From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 18:15:57 EDT
Subject: MELANIE MONSVENERIS & DR. WUENSCH




This is my second attempt at sending this piece.


Subject: DR. WUENSCH From: 
Jud Sent: 6/15/2003 



DR. WUENSCH'S FLAT - LATE AFTERNOON 

>From the garden below we hear sounds of music and laughter. It is an 
expensive apartment which definitely possesses an air of sophistication and a refined 
academic ambience.

A woman, MELANIE MONSVENERIS, just past the first blush of youth, is standing 
looking out of the window at some people dancing on the lawn below.

There is a piano on the paved patio. It is a small, salmon-coloured 
instrument on wheels. 

There is a Negro, SAM, on the stool, playing. About him there is a hum of 
voices, chatter and laughter.

DR. WUENSCH:

"You've been standing there for at least half an hour already Melanie - what 
on earth are you looking at?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"I'm watching the dancing down on the lawn next door."

DR. WUENSCH:

"Who's doing the dancing?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"The neighbours from next door and another couple."

DR. WUENSCH:

Who's the other couple?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Dunno, I've not seen them before - guests of the Smith's I guess."

DR. WUENSCH:

"I can hear some rather nice piano music."

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"They've got a black pianist dressed in a white jacket, red velvet bow-tie - 
the whole works."

DR. WUENSCH:

"No trousers?" [adopting a phony Humphrey Bogart accent]

"Play it again Sam! Jes' one more for my Dasein - an' one more for the road."

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

[Laughs] Yes, Of course - don't be silly.

DR. WUENSCH:

[spoiling the mood with the introduction of an academic discussion.]

"Do you truly believe that you are really watching the dancing?

I mean do you believe that there is such a thing that actually exists called 
'dancing'?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

[sighing]

Well I suppose in the sense that what we call "dancing" is the combined 
activity of Bill and Joan Smith and their two guests something called "dancing" 
might be said to exist? I guess that 'dancing' only "exists" inasmuch as it's the 
present existential activity of the four people down there on the lawn while 
we are stuck up here in this stuffy old flat bored out of our minds? When they 
finally stop dancing, the dancing as such will cease to exist, though the 
four dancers will continue to exist much as they were before they started to 
dance."

DR. WUENSCH:

[lighting a cheroot and puffing at it thoughtfully.]

"Does that mean that you consider them to be different people when they are 
dancing and when they are not dancing?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"No, I just said: 'They will continue to exist much as they were before they 
started to dance.' Didn't you hear me? They are the same individuals whether 
they are dancing or not dancing - it's just that they are involved in another 
form of activity when they dance to when they stop for a rest."

DR. WUENSCH:

"What are they up to now?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"They are sitting on the grass laughing and talking, the pianist has left the 
piano and is sitting on the grass with them. They are drinking beer straight 
from the can and it's dribbling over their clothes as if they are not used to 
drinking it that way."

DR. WUENSCH:

"Has Sam put his trousers on yet? OK, I'm only joking. Does that mean then 
that you believe that something exists we could call: "sitting on the grass 
laughing and talking, drinking beer straight from the can and dribbling it over 
the clothes as if not used to drinking it that way?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

[frowning]

"No, no I don't - that just refers to a description of their behaviour as 
human beings."

DR. WUENSCH:

"Then why do you think that some people believe that 'dancing' exists?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"I don't know - who is it that believes that sort of thing?"

DR. WUENSCH:

"Certain people treat the words that we use to describe the actions of people 
- words that are called 'gerunds' or 'abstract nouns' as 'things' that 
actually exist."

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Who are these 'certain people' then?"

DR. WUENSCH:

"Oh lots of people. Transcendentalists, existentialists, various religious 
types of people etc."

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

Why on earth should they believe that?"

DR. WUENSCH:

"Why do you think that some people are prepared to believe that 'dancing' 
exists but not: ' "sitting on the grass laughing and talking, drinking beer 
straight from the can and dribbling it over the clothes as if not used to drinking 
it that way?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Dunno. I suppose it makes them happy to think that way, otherwise they 
wouldn't think that way. After all it takes a certain amount of effort to think 
irrationally doesn't it?"

That Heidegger guy - WOW! Talk about the existence of a split-personality 
syndrome - that hombre Heidegger clearly dreamed up Dasein as a gift for 
comedy-writers and beleaguered stand-up jokesters. He certainly prowled the 
outer-reaches of plausibility sowing the pathways of 'philosophy' with his 
transcendental twinkle-dust like a journeyman Germanic Johnny Appleseed, planting his 
existential ejaculate and gumming up the cracks in western thinking for decades.

