48 pages 1 hour read

Alan W. Watts

The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1951

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Essay Topics

1.

Watts diagnoses 1950s America as plagued by anxiety. Whose anxiety is Watts specifically describing? Whom does he leave out and why? Does his diagnosis still resonate today? Why or why not?

2.

According to Watts, what is the relationship between suffering and time? How is human consciousness affected by its openness to the future? Why?

3.

For Watts there is a strong difference between the symbolic and the real. Compare his version of these concepts to the philosophical notion of the Platonic ideal. How do they differ? How are they the same?