What does /his/ think of Alan Watts? Was he a soft-spoken crackpot

The only reason I even know Alan Watts is because I watched some jabroni from New York stream that Everything game that has some of his lectures in it.

One thing I did gather from that stream is that he's one of this love or hate speakers. Half of the Twitch was incredibly triggered by what to me sounded like entry-level Absurdism, and the other half found it to be really confusing but profound at the same time.

Then again, using his lectures in context of a game like Everything does kinda come off as pretentious.

>>3273279
I think you're spot on the money. I think it's hard to engage in a serious conversation about what his merits were, which were probably largely Absurdist or in-line Zen commentary on modern existence. Everything the man says looks like it should be a pinned image someone's tumblr page; a faggy-quote-like-white italics on a sunset background-look-at-me-I'm-so-deep.

He spoke a lot about god, the self and their relation, which I find the most interesting. In his book 'Tao of Philosophy', he speaks about faith through Atheism, not for the sake of denying god's existance, but for the sake of letting go of god to prove faith. He challenges traditional depictions of worship by stating that images of god are things we hang onto due to a lack of faith.

He also went on a lot about giving up on our attachments and hangups, including our reliance on the certainty of things (and god), despite being a Catholic since birth, attending a 'Muscular Christian' school and at one point training as a priest.

Do you think there's really a deeper meaning to what he's saying, or is it a duplicitious oversimplifcation of life?

>>3273415
I certainly believe there is deeper meaning and a lot of value to what he says, but I haven't had the opportunity to study his work in depth yet.

>>3273415
>Do you think there's really a deeper meaning to what he's saying, or is it a duplicitious oversimplifcation of life?
I wouldn't call it oversimplification. He believed that we oversimplify life by measuring it, labelling it, and projecting our expectations onto it. Reality is far too fluid and interconnected for labels and measurements to be accurate ways of looking at things in day to day life (even if they are the best tools we have for communicating and recording information). We run our experience through so many filters and preconceptions that our view of reality becomes a warped fantasy, and then we get frustrated and depressed when the world around us doesn't match the world in our minds.

I used to think that he was some sagely adept, because I would see him in visions a lot, but this is before I understood Cayce's work and the amenability of the mind to suggestion. Now I think he was just a token hippie riding on the coattails of Helena Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine. I've never read it myself, but I believe there is some existentialist roots to his works. From the sounds of it, he simplified her work and diluted it.

>itt: i haven't read his books but i feel qualified to critique and dismiss him

the only reason people dislike him is because hes white

he presents the same ideas as eastern philosophers, but it's okay coming from them because 'chink wisdom' or some bullshit

it's a form of racism, we think, 'this kind of talking and thinking is not for white people', we have lower philosophical expectations for chinks.

of course both the chinks and watts are mostly retarded anyway ad we should be careful to hate both equally, but just hating watts and giving a pass to the chinks is racism

imagine if buddha was white. would we give as much respect to the white guys thoughts as we do to the chink? of course not.

>>3274599
I don't think anyone's dismissing him.

I have certainly read a part of the Tao, but reading all of an author's established work is not the best way to conduct a discussion. Niche as it may be, I was curious if /his/ had heard of this man.

>>3276203
I wouldn't call them 'lower', just different. It's an ideological slider, so it moves from left to right, not up and down.

>>3276203
Just curious: what are not "mostly retarded" things for you?

I'm not trying to troll or anything, just curious