DR. WUENSCH:

[patting the empty place beside him]

"It doesn't seem to take much effort as far as they are concerned. Anyway 
close the curtains and come over here by the fire my dear."

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Hahahah! So do those funny people believe that 'making fun of somebody, 
drawing the curtains and moving away from the window and sitting next to a horny 
old academic' exists too?"

DR. WUENSCH:

"Tush you little vixen. I was just making the point that although it's much 
easier to say: 'I'm watching the dancing,' rather than having to describe the 
actions of four people in detail.

I suppose it's only natural that people who don't think very deeply are 
eventually convinced through constant repetition that it is the actions of people 
that actually exist rather than the people who are actually enacting the 
actions as modes of the way they live."

Some series of complicated actions like: 'sitting on the grass laughing and 
talking, drinking beer straight from the can and dribbling it over the clothes 
as if not used to drinking it that way is too complex a concept to have a 
special gerund or abstract noun created to describe the natural processes of this 
involved behaviour. If a word had been developed to distinguish this 
existential modality of the foursome next door, then it is clear that the 
transcendentalists would fall over each other in the rush to label it as something that 
exists, like they do of 'dancing' and 'crying' and 'bird-nesting' and Being.'

MELANIE MONSVENERIS: 

"There is nothing so queer as folk! Do you mean that the more complicated and 
the more differentiated human activity is the less chance it will be graced 
with an abstract noun or gerundialised or nominalised into a quasi-thing? I 
mean the actions involved in dancing are quite complicated after all - it's a 
series of quite elaborate coordinated movements?"

DR. WUENSCH:

[flicking the cheroot butt into the fire]

Yes, but even though the movements are complicated and varied the performance 
is instantly recognizable as a certain easily identified form of human 
deportment which lends itself without question to a single word referential 
description of the precise mode of behaviour. The actions are stereotypical. On the 
other hand, what word could be coined to refer to describe the whole gamut of 
human behaviour of: 'sitting on the grass laughing and talking, drinking beer 
straight from the can and dribbling it over the clothes as if not used to 
drinking it that way?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Well maybe you are right, but there is one word that those 'certain people' 
use to cover the range of human existential experience and behaviour from 
cradle to grave."

DR. WUENSCH:

[Knitting his brows]

"What word is that?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

[smiling]

"Being."

DR. WUENSCH:

"Being what?"

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Being alive I suppose?"

DR. WUENSCH:

"Aha! So now you can see that 'Being' is just another glorified version of a 
gerund that covers all of our earthy activities, states and modalities which 
we experience whilst we are alive."

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"What about Martin Heidegger's 'Dasein' then?

DR. WUENSCH:

"That's Heidegger's weirdo notion of 'presence' a gerund of the term: 'being 
there' which enables Heidegger to 'investigate' the fiction of 'Being' without 
the ontological inconvenience of addressing an actual flesh and blood human 
being."

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Well that's a bit of an ontological cop-out isn't it? Even I can see right 
through that one. That must be the most misleading metaphysical methodology 
since Methodius was found in bed with his Thessalonian thurifer and claimed he 
was playing chariot-races under the bedclothes? And that from a comedian who 
claimed that metaphysics ended with Nietzsche?"

DR. WUENSCH:

"Yes you're right, and we can see now that he achieved exactly the opposite 
of what he sought to accomplish, for with the introduction of his notorious 
'ontological difference' and the ontological outrage of 'Dasein' he actually 
breathed new wind into the sails of metaphysics and set western philosophy back 
over fifty years.

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"But any fool can see that there is no difference between the dancing and the 
antics on the grass next door and that they are merely the activities of the 
foursome [five if you count the be-trousered pianist] whilst they are being 
there in the garden. There is no way that there is any ontological difference 
between their physical presence in the garden and what they are doing there 
whilst they are there?"

:

[filling up Melanie's glass to the brim]

"Exactly, but at least the subject has helped us while away and brighten up 
an otherwise rather boring afternoon and provided us with a few laughs along 
the way. Now come on my dear drink your drink. We haven't got a lot of time 
before the cook shows up to start the evening meal, and I have so very much been 
looking forward to spending some private quality time with you.

MELANIE MONSVENERIS:

"Sorry old bean, but I'll have to leave you now. It's been lovely being here 
talking about being here, but Lawrence has invited me to 'The Panting Peasant' 
for dinner and drinks, and I rather fancy being there being there, than being 
there being here."

Pip Pip!

Jud.


<A HREF="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ ">http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/</A> 
Jud Evans - ANALYTICAL INDICANT THEORY.
<A HREF="http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com">http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com</A>


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