the improvements and make a lot of statements on out-dated, no longer applicable information. It's one thing to reflect on the 70's and the Gun related developments of that period, but to ignore the current state of things is folly.

To pass yourself off as an expert, based on old information makes you a historian.

:devil:

[brass hammer]

Here, from an author, Richard Hooker, are a few words about the philosophy of quality or excellence:

The most articulated value in Greek culture is areté. Translated as "virtue," the word actually means something closer to "being the best you can be," or "reaching your highest human potential." The term from Homeric times onwards is not gender specific. Homer applies the term of both the Greek and Trojan heroes as well as major female figures, such as Penelope, the wife of the Greek hero, Odysseus. In the Homeric poems, areté is frequently associated with bravery, but more often, with effectiveness. The man or woman of areté is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties: strength, bravery, wit, and deceptiveness, to achieve real results. In the Homeric world, then, areté involves all of the abilities and potentialities available to humans. We can, through the frequent use of this term in Homer's poems, make some tentative conclusions about the early Greek world view. The concept implies a human-centered universe in which human actions are of paramount importance; the world is a place of conflict and difficulty, and human value and meaning is measured against individual effectiveness in the world.


Greek Philosophy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aristotle
Plato
Socrates
Aristotle, areté is explicitly linked with human knowledge. Plato repeatedly returns to the question of areté , and the evidence of his earliest writings suggest that Socrates, Plato's teacher, was equally obsessed with the question. Various Platonic dialogues deal with questions such as: Can areté be taught or learned (Meno )? What is areté (The Republic )? The famous Socratic paradox, "Virtue is knowledge," is in Greek, "Areté is knowledge." This would be the foundation of both Socratic and Platonic philosophy: the highest human potential is knowledge and all other human abilities are derived from this central capacity. Aristotle also locates the highest human potential in knowledge: theoretical knowledge. If areté is knowledge and study, the highest human knowledge is knowledge about knowledge itself; in this light, the theoretical study of human knowledge, which Aristotle called "contemplation," is the highest human ability and happiness



DAMMIT! [LUCILLE] how dare you, pan the last few 'placer' dregs of my thoughts, AND POST THEM ON THE INTERNET!!! :headbang:

[ABCF]

"Areté" strikes me as a positively pagan concept.

"The concept implies a human-centered universe in which human actions are of paramount importance; the world is a place of conflict and difficulty, and human value and meaning is measured against individual effectiveness in the world."

What of God and God's will? Is not His Will more important than 'individual effectiveness'? A 'human-centered universe' taking presence over the Almighty? Blasphemy.

[Magnum88C]

"Areté" strikes me as a positively pagan concept.

"The concept implies a human-centered universe in which human actions are of paramount importance; the world is a place of conflict and difficulty, and human value and meaning is measured against individual effectiveness in the world."
It's nothing but the heathen religion of humanism. It's taken the world by storm, even many of those that claim another religion have fallen for its lies. Its priests (called psychologists) even have inordinate amounts of respect in our society, even though their methods do not work. It's little different fromt he ineffectual witch-doctors of past times, except the god of the dung heap has been replaced by self.

[ABCF]

:laugh01:

Good post.