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/lit/ - Literature

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10282512 No.10282512 [Reply] [Original]

Alan Watts: Big pseud appealing to even bigger pseuds or was he actually onto something?

>> No.10282524

Nothing he said made any sense or had anything to fall back on for proof.

>> No.10282533

>>10282524
this

the man had no fucking credentials whatsoever and flaked out on multiple religions and marriages and died a drunk.

nothing he said had any weight or meaning behind it, it was all feel-good pseudo-zen nonsense that helped clueless, useless hippies in the 60s decide to become parasites on society.

>> No.10282554

>>10282512
He was mostly simplifying eastern philosophy, nothing he said was anything remotely new

>> No.10282572

god i hate boomers

>> No.10282789

He's cool for entry level zen stuff I guess.

>> No.10282861

>>10282512
His lectures are fucking comfy.

>> No.10282883

>>10282554

>Simplifying a religion where it's core motive and goal, as well as it's grand mystery, is based on enlightenment through simplification.

Really gets my ballsack tingling.

>>10282533
>No credentials
Well he had a master's degree in Theology and was also a priest, but his unofficial credentials are not anything to scoff at. He also studied and trained under zen masters.

>nothing he said had any weight or meaning behind it, it was all feel-good pseudo-zen nonsense that helped clueless, useless hippies in the 60s decide to become parasites on society.

Except if you actually have a brain and read his works he has definite meaning, although that meaning goes through different phases through his life. Clueless hippies were not his fault, he was a fucking man of the 30s. Hippies just happened to cross over in his lifetime.

His lectures I will give you can drone on or try to present concepts through very odd contexts and esoteric ways. Which is what most people know him by.

>> No.10282889
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10282889

>>10282512

Also I am getting really fucking tired of this stupid faggot word "Pseud". It discourages any sort of intelligent discourse because you are starting out a conversation with an meme insult aimed to target some sort of boogyman classification of a person based on loose grounds.

>> No.10282901

didn't this guy die from alcoholism? not sure if it's true but if it is it nullifies everything he says for me. maybe I'm being overly harsh though.

>> No.10282913

>>10282889
Don't worry, eventually we will reach equality and everybody will be stupid.

>> No.10282922

>>10282901

The lives of people have their ups and downs and we are all fundamentally flawed. The dude had problems but I will defend him against the people who scoff and throw him in the group of other spiritual snake oil salesmen. I can say while he disregards historical and traditional context for the sake of introducing concepts to new audiences, those fundamental concepts he introduced to me were quite life changing and I have become a more positive person from them. Mainly his explanation and take on the hinduistic philosophy of the universe.

>> No.10282926

>>10282913

You are an angry angry little man.

>> No.10282928

>>10282533
I'm legitimately curious, could you refute some of the points Watts puts forward?

>> No.10282936

>>10282512
I don't mind Watts, he just seemed like someone who wanted to help people incapable of putting time into studying philosophy or a level of reading that could help them understand their suffering.

>> No.10282958

>>10282936

Watts wasn't really trying to be an academic philosopher, his focus was on alternative sources of spiritualistic philosophy for his time, which were fundamentally eastern. However he does give some interesting responses to some generic western philosophical ideas.

>> No.10283013

>>10282512
He just spouting mixed religions, mythologies, and the like in entertaining stories/rhetoric. Just treat him as an entertainer.

>> No.10283072

>>10282512
Watts is a philosophical entertainer

Listen to one of his lectures. You will be entertained, and your mind will be pleasantly stimulated.

That's what he does, and he is great at it. He has a lovely voice, too. One of the smoothest I've heard.

He doesn't take himself or anything very seriously either, has a great sense of humor, which is usually unfortunately lacking in a lot of persons of a so called "spiritual" bent.

>> No.10283100

One of the greats. Try him.

>> No.10283272

>>10282861
This, fuck off.

>> No.10283307

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aufuwMiKmE

Watch this and be enlightened.