A Little More Whiteness, Please

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 22 Oct 1999, s~Z wrote:

> Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
>  
> > The whiteness is what I am interested in. 
> 
> Whiteness is the thing in The Recognitions, too, ha'int it? Doesn't have
> anything to do with the albedo stage does it? 
> 
> Behold I was brought forth in iniquity
> And in sin my mother conceived me
> Behold thou dost desire truth in the innermost being
> And in the hidden part thou wilt make me know wisdom
> Purify me with hyssop and I shall be clean
> Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow
> 
>         --Psalm 51


Conceived in sin and born in corruption as the Huey Long character in
All the King's Men liked to say.

Whiteness has also of course its opposite (derived) biblical
connotation--camouflage for corruption and death and by extension Sin, as
in whited sepulcher. 

Driving though the beautiful Maryland countryside yesterday I came upon a
field of white cattle. Not an Angus in view. Couldn't help but wonder if a
Statement was being made.

Is whiteness somehow Platonic to Aristotelian coloredness? Don't mean
simply that whiteness is an Eternal Idea (platonically speaking), but
rather that Whiteness is the Eternal Idea of Eternal Ideas. That which
exists before Matter (along with consequent Conception, Birth, Death, Sin,
et al) comes into being. Don't know how I came on this (less than eternal)
idea. Just popped into my head. 


How would an  Idealist sense of Whiteness tie into the artificiality
that Terrance spoke of a second ago prompting this thread. The world
of chemical synthesis is one freed from certain natural contingencies,
from Reality so to speak--at least Reality as we found it.	

	P.