What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social c… - Alan Watts
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What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money. Money gets rid of the inconveniences of barter. But it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth, because it will do you no good to eat it or wear it for clothing. Money is more or less static, for gold, silver, strong paper, or a bank balance can “stay put” for a long time. But real wealth, such as food, is perishable. Thus a community may possess all the gold in the world, but if it does not farm its crops it will starve.
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About
Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English philosopher, writer, speaker, and expert in comparative religion.
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Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, The University of Vermont Alumni Magazine vol. 39 no. 01, p. 22. (Public domain / CC0)
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Alternative Names:
Alan Wilson Watts
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Alan W. Watts
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What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously.
What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money… but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth… In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are ‘coins’ for real things.
Democracy as we have tried it started out on the wrong foot. We took the Christian scriptures that say that everybody is equal in the sight of God and made it to mean that everybody is inferior in the sight of God. And this is a parody of mysticism. Because originally, mysticism meant that, from the standpoint of God, all people are divine, which is a far different thing. So this is why all bureaucracies are rude, why police are rude, why you are made to wait in lines for everything, and why everyone is treated as some kind of crook. And a society like this, that views everybody as inferior, turns quickly into fascism because of its terror of the outsider.
