Alan Watts

[Anonymous No.5012173]

/lit/, what are your opinions on Alan Watts' work or the man himself?
Would you recommend him to anyone?

[Anonymous No.5012263]

I like the man, but I think it's mostly because of what he says is so easy to understand and because I don't really know of any other Zen philosophers.

[Anonymous No.5012402]

literally had the voice of a god
in the future i hope we can use some sort of technology to replicate his voice and produce audiobooks

[Anonymous No.5012793]

>>5012173
Evil, nasty man, capable of only vague, empty platitudes.
His vile spirit haunts the intertubes via your momma's facespook.
His bullshit will be around long after the last boomer has bit the dust. His taint has damaged the world greatly. He was partially responsible for a generation of dissipate, entitled, shallow people utterly afraid to concern themselves with unpleasant truths. He distorted and packaged the perfect spiritual system for those who want the effects of a demiurge but are unwilling to take any steps that would effect their lives in a negative way. Thus they are utterly dominated by their creature comforts and politically malleable.

[Anonymous No.5013032]

Incredible orator. I love his sincere and cheerful manner.

I've read a few of his books but there are really only 2 that I would suggest reading:

>The Way of Zen
>The Book


>>5012793
I lol'd

[Anonymous No.5013060]

He's boring as fuck, but not utterly retarded.

[Anonymous No.5013075]

>>5012793
Not quite that bad, but, pretty much.

[Anonymous No.5013088]

>>5012402
Or replicate his entire intellect into an operating system.

[Anonymous No.5013101]

>>5012173
The only book of his I've read is The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. I have to strongly contest the idea that our ego is something introduced to us through cultural programming and any less "natural" than the philosophy that he endorses. How does he know that NOT having an ego isn't a result of cultural programming? I see the ego as a fundamental part of human nature, not as something that is "switched on" by your surroundings.

He also doesn't cite his sources, which makes adopting his philosophy without a leap of faith extremely difficult. At one point he claims that women can have completely painless childbirth as long as birth hasn't been stigmatized as a painful process. Ok, that's great, but that's completely contrary to any birth that I've ever heard of, and I'm not going to buy into it until I've seen a study replicating his claim.

[Anonymous No.5013222]

>>5013088
>implying upworthy doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.5013229]

>>5013222
>didn't get the reference
>comments anyway

[Anonymous No.5013250]

>>5013101
I'm sorry dude, this isn't meant to be an insult but I'd wager Alan Watts would just crack the fuck up reading your post. What do you even mean with ego?

[Anonymous No.5013282]

>>5013229
>le comedic references
>post-2008

[Anonymous No.5013295]

>>5012173

Alan Watts- Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives
>Spoken Word, Lecture series
>This is the complete 12 disk collection
https://mega.co.nz/#!kotHjIaa!Eza6y3ZDjUJi_2lPx9JMEj4yWcc-bt8lGHtqwKVs92E

[Anonymous No.5013579]

>>5013250
He could crack up all he wants, I still wouldn't have any reason to buy into his philosophy. He makes plenty of completely unsupported claims about the world that I don't think any reasonable person would accept as truth without some hard evidence. I'm not even talking about his philosophical ideas, I'm talking about things that he says like "Oh, excrement only smells bad to you intellectually destitute westerners! It's all social conditioning!" (I'm not exaggerating, this is an actual argument in The Book.)

>What do you even mean with ego?
Attacking western conceptions of ego is the entire point of The Book, so I can't see why I would need to explain that to someone who is defending Watts and has read his works. But anyway, ego is your conception of your "self" as separate from the world. Any further explanation of the idea is probably best found by rereading The Book.

[Anonymous No.5013640]

>>5013579
here
In any case, most of my issues with The Book stem from its self-assured tone. Maybe I would find some of Watts' academic works to be more tolerable, but I found The Book to be too condescending and belittling of Western ideas to be worthwhile.

[Anonymous No.5015328]

>>5013579
Alan Watts called himself a spiritual entertainer and said the only authority he had, or all gurus for that matter, even though he didn't consider himself as such, was because people had chosen to treat him like one and he was just playing a role. Beyond that I would even go so far and claim Watts was like a finger pointing at the moon, to use on of his analogies, and you misunderstand the point entirely by staring at the finger. On the other hand I don't think there's something to understand ultimately, and the only enlightenment you will get is when you realize that all your attempts to grasp the ultimate truth is what's delaying you from realizing the present. But thinking you need to stop seeking is still you doing the same thing. Same as trying stop yourself from stopping to stop and so on ad infinite. So you can't do anything at all, but then concept of you is just another thought of yours.

That said the reason why I thought he would crack up is not because he was superior to you and you were wrong, but because I guess he would feeling like your just the universe fucking with him and he was fucking with you.

Try to read up or listen on his explanations of Zen because at it appears huge parts of what he said was trolling you into arguments with yourself until you seem it's just a troll. At least that's how I interpret many things, but then I guess I don't get either.

[Anonymous No.5015345]

>>5013579
Alan Watts called himself a spiritual entertainer and said the only authority he had, or all gurus for that matter, even though he didn't consider himself as such, was because people had chosen to treat him like one and he was considered himself playing a role. Beyond that I would argue Watts was like a finger pointing at the moon, to use on of his analogies, and you misunderstand the point entirely by staring at the finger. On the other hand I don't think there's something to understand ultimately, and the only enlightenment you will get is when you realize that all your attempts to grasp the ultimate truth is what's delaying you from realizing the present. But thinking you need to stop seeking is still you doing it. Like trying to stop yourself from stopping yourself to stop and so on ad infinite. So you can't do anything at all about it, but then concept of you is just another thought of yours.

