It started with Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In my introductory social psychology course, in an early lecture, I bring up Zen. When I do I give the title and say that it is a book every one should read because the book is both entertaining as a story and as an intellectual adventure. Then I get to the point. In his novel, Pirsig says that there are two fundamental ways of understanding or knowing; romantic understanding and classical understanding. From there, my lecture is about the fact that when it comes to how interpersonal relationships work, too many of us rely on a romantic, surface, understanding and do not seek out a classical, scientific, understanding of what is the real dynamic of relationships.

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