Sorry but I think you misunderstand what Robert Pirsig was trying to get across.

I agree quality is overused in a marketing sense but this doesn’t mean the concept doesn’t have tremendous value.

Also to clarify, I think you mean “high quality” in most instances that you are referring to quality. Quality, in Pirsig’s definition is not necessarily high or low to start, it is more generically defined as the relationship between things. This relationship can be good, bad, strong, weak.

You may argue that this definition is too generic to be of any use. But on the contrary, i think it is incredibly powerful.

What it means is that all the efforts of modern society to quantify the concept of quality and to nail it down as a concrete thing is a fool’s errand. Any measure or observation that is made will inevitably be a trailing indicator at best. Ironically, by saying that it is meaningless because there can be 7 billion permutations of a quality, you are falling into much of the same trap.

It is in fact because quality is a subjective matter, indeed the most subjective matter there is that gives it such power as a concept. It is in its essence a description of the relationship of you as an individual with the world around you or to a specific object or experience or another human being.

Within this concept, there indeed can be a broad spectrum of little q “qualities” that can be experienced and observed. But then, there are also those occasions where we encounter something of truly high quality. So high in fact that we find it resonating deeply within our soul. Something that speaks to us.

I agree to say that something is quality on a label is a bit of a perversion of the concept. One can experience quality in any manner and not just in a way prescribed by some marketing guru. You can experience it on your morning commute or by hearing a familiar tune off-hand or, as happens most often, in nature.

These experiences and feelings of resonance are what provide color, depth and vitality to our lives. Far more than any metric or measure that modern science can dream up.

Finally, it is nearly impossibly for 7 billion individuals to agree on a single thing of quality, but in my mind that doesn’t make quality any less valuable, it makes it that much more fruitful. How boring this world would be if we all agreed on what is the best thing. It is in the interaction of our distinct tastes that new discoveries are made and new encounters created.

I prefer to draw value from the concept of quality not from the summation of those who agree with me but in the depth of the connection that is formed around shared modes of experience and expression.