Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 15:41:52 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: re:  mood as color




One way to think of "color" in this regard is this:

Make a list of color-related expressions as they apply to moods.

Think about it.

Then ponder what this means for the consideration of thrownness and other
aspects of Heidegger's thought.

Example: She went in the bathroom and saw the toothpaste cap on the
counter again, next to the tube. She was seeing red. She came out and
started pointing to his underwear on the floor, his scraps of paper on the
dresser, belt across the chair, pants next to the bed. One thing after
another.

This is a "bad" mood. She has a bad mood. Who knows, maybe it is a good
reaction to a bad thing, maybe all moods are "good", in a way. But she is
"seeing red", everything shows up *according to that mood*. The world is
*disclosed in a totality of significance* as *colored* by her *state of
mind*. Seeing red is a funny expression, of course. Is *she* red or is
what she sees red? She is not looking through the world through
rose-colored glasses, of course, in which case she would see everything as
"all rosey". One who is angry may well *turn red*, and when see see that
person, it is *we* who *see red*. Perhaps there is "no talkin to her" 
while she is in this mood, and she must calm down. On the other hand, in
the mood she might say, "ok that's it, you have got to start cleaning up
for yourself more, and you can start with the toothpaste cap". Obviously,
in another mood, she might think of: painting the room, or, in a mood of
suspicion, she might think of looking for curious phone numbers on those
scraps of paper, or for lipstick on his shirt. Or, in a sexy mood, she
might think of the bed and what to wear when he comes home. How she sees
things is colored by this mood. 

None of this is yet "existential" (ostensibly), or, none of it opens to
Dasein, her Dasein, to the bare "that it is" enigma that she is thrown
into being, that she *finds herself* in her relationship with this man. On
the other hand, this *phenomenon* of mood is, in the first instance, not
simply *psychological*, either. The distinction Heidegger draws between
psychical events and moods has far-reaching consequences, to the point at
which we may start saying that even in the simpler, more straightforward
description of mood, the very distinction and category/concept found in
the notion of "psyche" is not adequate.

What Heidegger is about at this level is of continually gathering together
a kind of "transcendental" self, that maintains itself in an existential
thinking that can handle the multiplicity of moods in which we find
ourselves (I won't say "thrown" becuase this only applies to some moods
and situations). Dasein, as well, can *fall*, from its existentialy
"consciousness": right back into, for example, the situation of the
toothpaste. She is hardly going to be thinking "existentially" or on a
"transcendental" level if she is arguing about the toothpaste. Nor can se
say, "well if she was properly being towards death, she wouldn't care
about the toothpaste". There is an issue, here, of the possiiblity of a
*split* of consciousness (just as one finds in the "splitting of the ego"
in Husserl). She may "fall" back into the mood, get into it with her
husband, even, get over the mood, embrace him tearfully when he walks in,
and they end up making love. This may occur through some vision of death,
or for other reasons as well. It may arise in a deeper understanding of
why her husband is doing this (he works long hours, or he is being an
inconsiderate slob, etc.) 

I don't like the splitting tendency at all. That tendency is there, I
think. On the other hand, there are *good* ways for such "existentiality"
to arise. But how? What is involved, and what is the character of that
opening? What if a kind of existentiality arise not simply in the
apprehension of the mood as such as a phenomenon and as a condition of
thrownness, but rather: through the *resolution of the toothpaste
problem*? 

This is the barest inkling, of course. As is my view that there is a
tendency for a *split* that may be in fact very bad. If we recognize a
gathering of the "existential self" that is to "soar above" all the
vagaries of"mood", of toothpaste, etc., what is involved there? Well, in
fact, the toothpaste does relate to being towards death: 

She may think:

it is the toothpaste of the bathroom of the bedroom, where we sleep and
make love and conceived our children, it is part of our love, I think of
him when I see his things (there's an old song that Telly Savalas (!) did
where he went over all the things of a lost lover that made me cry as a
kid), his pants, his shoes (!!), I see this or that, I am angry, not
really about the toothpaste (as any psychologist will tell you), but it is
"the last straw", so to speak, marking a kind of carelessness that is
hurting me more and more, he is cruel, I am in pain, etc. 

*How* existentiality and some opening to "the bigger picture" happens here
is important. Heidegger seems to want to organize it all existentially
around death, and he does so in a way that *leads to* a tendency to *pass
over* getting into the *substance* of moods *more* and, in a way, "coming
out the other side", in resolution, etc., the latter way being, in my
opinion, much better. His way simplifies a bit, and further grounds
existentiality in a certain way. I think other ways are possible. And,
does his way lead to a bad splitting tendency? 

Again, this is the barest inkling, but there seems to be something to
this. 

TMB



     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---