Quality in a COVID World
COVID-19 hasn’t changed our routine much at Rancho Largo. But perhaps I’ve had too much time to hunker down and contemplate the existential lack of toilet paper and the insanity of our politics. In recent weeks my mind has wandered off political insanity and TP, and down a couple of rabbit holes. In our last Journal Entry we discussed Taleb’s concepts of efficiency and redundancy. Today we’ll tackle Robert M. Pirsig’s concepts of arête or “Quality”
Robert M. Pirsig introduced me to the concept of quality as a teenager 45 years ago, in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It seems that before Aristotle the Greeks respected a kind of knowledge that could not be rationalized. Today, a scientist might call this knowledge “pre-cognitive perception”. This is the knowledge that recognizes good art or good food before one has time to rationalize why. It is the innate sense that something is “right”. Quality is our appreciation of a flower, a sunset, or a starry night on the prairie, but it is also that moment of “oh, I get it” when we learn a new concept or solve a problem. That ah-ha moment becomes a driver of learning since it’s accompanied by a dose of dopamine.
Pirsig first understood Quality as the peace of mind derived from full focus and attention on the maintenance of his motorcycle as he crossed the western US literally searching for his former self. He found Zen in the full attention to a maintenance problem and more Zen afterwards in the “rightness” of his work. His conflict with Aristotle derives from applying Quality to ethics. Aristotle guided western thought to value rational knowledge over all other knowledge. But a look at history shows us that humans are capable of rationalizing anything, no matter how evil. Conscience is defined as “inner knowledge” precisely what Quality is. When we communicate our rational thoughts to others there is potential to lie or deceive. But, one cannot deceive their conscience - peace of mind requires adherence to the inner self’s concept of “right”.
One can stretch Pirsig’s Quality concept to include our actions. We can act without rational thought. Think of the athlete who is “in the zone”; heroic acts by warriors; the moment of creation/inspiration for an artist; or Einstein’s deep physical insights that arose spontaneously while playing the violin. In most cases the participant doesn’t know where the action or thought came from, they are fully in the moment without rational distraction.
Pirsig found the Greek concept of Arête to be the same as Quality. Arête translates as: excellence, moral virtue, fulfillment of purpose or function, living up to full potential, valor, or honor. In a warrior culture like the Greeks, Arête is closely tied to valor in combat, but the same meanings can apply to the athlete, artist, or physicist. A key point is that Arête isn’t about the public perception after the act of valor. It’s not the honor of recognition but the honor of the fully mindful act itself.
Pirsig’s journey retraces the footsteps of his former self. That former self, named Phaedrus, went insane thinking about Quality and underwent electro-shock therapy. Thus, now might be a good time to exit the rabbit hole and say something about ranching and beef.
A harsh reality of ranching is that things out of your control largely dictate your life and livelihood. One can’t rationalize, bully, or schmooze their way around a blizzard that kills cattle, a drought that kills grass or a dive in the market. For a rancher perception is not reality. When things go bad we cling to Quality like being horseback with a good crew at sunrise; man and horse responding spontaneously to make a hard cut; peace of mind over work well done at the end of a hot, dusty, miserable day; full presence and mental focus that finds the solution to an intractable problem; or the appearance of a new plant, insect, or animal on the ranch.
We first pushed toward custom sales for economic reasons. We saw direct sales as a way to monetize our ecological work and increase margins. Those are good rational reasons but they lack Quality. We soon realized that retail marketing could be the opposite of ranching in that perception is reality. The danger is that one can control sales by rationalizing lies or half-truths. While the commodity beef business is driven by pounds of beef produced per acre, attention to the quality of our beef through the custom market adds quality to our lives. I like to think that our beef captures some of nature's Quality. It may be in the flavors imparted by Blue Grama or Winterfat, but I hope also in the full focus and attention to our production process and our land. There is also Quality in the relationships we create with you. Our goal in production, product, and marketing is Arête, not the perception of truth but the act of truth.