The philosopher as entertainer

On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 04:16:53
Jim asked this question:

Your take on Alan Watts as a Philosopher. He said that he considered himself a 'philosophical entertainer'. Do you agree with him?

There are several things one might agree or disagree with in Alan Watts' seemingly self-deprecating assessment of his lifetime contribution to philosophy. Was Watts (just) a philosophical entertainer? Can you be a philosopher who seeks (merely) to entertain? Can (genuine) philosophy be entertaining? Is all philosophy (ultimately) mere entertainment — for the intellect?

I have not made an extensive study of Alan Watts' works, but I did enjoy two or three of his more popular books. One that made a particular impression on me is The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. I can say, hand on heart, that it is a book that altered the course of my life, not by a massive amount, but enough to earn a permanent place in memory of 'books that have changed me'. Very readable, not too long, the book is a heavily sugared pill. The pill in question is the mind-blowing proposition that we are all 'It'.

Two metaphors which have stuck with me are Watts description of the 'crackpot universe', the world as materialists (or indeed Cartesian dualists) see it, and the description of the illusion which he is seeking to combat, that you and I are 'egos wrapped up in bags of skin'. I had that image in my mind when I wrote my doctoral thesis, which develops a 'dialectic of the ego and truth illusions'. Maybe it wasn't exactly what Watts intended, but that's often the way with philosophical influences.

It was Jerry (not G.A.) Cohen of Birkbeck College who first put me on to Alan Watts. Jerry was one of those philosophers who were trying desperately hard to think outside the box of academic philosophy (as it then was in the 1970s, not a lot different from the way it is now). An anonymously written tract which I read on Jerry's recommendation was The Right to Be Greedy: Theses on the Practical Necessity of Demanding Everything.

One thing I have not changed my views about is that the ultimate justification for philosophy is that it gets you seeing things differently. I value this, even if I do not necessarily agree with what I see. (What is 'agreement' anyway?) Watts, and the anonymous San Francisco Bay collective, certainly did that. The difference is that Watts does this in an entertaining way, he wins you over, while the anonymous tract is in parts gruelling, repetitive, didactic. The sort of thing a more impatient reader would dismiss as 'Marxist diatribe'. Which would be somewhat unfair, because it has its moments of beauty and clarity too.

Watts isn't diatribe. He is poetry. A book to pick you up if you're feeling low, to inspire and refresh you. How can that be wrong?

The thing you have to remember about Watts is that feeling 'inspired and refreshed', or gaining a glimpse into a metaphysical vision or a different way of seeing the world, is just a short cut to the truth. If you want the truth, if you want to grasp what it really means to say, e.g., that 'we are all It' then there's no alternative but to go off to a Buddhist monastery for a year. Meditation isn't any mere 'method of relaxation' the way these guys do it, for hours and hours at a time. No description in a book can ever be an adequate substitute.

I would guess that's the point Watts is making when he describes himself as a 'philosophical entertainer'.

But that doesn't altogether answer the question. Because I see it also as directed against myself. Blogging is almost by definition entertaining. You can't get too heavy or serious in a blog, not if you want to actually have readers. Both Tentative Answers and Hedgehog Philosopher are written very much for an audience, even if no-one could accuse me of trying to be popular. (These days, if you peek into the current page of my original blog Glass House Philosopher you might find anything, or nothing. I use it as a deletable scratch pad, to try things out, or just to while away idle moments.)

There's a growing trend amongst academic philosophers, especially in the States, for writing more popular works, I'm thinking of people like Daniel Dennett. But this has as much to do with book sales as anything (I'm not saying that's a bad reason). My motivation is different. I don't write 'serious' academic philosophy. At all. Apart from these blogs, the rest of my output consists of the 800–1000 word letters which I write to my students, for their eyes only (although a few have appeared for a day or so on my online scratchpad). I once wrote a book Naive Metaphysics and that's the only book I expect I will ever write. The motivation just isn't there.

Unlike Watts, I don't see myself as merely sugaring a pill. I don't really know any other way to work than by communicating, either to an audience I don't know, or with someone I do know. There's nothing held back, what you see is all there is. And yet, somehow, I feel on occasion (maybe not too often) I do manage to get down to the depths, as deeply as any philosopher can go.

Laugh if you like. To any straightlaced academic philosopher reading these words, the claim will probably sound preposterous. I really meant it when I described myself as 'the philosopher in a glass house'. It is essential to what I do that I do it in the way that I do it, in a public arena. It's my way of keeping honest. Academic philosophers have their own way — seminars, conferences and the rest — but that's for them not me. I don't want to be a part of that world.

I work hard at this. It's not off the cuff, even if that's often the impression that my writing gives (which arguably is a skill, not a defect). There is always the hope that in the process of trying to communicate I will grasp some new truth, some new insight, that I have not grasped before.

The paradox is that if these pages actually became popular, it would kill the idea stone dead. It is important that there be a few people reading these pages, some of whom I know and some I don't know. If I say something questionable or stupid they will tell me. But more than a few I couldn't handle. I'd have to give this up, find another way.

Watts would understand. In so many ways, the possibility of what I do depends on chance factors outside my control. For example, just enough students enrol in Pathways to Philosophy to put food on the table. Just enough decent material comes in to keep up the monthly issues of the Pathways e-journal. Just enough, but no more. There is a balance which comes from — who knows where. Maybe tomorrow the balance will be upset and all this will be swept away. I accept that, meekly, as a fact of life. It's in the lap of the gods.

— Which reminds me of another book by Watts which I liked, The Wisdom of Insecurity.