The Manifest: Luke and Dinah Drinking Wine

VIGNETTES Luke and Dinah Drinking Wine DISCUSSING AESTHETIC RESPONSE THEORY OVER A 2000 RIOJA By Matthew Dallman
	The “Vignettes” series recounts TM managing editor Matthew Dallman's explorations of how integral theory can operate in the real world, after the day's classes have ended and the doors of academia are closed for the evening. His first work in this series, on Ananda Coomaraswamy, discussed integral theory in light of the movie Lost in Translation. Here, in his second offering, he captures a fictional account of the difficulty one can have in discussing integral theory with others. The piece also touches on Abigail Housen’s developmental theory of aesthetic response, to be continued in a later column.
	"MAYBE, HONEY, IF YOU PUT DOWN the wine glass for a second you could see the painting better." "Huh? What did you say, Luke? Waitress, waitress!" The waitress doesn't hear, and keeps walking to the back of the wine bar. It is packed tonight. "I said, my lover, that if you put down the glass of, uh…what was it we ordered— " "—the 2000 Rioja, isn’t it soooo good?— " "Right, the Rioja. If you put it down for a second, you might be able to see the painting better." "Fine," and Dinah takes a larger sip of the Rioja, and then puts the glass down. It clinks on the wood table. Of course, like a goose, she has to stick her head forward as she looks across the room at the oil painting that hangs on the wall opposite our table. She has to open her eyes too wide, and raise her eyebrows. "I'm looking now, Luke. I'm looking!" "Yes, I can see that, honey." She is trying to piss me off. "So....and what am I looking at?" "Right, well, can you tell me what you think is goin' on in the painting, Dinah." Of course, I have my own ideas and interpretations of the painting, but I was trying to see how well I could categorize Dinah's aesthetic responses according Abigail Housan's cognitive development research in this area. God, I'm such a dork. "So I should just tell you what I think is going on?" "Yes, say whatever comes to mind as you look at it." "Well, I see several big stripes of color, with the yellow and the red. I see the brushstrokes, and the relief from the strokes. Ummmm, yeah I like the colors. Looks like an expensive painting. I could see it in our living room. So…is that enough?" "Yeah, that's great." Okay, I think to myself, she is playing right into Housan's Stage I of aesthetic response, or what she calls the "Accountive Stage." I make a mental note of this. This is going to be so great—I can already see the papers I'll write about the Housan theory. "So, hey hun?" "Yes?" she half-asks. She has already started to pick out the next bottle of wine. "Can you tell me what is it that you see that makes you say that?" "Say what, Luke?" She is puzzled now. She puts down the wine menu, and looks at me. "You know, the painting." "The painting? What about it?" "You know, the stripes of color, the yellow and the red. What you said about the painting." This is the question that Housan suggests can lead the person into a Stage II type of response, which she calls the "Constructive Stage." Maybe, with the right questions, I can get Dinah to respond according to the Classifying Stage, or the Interpretive Stage, or even the Re-creative stage. I wonder if it is possible... "Oh, uhh, what do you mean!? I told you what I saw. I like the painting! Didn't you hear me? Silly man…Say, Luke, do you want the '99 Chateauneuf-du-Pape, or the 2000 Au Bon Climat Pinot Noir? Cuz I was thinking the Pinot with the cheese plate we ordered, and maybe we could then get that portabella mushroom pizza --" "Dinah!" "— with the goat cheese and honey, and...what?" She looks over with those big eyes that just kill me. Man, she is hot. I love those streaks of blonde in her crimson hair. "I know you talked about what in the painting was going on, but can you please tell me what you see that makes you say that?" "What the hell are you talking about, Luke?" Uh, oh, I think to myself. Here we go again. She yells, "what does that mean, 'can you tell me what you see that makes you say that'? Wait....For god's sake, Luke, is this...is this….another one of your damn integral things again? Is it? Is it?" "Umm..." "Geeee-zus, it is! It is! Fuck! Do you know how sick I am of this integral stuff? I know that I am only beginning to learn about it. But does integral have to come