About this ebook
Does It Matter? presents Alan Watts’ thoughts on the problem of humankind’s relationship to its environment. Here he argues that contemporary people confuse symbols with reality, preferring money to wealth and “eating the menu instead of the dinner.” Focusing on numbers, concepts, and technology, he says, makes us increasingly unconscious of nature and of our total dependence on air, water, plants, animals, insects, and bacteria. We have hallucinated the notion that the "external" world is a cluster of "objects" separate from ourselves, that we "encounter" it rather than come out of it. Consequently, he claims, humanity is fouling its own nest and is in imminent danger of self-obliteration. In one of his most provocative books, a philosopher known for his writings and teachings about mysticism and Eastern philosophy confronts the nitty-gritty problems of economics, technology, clothing, cooking, housing, and the rest of the world around us. First published in 1971, the book is especially timely today.
Does It Matter? presents Alan Watts’ thoughts on the problem of humankind’s relationship to its environment. Here he argues that contemporary people confuse symbols with reality, preferring money to wealth and “eating the menu instead of the dinner.” Focusing on numbers, concepts, and technology,...
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13 reviews
Jennifer Graziano
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May 22, 2025
Normal challenges are not to be disturbed; at all touched, or have own domain entered. It's a master and leader of own life. Breathing is mastered by the toddler year because growing out of the word is the only way to bigger ones behind them. Meditating; yoga, walking and talking the same year provide strength for own schedule of busy people. Combining the words science and religion for 'let there be light" are required for psychiatrist's evaluation result of normal - defends own money well being. To get normal results from the doctors is the only survival. These is not more from them then normal or not.
H D
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June 24, 2014
Master of words.
Johannes Duelund
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June 10, 2015
They are there. -ish.
1 person found this review helpful
About the author
Alan Watts was one of the most famous and insightful writers and speakers of the twentieth century on the subjects of Eastern thought and meditation. He was born in England in 1915 and lived in the United States, where he was an Episcopalian priest at Northwestern University until 1950. Soon after, he devoted himself to the study of Eastern philosophy and meditation at the Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, and became one of the most famous and enduring writers on Asian philosophy. He died in his home in northern California in 1973. His books include The Way of Zen, Psychotherapy East and West, The Joyous Cosmology, and The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are.
Alan Watts was one of the most famous and insightful writers and speakers of the twentieth century on the subjects of Eastern thought and meditation. He was born in England in 1915 and lived in the United States, where he was an Episcopalian priest at Northwestern University until 1950. Soon afte...
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