From: crawford@boole.mitre.org (Randy Crawford)
Subject: Re: Dealer won't budge on '91 ST1100
Originator: crawford@boole.mitre.org
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 14:26:46 GMT


In article <644.2B4F9856@kennel.FIDONET.ORG>, john@kennel.FIDONET.ORG (John Hamilton) writes:
> Saturday January 09 1993 08:18, Randy Crawford wrote to All:
> 
>  RC> Messers Johns and Moseley didn't claim that function and character are
>  RC> mutually exclusive, only that function seems to cost less than
>  RC> character. And I think the observation is a valid one.  In nearly every
>  RC> category, a japanese cycles exists which outperforms an equivalent
>  RC> european model -- acceleration, top speed, smoothness, engineering,
>  RC> touring comfort, reliability (arguable when vs. Beemers but quite
>  RC> close).  It's only when the visceral component is factored in that these
>  RC> so-called rice burners often fall short.  They just don't light my fire
>  RC> the way the Ducs or the Harleys do.
> 
>      [text omitted for brevity]
>
> It is all merely personal ego in extension. In short, opinion. To insist that
> character can be assigned to a motorcycle is fine, to insist it has any value
> in comparision outside your own personal decision-making is valueless. The
> Pacific Coast you speak of, while of no character to you or I, is assuredly
> of high character to someone somewhere in the world. It only takes one example
> contrary to demonstrate the point. No?

Don't confuse character with Pirsigian `Quality'.  Character is just style,
generally deliberate and for style's sake.  It is entirely independent of 
function.  In fact, I would go further to say that character is the antithesis 
of function -- where function ends, character begins.

I have no complaints with the Pacific Coast or the ST1100 as bikes in their
own right, they simply lack personality.  You clearly disagree with me on
this, and with virtually every moto-journalist who ever commented on the bikes.
They too felt these were highly competent machines but lacked in any sort of
emotional `zing'.  They lacked character/style/brio/personality.

I'll own a ST1100 as soon as I can afford one, but I won't lust after it.  
I'll enjoy it for what it can do well, not for what it is, or how owning it 
makes me feel.  I'll be empowered, not impassioned.

> 
> The Soul of the Machine is really you extending your own to it. Which is an
> interesting commentary on you, but not on the moto.

Again, you confuse subjectivity with sentimentality.  If you have no emotional
bond with a bike and almost no one else does either, what's at work here, you
or the bike?  General disaffection for certain things shows that our collective
perceptions have much in common and they lead us to agree that a Pacific Coast 
is NOT a soul-stirring scoot.  This isn't mystical or deep psychologically, 
it's common ground.

Or do you not believe at all in shared experiences and values?  Because if you
do, many of us will agree on matters of `character' and that will say more 
about the subject in question than it will us.
-- 

| Randy Crawford        crawford@mitre.org        The MITRE Corporation
|                                                 7525 Colshire Dr., MS Z421
| N=1 -> P=NP           703 883-7940              McLean, VA  22102
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