ATTN: Lanny

1. 2019-03-16 at 4:38 PM UTC

   #21
   The Self Taught Man Black Hole

   Originally posted by Lanny I'm not a huge fan, at least if I try to treat him as a philosopher rather than just like a write or something. Often when I read Watts I feel like he's mistaken the form of deliberate vagueness for the actual content of the zen tradition. To be fair he has presumably read more primary material than I ever will but like other translators of eastern texts seem to be able to pull a coherent thesis together instead of Watts' kind of metrical writing on and on without ever actually saying anything. Like maybe there's an argument that Watts not actually saying anything is supposed to be an instructive device ala the gateless gate or something but that's really not a very productive mode of writing when transplanted to a different time and culture.
   
   In the end though he's pretty benign. Sometimes I can just be like "alright, let's just not think and listen to some pretty things and listen to a recording of Alan Watts" and it's alright I guess but any time I try to engage with him critically it just grates on me.

   
   Yeah pretty accurate. I like his lectures better than his books.