That said, the reason why I thought he would crack up is not because he was superior to you and you were wrong, but because I guess he would feel like you were just the universe fucking with him and he was just fucking with you.

Try to read up or listen on his explanations of Zen because it appears huge parts of what he said was trolling people into arguments with themselves until they understood it's just a troll. At least that's how I interpret many things, but then I guess I don't get either.

[Anonymous No.5016255]

bump

[Anonymous No.5016274]

I read the wisdom of insecurity, and liked it.
His points are clear even for the less versed in philosophy.

[Anonymous No.5017149]

>>5012793
strawman, but youre right about the place spirituality has taken in the modern world. not alan watts's fault though

[Anonymous No.5017219]

>>5017149
It's not really strawman when everything he says is so vague it could mean anything.
Of course, it isn't Alan Watt's fault, it's the boomer's fault for lapping up his garbage.

[Anonymous No.5018891]

>>5013579

You can hardly blame Watts for your own seemingly complete ignorance of Tao and Zen, which he bases his "philosophy" around.

It used to be that people were actually expected to have a basic liberal education and be minimally intelligent and curious before picking up a book, rather than "It doesn't agree with my preconceived opinions so I don't like it"...

[Anonymous No.5018902]

>>5017219

Actually the wast majority of what he says is clear and concise and expressed with humor and insight. It's not his fault that the Western theories he had to work with at the time were complete and utter shit. Try explaining Buddhism in terms of Freud and Skinner and see what you can come up with.

[Anonymous No.5019245]

>>5018891

I agree. The concept of Tao in relation to the western concept of God is fascinating to me. It seems to be a symbolic parallel of our experience of life.

There is the underlying material universe, which we consist of, that we cannot ultimately classify because we would need something else to compare 'it' to (Tao). Then we have the I, which thinks that it's somehow something other than what it perceives. I think that ultimately this is what the symbol for God is supposed to represent, that I.

[Anonymous No.5019291]

>>5013101
>>5013579
i hate alan watts but the thing about ego is pretty sound
see freud

[Anonymous No.5019376]

>>5019245

b-but god is dead

[Anonymous No.5019481]

Watt's lectures are where its at to hear his message, the guy was a talker- managing to be interesting, funny, revolutionary and debonair all at the same time. His esoteric and deeply personal elucidations on Buddhism and spirituality at large are still for me the best entry into that world; along with Joseph Campbell he has paved an easily understood perspective on comparative religion that can be logically followed yet transcends rationality. He managed to be of another world while still being firmly planted in this one.

[Anonymous No.5019514]

>>5019481

This guy gets it

[Anonymous No.5020624]

>>5017149
>strawman
Not knowing what this means.

[Anonymous No.5021401]

I like him.

[Anonymous No.5021427]

>>5012793
Big words, shame you're retarded

You might have a point were it not for the fact that he really isn't that well known

What are the unpleasant truths, do tell?

[Anonymous No.5021445]

A lot of people talking about how Alan Watts is vague. Yeh, that's the point. In contrast to Western traditions, a lot of Eastern philosophy uses vague and contradictory phrases in order to get people to change the way they think.

By describing it as vague you imply that you want something more concrete to get to grips with, something to get a handle on. How should I live? What constitutes moral behaviour? What is the self? What is the meaning of life?

The whole point of Eastern traditions and of Alan Watts is to try and show you that this is an impossible goal

[Anonymous No.5021456]

>>5013579
The thing with the excrement only smelling bad to westerners, see:

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_tasters

[Anonymous No.5021465]

>>5019376

As is the "I".

[Anonymous No.5021484]

>>5021445

What you wrote is in itself vague and unfounded. Do you actually know any examples of what you claim, or know anything about "Eastern" thought aside from stereotypes?

>How should I live? What constitutes moral behaviour? What is the self? What is the meaning of life?

All this is answered as clearly in the Western traditions as in Eastern, and you can certainly find as many vague and bollocks ideas in the West as in the East. But of course the Beatles weren't Christian converts, they went to India, etc.

[Anonymous No.5021514]

>>5021445
>vague and contradictory phrases
Contradictory phrases don't have any meaning at all, but pseudo-intellectual eastern philosophers love to revel in them because they're lazy. Want to become an acclaimed Eastern philosopher? Write 200 pages of variations on the template "This thing is both X and not X, yet somehow is X, and but yet is not X ... "

[Anonymous No.5021651]

>>5021514
This might sound like an attack, but you just don't get it. Nothing more nothing less.

[Anonymous No.5021704]

>>5021651
Then explain it. If you say "it's beyond words" or "words can't describe it", then good enough. But everything I've read that says that (like Herrigel's The Method of Zen) then proceeds to revel in "it's both X and not X" for about 10 pages.

[Anonymous No.5022041]

>>5021704
I'd say it's beyond words.

[Anonymous No.5022117]

Alan Watts is a girl-stealing asshole

[Anonymous No.5022337]

>>5012173
as he said himself, he is an entertainer and not an academic philosopher.

[Anonymous No.5023077]

>>5022117

He steal your girl? Admit it.

[Anonymous No.5023158]

>>5013088
Lol'd so fucking hard I split my non physical hardrive.

But seriously the heart is not a fucking box people.

[Anonymous No.5023170]

>>5019481
I like you.
You think the same thing as I do.
Let's be friends.

[Anonymous No.5024692]

>>5023170
Can I be your friend too?

[Anonymous No.5024942]

>>5019291
>see freud
This is a joke, right? Freud is a quack.

[Anonymous No.5025229]

>>5024692
Ofc Internet stranger.

[Anonymous No.5025288]

>>5022117
'Her' a shit movie.