Reading Alan Watts' autobiography In My Own Way, one is struck both by Watts' learned spiritual syncretism and his unabashed heterodoxy. In many way, Watts' religious thought epitomizes a more New-Age approach to mysticism, and his attempt to subvert chronological storytelling in his own personal narrative seeks to uproot our ingrained perceptions as to how life takes place--that is, not as a linear progression of a single "I" through a series of cohesive experiences, but rather as a constantly shifting subject confronted with ever-changing phenomena and experience.
With Watts also comes the authorial question of the ideological "I" and its relationship to the other aspects of the fractured ego. Watts was firstly a spiritual teacher, cultural critic of the sixties, and a well-known ambassador of "Eastern" religion to a Western audience. Despite his vast knowledge, it is salient in this autobiography that Watts seeks not only to impart that knowledge, but also to challenge ossified western assumptions and ways of interacting in and with our world.
He begins his own narrative with the jarring statement, "As I am also a you, this is going to be the kind of book that I would like you to write for me." This asserts both the plurality and interdependence of the self. It suggests that one person could write another's life story and vice versa. At the same time, by structuring his narrative in this way, Watts enacts a particular hermeneutic for the rest of his autobiography by asserting to the reader that his narrative could be construed as the reader's own. Do you buy this as a narrative posture? Can an autobiography be written without regard to chronology? How would that then be structured?
If we consider the idea of Orientalism in the sense offered by Edward Said as a negative caricature of "Eastern" culture by an outsider, would Watts' avowed idealism regarding Eastern religion mark him as an orientalist or simply as an admirer-cum-cultural ambassador of religious tradition to which he himself had been a neophyte?
Alan Watts on Zen (animated)
Despite the criticism of some of my class peers who seemed to think that Alan Watts was pretentious and contradictory, I thought the short section of his autobiography that we read was actually captivating and incredibly well-written. It's been my favourite thing that we've read thus far. I especially like the way he weaves in certain life lessons or theories that he's adopted into his telling of his own life's story. One such quote from his preface that I enjoyed was "Much of the secret of life consists in knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe." In any case, his bridging of the east to the west in terms of religion is well-versed and seemingly backed up by a lot of experience. In fact, I thought his mentioning of his eastern experiences were gripping enough that it compelled me to take out "The Way of Zen" from the library here. I haven't been disappointed thus far, I think he is able to convey some difficult eastern concepts to us westerners in ways that are both accessible and relatable. In regards to his view on chronology, I like it. I understand that once one gets into a telling of a specific piece of their life, some degree of a timeline needs to be employed, but I think those who were criticizing this in class were taking it a bit too literally. His point, to me, seemed to be that he doesn't want to be confined to telling his story completely in terms of "first this, then this, then this..." he wants his freedom to skip around as needed, and I think he does this well.
ReplyDeleteI believe Watts’ avowed idealism regarding Eastern religion marks him as a cultural ambassador of religious tradition. In his writing he comes off as a person who is a lover of all religions and therefore he cannot stick to one. He does however seem particularly drawn to Eastern religion. A problem that could occur from Watts being a lover of all religions is that he does not delve into one single religion deep enough to get the full gist of it. Some could say that this would be a fault because he hasn’t fully experienced one religion. However, I feel that since he is a cultural ambassador of all religions he experienced a wide array of religions, whereas most people only experience one or none. Thus, with experiencing this wide array he finds he cannot stick to one, because he finds certain characteristics he likes in all of them. I feel as if I would rather experience a wide variety of things rather than just delve completely into one things. For example I would prefer going to see a bunch of countries in Europe for a week rather than to just stay in one European country for the week. I can see Watts infatuation with all of these religions, I see it as kind of an educating matter to him and he just wants to learn about these religions because they fascinate him.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that one can achieve the same results as a jack-of-all-trades or, in Watts' case, as a spiritual dilletante, as a master of one tradition? I liked your example of visiting Europe, but to take the metaphor further: What if you wanted to stay longer in France in order to master French than say visiting Italy, France, and Hungary, but only speaking English; would your experience be deeper or more superficial?
