It’s worth noting that the author of Zen and the Art literally went crazy in pursuit of this.
I don’t mean this to say “you have asked a bad question”, but rather to say, “you have asked so large a question that a man once went insane in trying to answer it.”
I asked the question because i thought it was good manners to do so. Actually I'm strongly convinced that quality describes how a thing fits the preconceptions about that thing.
As testable example, I'm largely unable to tell the quality of beer as i never enjoyed any of it, and thus could not have developed a preconception of how a good beer is supposed to taste.
Trappist quad ales feature a high alcohol content, which makes them sweet but somehow not cloyingly so. Robust Belgian yeasts generate a surprising amount of effervescence, which keeps things light despite the heavy doses of malted barley, and produce esters that generate flavors of banana bread and dark stone fruits that compliment latent notes of burnt sugars and caramel.
That’s a pretty standard description of some of the best ales on the planet (produced by monks in Belgium), if anyone’s curious.
That description has no comparisons and no baseline definition of beer quality. Why do those things make them better than other ales, especially when most of that is subjective? For some people, high alcohol content, sweetness, effervescence, and heavy doses of malted barley are bad things when it comes to beers. All beers have flavor notes, though flavor notes are notoriously ephemeral and suggestible.
I’m familiar with Belgian Ales, I used to like Chimay, and have sampled many others (though not Westvleteren yet). These days I prefer something less strong. The story about Trappist monks is intriguing, but what does it actually mean? Obviously Chimay and several other Belgian Trappist ales are enormous commercial productions that ship beer globally. They are just beer factories doing a huge volume of beer business. The narrative about monks is intended to give people the perception of quality, but it doesn’t actually demonstrate anything, it’s just a narrative.
>Pirsig had a mental breakdown and spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals between 1961 and 1963. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with electroconvulsive therapy on numerous occasions
>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values is a book by Robert M. Pirsig first published in 1974.
I'm afraid you're romanticizing the relationship between Pirsig's books and his life. That someone is losing touch with reality doesn't warrant anyone to deconstruct their biography at will and reconstruct it to suit their own narrative.
While it may be true that Pirsig's mental breakdown had nothing to do with what went into the book, the facts you have presented here do not particularly support that conclusion.
If his mental breakdowns had been, say, in 1976 and 1978, that would have supported it much better. But someone working on the philosophical underpinnings of a book for over a decade before the book is published is not at all unreasonable.
My primary memory of the book is that the author specifically ties together the quest for meaning and the loss of mental health, even within the book itself.
I don’t mean this to say “you have asked a bad question”, but rather to say, “you have asked so large a question that a man once went insane in trying to answer it.”