My Issue With Alan Watts
Alan Watts is arguably the most influential thinker in articulating the wisdom of Eastern religions for a Western audience. He published many books on Buddhism and recorded several audio talks on the key concepts of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy. He became very popular in the 1950s, and his appeal remains to this day and has arguably grown. YouTube and Spotify, in particular, have many of his talks, often set to entrancing music and matched with psychedelic imagery.
I have listened to many of these talks and gained much insight and wisdom. They have helped me at times when my mind has felt chaotic and taught me some fundamental truths about the nature of thought and our fusion to our own thinking.
However, one aspect of Alan Watts that has always troubled me is his personal life. He was a chain smoker, heavy drinker, adulterer, and by his own admission, struggled as a father to his several children – with one of his daughters commenting that he was addicted to alcohol and women. He was said to have been deeply depressed later in life and drank heavily, reportedly a bottle of gin or vodka a day.
Often, people get very defensive when this issue has been raised on forums or in comments sections. There is a range of responses, with some just claiming that we are all flawed and others that what he said and what he did are separate and do not detract from his teaching. But for me, it does matter what he did. I came to these teachings to deal with the suffering the mind can cause and to not feel controlled by substances or thoughts. I got much comfort from his talks and his articulation of Eastern concepts, and I felt very deflated when I found out Watts had struggled to overcome his own issues.
Imagine you are being treated for anger management and see your therapist punch someone unprovoked in a road rage incident, or you are a devout Muslim and see your imam breaking fast during Ramadan and eating pork. These things matter – we don't like inauthenticity, especially in those we look up to as teachers. We want them to practice what they preach.
This is in no way to demonise Watts – I want to be very clear. Being addicted to something does not make you a bad person, and I am not making a moral judgement. I am not searching for an impossibly perfect human who has no flaws and has reached nirvana. My issue is more an expression of fear, fear that one possessing such wisdom could not overcome his personal demons.
It is worth noting that Alan Watts never claimed to be perfect and never appeared to put himself forward as a guru or one to be followed. However, my concerns still remain. He seemed to have all the tools to acquire inner peace, yet, outwardly at least, he appeared to be struggling with internal conflict.
There are several reasons why this may be the case, but I think the most likely is the fame Watts acquired, which may well have subtly given power to his own ego. The irony is that in attempting to articulate how to loosen the ego’s grip, his popularity led to his ego tightening its grip over himself. We cannot know this for certain, but fame is an alluring, attractive, powerful force, and he certainly seemed to lean into it at various points in his life. The ego can be seductive, insatiable and destructive if not kept in check, which I have written about before. The combination of both may have been too potent a cocktail.
There are those, such as Matthieu Ricard or Thích Nhất Hạnh, who have articulated the insights of Buddhism while embodying peace and contentment and living by the values they preach. Another irony here is that these teachers have not ‘broken through’ into mainstream culture in the same way because they never embraced fame in the way that Watts did. Perhaps by being flawed and succumbing to his ego, Watts may have led many more to discover the wisdom of Eastern philosophies and religions.
It may be, as I’m sure Watts would agree, that the true benefits of these teachings are in their practice and not in the intellectual understanding. Watts was a fantastic speaker and a brilliant performer but appeared unable to find the peace he could so beautifully articulate. In his own words, he was “a philosophical entertainer, a genuine fake and an irreducible rascal.” To call back to another article I have written about wisdom, it may be that wisdom is much more practical than I previously envisaged. Wisdom is as much expressed in how we act as in our abilities to think and form judgements.
I will always be grateful to Alan Watts for introducing me to much wisdom, but in order to practice it in my own life, I will seek wisdom elsewhere.
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I have digested a lot of Alan Watts over the years and I would like to share.
So, my opinion of a flawed teacher:
I consider Alan Watts only a conduit of information, and one that suits me very well. I can receive the data without judging the medium. Although I think this has A LOT to do with the fact that we will never shake hands.
I find his flippant attitude towards his own teachings endearing - to me, at least. I like to imagine the Buddha overindulging in local delicacies now and then!
As far as his inability to manifest his profound intellectual knowledge into personal peace is a difficult question. My guess is that he suffered from multiple traumas that fundamentally re-wired his brain at an early age, after which, no amount of cognitive power would reverse the damage.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for posting this. I think you raise a really interesting point, not so much about the lifestyle of Alan Watts, but rather about the notion that is so prevalent today, that those we learn form, or those who we follow, or those who we admire in some way, must live up to our own or one culturally prescribed morality. Alan Watts never advertised that he lived a moral life, or that the morally perfect life was somehow part of the eastern traditions that he taught about.
We are all partially, at least, constructs of our cultural environment. This is a debatable point, of course, but from everything I have read, seen, heard and experienced in this life, it seems more or less accurate. And, therefore, when we view or judge Alan Watts or anyone else, it really helps to have a pretty clear understanding of the period in which they live. This is not a rationalization of all immoral behavior, but it does provide a general sense of conditionality when we are looking at the lives of other people.
And if you look at the Post War period and the communities that Watts was engaged with you will see generations of people pushing the boundaries of traditional morality. And if there was one person in this world who was at the center of that pushing it was Alan Watts.
Now, is he a model for how to live a life? Personally, I would not choose to live my life in that way, but who am I to judge his life? I have no connection to his life, except through the stories you referenced and that I have read too. But when I am reading or listening to Alan Watts, I am interested in the ideas he is sharing, not the fact that he was a drunkard, did not treat his children well, or slept with lots of women. Honestly, I think its tragic that he was not a good father and that he drank so much, but I still think that he is an amazing communicator and he has changed my, and many other people's, lives of the better, both in the past, and still to this very day.
One of the things that we all need to remember of about living in the USA is that this nation was founded by radicals, and we still have a strong sense of puritanical thought running through our culture and our institutions. Our media reinforces this with a moment by moment game of gotcha journalism, moralizing and the constant churning up of moral panic, cultural cancelations for one wrong word being uttered, or other misstep that gives one group, or another, a reason to crucify another person, and thereby show their own moral superiority. If this is how you or anyone else wants to think, behave and live their lives, then go for it.
But if you want to open yourself up to new ways of seeing the world and understanding what this life is about... read Watts, and let his words sing in your head. If those words are clouded by your fear that they do not come from a teacher who has lead a perfect, sanitized , idealized life, then that's ok too.