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Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality (Paperback)

~ Alan W. Watts (Author)
Key Phrases: Seven Short Essays, United States, New York (more...)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality + The Wisdom of Insecurity + The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
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Product Description

This is a series of essays representing philosopher Alan Watts's most recent thinking on the astonishing problems of man's relations to his material environment. The basic theme is that civilized man confuses symbol with reality, his ways of describing and measuring the world with the world itself, and thus puts himself into the absurd situation of preferring money to wealth and eating the menu instead of the dinner.

Thus, with his attention locked upon numbers and concepts, man is increasingly unconscious of nature and of his total dependence upon air, water, plants, animals, insects, and bacteria. He has been hallucinated into the notion that the so-called "external" world is a cluster of "objects" separate from himself, that he "encounters" it, that he comes into it instead of out of it. Consequently, our species is fouling its own nest and is in imminent danger of self-obliteration.

Here, a philosopher whose works have been mainly concerned with mysticism and Oriental philosophy gets down to the "nitty-gritty" problems of economics, technology, clothing, cooking, and housing. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.



From the Inside Flap

This is a series of essays representing philosopher Alan Watts's most recent thinking on the astonishing problems of man's relations to his material environment. The basic theme is that civilized man confuses symbol with reality, his ways of describing and measuring the world with the world itself, and thus puts himself into the absurd situation of preferring money to wealth and eating the menu instead of the dinner.

Thus, with his attention locked upon numbers and concepts, man is increasingly unconscious of nature and of his total dependence upon air, water, plants, animals, insects, and bacteria. He has been hallucinated into the notion that the so-called "external" world is a cluster of "objects" separate from himself, that he "encounters" it, that he comes into it instead of out of it. Consequently, our species is fouling its own nest and is in imminent danger of self-obliteration.

Here, a philosopher whose works have been mainly concerned with mysticism and Oriental philosophy gets down to the "nitty-gritty" problems of economics, technology, clothing, cooking, and housing. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 140 pages
  • Publisher: New World Library; 2nd edition (October 28, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1577315855
  • ISBN-13: 978-1577315858
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #412,343 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Average Customer Review
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Easily one of my favorites in my Watts library..., February 21, 2000
It is subtitled "Essays on Man's Relationship to Materiality"...and my copy perhaps is almost ready for the Smithsonian. So much for my relationship with my materiality, eh? Well, I'm still learning. This book is one of his most accessible collections, his writing style here is so light and readable that it's clear that he is getting a kick out of his own whimsical turning of phrases. The words, the symbols, the images, the numbers in which we define reality are NOT reality and according to Watts, we confuse our descriptive world with what is really going on, thus we are distanced and numbed to real situations in the real world...we become blind to nature, we fail to connect to the living vibrations. These essays--I know, yet more descriptives--are designed for us to recognize the problem. (Money is not wealth. We are not our clothes. Food is not the packaging it is placed in.) These essays tell us ways we can connect to the cosmic consciousness...so we can avoid self destruction. One of the best essays is the short piece on Zen scholar DT Suzuki in which, I find, has the best line about both Suzuki and the Alan Watts of this text...it is "as if he had seen the Ultimate Joke and as if, out of compassion for those who had not, he were refraining from laughing out loud." Well, that is almost the way I have often been described, like I've told a joke that few people get...Anyway one of Watt's best, it's a pity is no longer in catalogue....
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, it matters and its important, February 26, 2004
Alan Watts is one of my favorite philosophers. His wisdom is timeless, and his views refreshing in this age of mass media hype and overplayed political propaganda. Does it Matter? That is an important question for everyone to ask themselves. I'm not going to list here the many topics covered in this volume, and certainly I'm not equal to Watts in trying to explain it. The book is worth owning even for his writing about children. One can get a whole new perspective on the Columbine shootings, for example, by reading what Watts said about children several decades before. Columbine wasn't a surprise. It's a great book for those who take time to think about life and the real way of the world.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This is 'applied Watts' at its best., December 23, 1999
By TMerfee@aol.com (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
Alan Watts is somehow able to turn upside down our most basic assumptions and, by doing so, make more sense of the world. "Does It Matter" is a small collection of essays about Western man's relationship to everyday material things (e.g. food, clothing, money). Watts convincingly shakes us out of rutted thinking. With humor, irreverance, sincerity, and clear writing, he articulates profound ideas without resorting to obscure argument. A theme that runs through the essays is our tendency to confuse symbols with the material things to which they refer(desiring the menu more than the food). I get the feeling while reading these essays that the author is comfortable enough in his own search for truth to enjoy sharing it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

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