DeleteThe way Alan Watts formatted his autobiography I thought was very effective. I think chronology is not that important. The important thing is to reveal the own perosn’s identity and uniqueness through different experiences that have happened throughout their life. This makes for a more impactful narrative that gets to the core of the autobiography without giving too much content without substance. Despite what I said in class, I have really loved the little we have read about Alan Watts. It is one of those readings that puts you out of your comfort zone and makes you ponder about your own beliefs and the reason why you have those beliefs. I would say that he is an Orientalist in the sense of being viewed as a negative caricature of “Eastern” culture by an outsider. This is because we see how in his autobiography, “In My Own Way”, he mentions the fact that he was mocked at and not taken seriously because of his interest in Eastern religions. Alan Watts was swimming against the current of Western culture and religion. It must have been very hard for him to break free from something so ingrained in his culture and in those closest to him. Alan Watts is a model for independent thinking and self-discovery. I think a part of Alan Watts’ ideology is similar to what Whitney Houston once said. She said, “I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow; if I fail, or if I succeed at least I did as I believe”.
ReplyDeleteWatts certainly was a contrarian, both to his detriment and to his credit.
DeleteI actually enjoyed how Alan Watts structured his ideas and thoughts in his writing, and also believe that chronology isn't important when writing an autobiography. As far as the content in one's life, you don't necessarily have to tell it in a linear direction; you can tell stories as they come to mind. In my own opinion, it's more interesting to hear little random stories as they come to mind rather than hearing a twenty chapter autobiography where the author is describing each year of his life and what happened in it. It just makes it more believable and relatable as a reader. Personally, I do view Alan Watts as a bit of an Orientalist. Reading Alan Watts and listening to Alan Watts is very different. I don't view Alan Watts as an Orientalist. In this lecture regarding both Christianity and Buddhism (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV7FLlRmuf0), Watts seems to be extremely serious about his views, and Watts speaks highly of Buddhism as a form of liberation, compared to Christianity. His explanation behind this is that Christianity seems to serve as a social function of keeping a community together. That community has its "laws, its principles of ethics, and common objectives." Buddhism on the other hand is used "to provide a cure for the inevitable ill effects of making the conventions of a community too strong." At the same time they compliment each other, providing a balance of some sorts.
ReplyDeleteI commend Alan Watts for his ideas of wanting people to be able to practice things such as Buddhism or Christianity in their own ways, and just going about life in one's own way in general. It speaks to the type of individualism and growth of self that Alan Watts believed in for him to speak so strongly about following one's own path rather than following other's views, ideas or social norms. People should be forming ideas on their own opinion because at the end of the day that is what keeps people informed.
Jarrett: What is in fact interesting is that the rest of IN MY OWN WAY is in fact more chronologically oriented.
DeleteI do buy into the narrative posture that is proposed by Watts'. I think what he is portraying, metaphorically, with this idea is that as humans, we all have humanity in common. As we grow, our stories may differ but we all come from the grey area of infancy where we have no obtainable memory.
ReplyDeleteI do believe an autobiography could be structured with no regard to chronology. It is not a conventional idea necessarily, but one that I think could work. I think this could work, or at least makes sense in theory because the mind never really work chronologically. From personal experience, the smallest of nuances could spark my mind into many different tangents. So what I am trying to say is this style could quite possibly be more authentic and true to how the life being written about was actually experienced.
I believe Watts' avowed idealism regarding Eastern religion mark him as an admirer-cum-cultural ambassador of religious tradition. I find this to be true in reading some of his work. Watts was an admirer of all religions. He stated that he enjoys religions very much the same way one might enjoy the arts, and not taking one to be the almighty. He also mentions disliking religions that pushed themselves to convert people.
-Devin Colón