Alan Watts : The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.

Alan Watts - The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

Alan Watts died 38 years ago. He first gained a following as a volunteer programmer at an ultra-liberal radio station, KPFA, in Berkeley California.
He helped usher into American Culture, Asian studies and the influences of Buddhist Philosophy.

Here, the documentary series '' After Skool'' uses one of his talks mixed with more contemporary cartoons with up to date visualizations.

As I listened to this speech, I marveled at just how much of what he was saying thirty years ago parallels what so many conservatives today are talking about. How did the words of this liberal philosopher come to be common to conservative thinking?

thanks for this! never looked into his political stances, but i know he was a very, very smart man. while somewhat selective/incomplete, his is perhaps my favourite english translation of chuang-tsu.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I enjoyed this, thanks for sharing. S & F!

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Its funny you say that as I am guilty of quoting this within the last 4 months on this very website. I will reserve my my bid to wage an opinion on your question at this time, mostly on account of how many points have been struck down on my account in the last 30 days.

This video is by far the best description of "don't let your left hand know what your right hand does" that I have ever seen.

It's so true that trying to be pious makes you lose touch with genuine piety

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Great video. I've used that phrase a lot in my rants on ATS, but never actually listened to that full speech. It's very coincidental how he used the example of genetic engineering. I'm glad I hadn't heard this before now, because I wouldn't have been able to fully grasp the message he was conveying.

a reply to: FrothMethod

To have been him in those years he could mostly only find a younger set of people who were interested in what he was saying. While what he was saying was of course highly influenced by his studies in Eastern thought, it has always seemed to me that he had internalized it and come to his own understanding of things. In those days, only those who were willing to consider those deeper understandings of spirituality were of course people who had the ability to consider life apart from the dominant christian paradigm.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Much of what I have heard from listening to Watts over the years seems to transcend both sides of our political divide. Like they are two sides of the same illusion he suggests we might want to rise beyond,

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

truth. my grandfather was a dedicated christian, and the stigma of eastern "religion/mysticism" kept him quite distanced and unaware that he was also very closely aligned with old taoism.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

I disagree with a few things, like the bit about
“if you say you want to improve for example, if you knew what’s good for you, you would be improved”

No it’s not as simple as that, self work takes time, dedication and discipline. Also it’s not easy to shake old habits and compulsions even if we really want to.

Also it buys into the lie that the West was spreading democracy to the rest of the the world, trying to improve living standards, when in fact it the powers in the West exploited them for their own gain. Just as they evicted Crofters at the dawn of the industrial revolution and forced them to work in the mills and factory’s.

I would say if good intentions are unconditional then they most likely are. Otherwise they exploitation disguised as help or friendship.

a reply to: surfer_soul

Also it buys into the lie that the West was spreading democracy to the rest of the the world, trying to improve living standards, when in fact it the powers in the West exploited them for their own gain. Just as they evicted Crofters at the dawn of the industrial revolution and forced them to work in the mills and factory’s.

Yep. Our supposed exportation of ''democracy'' has gone hand in hand with exploitation. Certainly the exploitation bit needs and is becoming recognized more andmore. But the whole idea of ''exporting democracy'' has been roundly debunked I think. So even as a ''cover story'' that one is now laid bare.

I think that the west at least understood that in order for them to get people to volunteer to be exploited, a carrot was needed to get them to reach out for it.

I look back to Manifest Destiny and still think that there were lots of people who believed in it. That the US as the crown of Western Civilization, the product of man's emergence in to democratic values and the spear point pointed at the heart of historical human darkness. Yea freedom. Now you too can have it, just pay us back in rubber and sugar and oil. Simple huh?

As for his comments on improvement, well I agree with you and was questioning that aspect of the speech as well. Like you said, it is not that simple. It is as you describe it pretty much. Time and focus and energy. And patience. Of course that patience bit hopefully comes along and develops as the process evolves. I approached that aspect of the speech as a kind of bridge to the rest of the speech, making a long and involved topic as short as possible to get on to the rest of the talk.
That's how I read it anyway.

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Yes it surprised me the way in which he chose to frame the subject at the beginning of the narration with the points I highlighted. I have seen other videos by the after school channel and really appreciated them. But these particular points irked me.

I think I understand the overall premise well enough and we should indeed consider wether our good intentions will manifest as such. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to be good. Good at what we do, in who we are, and how we treat others.