Discussion»Questions»Random Knowledge» Would you concur that during the 60's and 70's, most of the motorcyclists were intellectuals like Peter Fonda, but now the most are retards?
No I would not. Motorcycles were a component of a rebellious counter-culture, of folks like Hell’s Angels, off-the-grid biker lifestyles in which intellectualism seldom made an appearance.
Peter Fonda was acting like a hippie, not a biker. His sidekick was a biker. Bikers nowadays are retired old farts driving what the Hell's Angels used to call "garbage wagons". I have not seen a chopper in over forty years.
Did you see Altamont? That movie about the Rock show with the Rolling Stones where the Hell's Angles went nuts and murdered some guy for no other reason than they didn't like him and he was naked and fat and screwed up and dancing. So they killed him.
That is a typical "HEROIC COOL MOTOCYCLE GUY" in that era.
Most were always retards if they were part of some gang like the Angles or whatever else was out there drinking, druging, beating up people and stealing. They were bums.
There is and always was another faction of motorcycle rider that is more like Robert Pirsig or the Peter Fonda image that was glorified in the 60's culture. And the 70's. It started with the idea that the engine was something that needed care and you had to at least be competent enough to keep your bike in mint condition for riding or you could die.
So, then the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance became a cult favorite for the higher-minded rider.
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" might be "higher minded" in one sense - that of developing awareness by tuning into sense perceptions in the present moment. But that has nothing to do with intellectuals or intelligentsia. While there are intellectuals who specialise in Buddhist studies, Buddhist practice is not intellectual. It can sharpen the mind's faculties, but it does so outside the functions of logic, maths, language and academia.
If intellectual means a person possessing a highly developed intellect -- some highly learned person, a highbrow, academic or scholar, a bookworm, bookish person, or man or woman of letters -- then I wouldn't call Peter Fonda an intellectual. If it simply means someone who thinks and is significantly more intelligent than others - then yes, he probably is.
As to retards - I'm not keen on the term.
The brain develops continually as long as it's properly used, and just like muscles, with lack of use, it atrophies.
So someone who was lauded for their brilliance at university might later seem perplexingly ill-adapted and goofy if they haven't kept studying, problem-solving and developing their cognitive skills throughout life. (Is this what happened to Trump?) While someone like Einstein, who famously started out as very average, can later bloom into genius, and some artists can reach their greatest peaks in old age.
No, I don't agree. I'm not even sure that Peter Fonda was an intellectual. I agree with Don Barzini. Today, there are many biker groups (not biker gangs) that do a lot of events that benefit charities. Many military veterans belong to those groups as do doctors, lawyers and accountants.
Not Sure 