Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality
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.
1112400355
Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality
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.
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Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality

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

by Alan Watts
Does It Matter?: Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality

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

by Alan Watts

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$14.95 
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Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781577315858
Publisher: New World Library
Publication date: 10/28/2007
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 140
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents


Foreword     ix
Wealth versus Money     1
Murder in the Kitchen     23
Clothes-On and Off     55
The Spirit of Violence and the Matter of Peace     69
Psychedelics and Religious Experience     79
Seven Short Essays
The Basic Myth     99
The Great Mandala     103
On Selecting Vibrations     106
Planting Seeds and Gathering Fruit     111
Art with a Capital A     116
The Buddhism of Aldous Huxley     120
D. T. Suzuki: The "Mind-less" Scholar     124
About the Author     129
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