Zen and the Art of South Park
A fun curio: A series of animated films produced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame, based on excerpts from the lectures of Alan Watts. The clips are actually five or six years old, but they've been bubbling through the Internet again recently and they're worth a look.
On a related note, an exchange from Reason's interview with Parker and Stone:
Reason: How were each of you raised religiously?
Stone: I was raised agnostic. There was no religion in my house.
Parker: I was pretty much the same. My father tried to raise me Buddhist, as in Alan Watts Buddhism, which is Buddhism in a way.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Cool... a friend recently lent me a CD collection of Watt's lectures and they're quite good.
I have no idea who this charector is so I don't think i'll be watching a parody of him first. It's like when i saw Spaceballs before watching any of the star wars films. Still great but I didn't appreciate the textual depth of the piece.
I had the same problem with "Robin Hood: Men In Tights."
Stephen: Watts was a prominent English/American Buddhist. The clips aren't parodies.
Did anybody else think "Alan Keyes" when they read that and feel kinda disappointed when it wasn't so? (I guess maybe the pathway was "Watts" -> "J.C. Watts" -> "black Republican". Brains are funny.)
I like Alan Watts. About 94% of what he says has me thinking, "Yeah, yeah, that's how it is, wow, that's EXACTLY how it is!! You've described it perferctly!!" And the other 6% gets me thinking, "WHAT???? You can't be serious. PLEASE tell me you don't actually BELIEVE that!!!"
I don't know who this Watts dude is either, but I went on a couple dates with a hardcore (American) Buddhist once - never again.
fyodor,
Those are almost the exact numbers I use to discribe my thoughts about Rand.
watts is interesting to listen to, though my tolerance for the metaphysical is admittedly very low.
he's no osho rajneesh, lemme tell you. now that's a guy i could listen to for days...
Still great but I didn't appreciate the textual depth of the piece.
Since when did Mel Brooks have any depth whatsoever?
Taktix - Blazing Saddles, of course!
fyodor,
That's a pretty good ratio. HEck, I disagree with more than 6% of the stuff I used to believe.