Subject: Re: Why does black=evil? (was: Has anybody noticed the black & white
From: mvb@eagle.mit.edu (Mary V. Burke)
Date: 1991-04-18, 13:16
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

To add to the general confusion--er, scholarly discussion :) --what about 
our notions of the significance of whiteness?  Check out the chapter in 
_Moby Dick_ called on "The Whiteness of the Whale" for some nifty ideas.  
In that book, at least, white signifies the absence of color, a void,  the 
vacuum, featurelessness, etc.--not an actively Good principle.  So if 
white is an absence of color, and black is an absence of light, what 
happens to the relationship between the WL and the BL?  (The lights are 
on, but nobody's home?)  I'll have to check out that chapter when I get 
home, it's wonderful stuff.

Another thing occurs to me--isn't white the color of mourning in one of 
the Oriental cultures (sorry, I forget which country--I think it's Japan)? 
 Probably not Tibet, though...

MVB
"A man came up to me and said, 'I'd like to change your mind by hitting it 
with a rock,' he said, 'though I am not unkind.' "--TMBG
Disclaimer:  Not my planet, Monkeyboy!

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