/lit/ - Literature

>>16911344
LSD left me with more questions than answers.

Alan Watts was a good orator and nothing more. He drank himself to death, very enlightened.

>>16911344
Don't care what you plebs say. I love Alan Watts. His books improved my life, which isn't something I can say about many other authors.

I love how female yuppies get wet when they hear Alan Watts in their weekly yoga class. Based low IQs. Alan Watts is really the perfect midwit gurus for stupid people

>>16911416
He's one of those people who appeals to the really stupid and the really intelligent. The midwits are always too good for him.

>>16911441
I'm afraid to tell you that you are not a part of the really intelligent but a midwit. Who is inspired by Alan Watts today who is really intelligent? Name someone. He's simply a good showman for simplifying some eastern religions for a consumerist western audience.

>>16911461
Just as I said, the midwits are always too good for him. I had a professor, a man far brighter than you or I, who loved Watts' work. I'm not sure why you would judge him as anything other than a "showman" as he himself said he's merely a philosophical entertainer. He's bringing Eastern ideas to a broad Western audience. He didn't pretend to be some preeminent academic.

>>16911527
>I'm not sure why you would judge him as anything other than a "showman" as he himself said he's merely a philosophical entertainer. He's bringing Eastern ideas to a broad Western audience. He didn't pretend to be some preeminent academic.
This is exactly my point. He doesn't have much to offer for us. In the 60s perhaps he was the gateway to eastern thought for a lot of stoned and tripping hippies, but I fail to see his influence among the really intelligent today. I will claim that the really stupid don't like Alan Watts because it's too abstract and the really intelligent know he doesn't have anything to offer because if we are interested in Daoism or Hinduism or Zen we can skip right over him and not miss a thing. It is the easily impressed midwits who like his lecturing style and watching YouTube clips of his lectures while stoned who love him.

>>16911595
If the wisdom is the same, why does it matter where you get it?

>>16911655
It's not the same though, it's watered down and he interprets everything through a Zen Buddhist lense so his comparative stuff, even when it come to Taoism is poor.

>>16911655
Who said the wisdom is the same? A lot of Hindu scholars would say that Alan Watts is misrepresenting the wisdom of Hinduism, and Daoist scholars would say the same for Daoism. He's the shallow end of serious study of eastern thought. If you're interested, go deeper. But don't pretend really intelligent people love him, because they don't. He's the ultimate midwit trap.

>>16911681
>I'm not a midwit
>I think taoism and zen should be studied meticulously
heh, anon, your mediocrity is showing
to waste your time studying these embryonic concepts is such a massive misunderstanding of the "point"

>>16911689
Scholars are the ultimate pseud trap.

>>16911710
>heh, anon, your mediocrity is showing
You're not as smart as you think you are

>>16911719
Yes we should all listen to Alan 'drank himself to death' Watts instead to guide us along the way

>>16911737
Are your scholars choir boys?

He's a charming entry point, I don't get why people get so upset over him.

>>16911791
No he's not he drank himself to death and he's for midwits and intelligent people don't need him.

did anyone read his book on daoism? been considering picking it up. I think it was his last book

>>16911825
Several of the most intelligent people I've known are fans of his work - the biggest Watts enthusiast I've met is a brilliant Physics PhD. Watts offers Eastern wisdom in a digestible form, cutting away all the autism that only interests specialists and getting to the crux of things.

>>16911377
Yeah but they were better questions

Disregard the Bad "Bob" out there. Acquire the Good "Bob."

>>16911441
Quite the opposite in fact

>>16913852
Found the midwit

>>16911344
>alan watts
Hippy-dippy nonsense

>>16911724
Pretty much noone on this site is more than a midwit. There are a few idiots too.

>>16911441
this
Alan Watts filters midwits hard. Retards love him, midwits learn a little bit and think they know it all better than a doctor of theology (lol) and then you learn a bit more and realise Alan Watts really did know what he was talking about very well

>>16911681
>he interprets everything through a Zen Buddhist lens
this is blatantly false or requires a significantly edited definition of the word "everything"