up every single time we have dinner?" "Well..." "I mean, can't we go to a fucking wine bar, get some fucking juicy wine and stinky cheese, and just talk about something else besides integral? Can't we? We talked about integral this afternoon." "Dinah! This isn't exactly integral stuff—Wait! Let me finish. It isn't. Trust me. I just read about this really cool research into aesthetic response to visual art ..." She is staring at me now, and steaming. I am not winning. "...and it shows how there are at least five different stages of aesthetic response. It is really cool. The researcher, Abigail Housan, is well-versed in the developmental studies of Piaget, Loevinger, James Mark Baldwin. This stuff is amazing! What a help to integral…" I pause. Dinah is speechless. We have been through this argument way too many times. I am sick of it myself. I understand that I perhaps go a little overboard with my talk about integral. Several years ago, she convinced me that I had to stop using what she called the 'integral hammer' to pound integral theory into every single situation I ever faced. Deep down, shit….I bet she's probably right. Again. Okay, okay, I say to myself, I will just relax about the Housan research. No more talking about integral for this evening. There is probably good reason why no one calls the Spiral Dynamics book a tantric love manual. It is no Spiral Sutra…..Okay, I take a breath and prepare to completely change the subject. "So. Luke.” She is still glaring. “Stages?" "Umm, yeah. There are…five…So you wanted the goat cheese pizza? I see it is drunken goat cheese. Did you see the olive plate..." "Luke, what stage was my response at?" "Umm. What do you mean?" "Tell me what stage was my response was at." Gulp, here we go. There is no way I want to answer this question. It is a guarantee of zero action when we get home. "Umm, Dinah, it was at Stage I, and touching on Stage II." Her lip curls. "Stage one." Her voice trails off. "Stage one…touching on stage two." She takes a large sip of her wine. Then slams down the glass, again. "Luke, last year I was 'first tier,'" she makes the apostrophe marks with her fingers. "Two years ago I was 'ethnocentric.' And you tell me all the time—even last week after the movie—that I commit a 'pre-trans fallacy'. And now you tell me that I'm goddamn 'stage one.' That is just great.” "Dinah, it is okay! It is okay! Calm down. Housan said that even fifty year olds can still have a stage one aesthetic response. It is okay! We can work on this..." "Luke, for god sake I am in fucking art school." "Yeah...." "Luke, this is the same stupid shit that happens that the time. Do you see a pattern? I am sitting here, in my nice dress that we bought last week at that funky boutique on Belmont. I am drinking wine, I am asking about what kind of food we might want to order. We were just talking about the conversation you had last week with your composition teacher, and what we are going to do for your brother's birthday next month. And then....out of nowhere, you ask me what I think of the frickin painting across the room that is sitting above that neo-punk-crunch couple, and because of my offhanded response—and I am a little tipsy!—you are ready to pronounce yourself a goddamn 'aesthetic researcher'. What are gonna do, write a paper based upon your toasted wife's responses to a painting while in a Chicago wine bar? Is that what you are gonna do? Is that your study? Am I your guinea pig??" "No, Dinah—“ “Can you get this through your head? I am not thinking deeply about art when I am sitting at an expensive wine bar drinking expensive wine in an expensive dress! Is that that hard for you to be a little more, as you say, context-dependant in your analysis of me? Isn’t that part of what you keep calling ‘yellow’?” “Dinah, I was just testing this stuff out. I'm sorry that it hurt you that I did." "Well, it does hurt! If you want to goddamn talk about visual art, let's talk about visual art next time we are at the Art Institute. Last summer, you know, I really wanted to talk about the Buddhist mandala exhibit. The Kalachakra mandala was amazing. But you didn’t talk—you just spaced off into that integral land of yours. It is as if all you want to do is run all pieces of art you see through your internal integral processors in a way that shuts me out of any dialogue with you. It all has to fit it on your map. We could have talked then, giggled about neo-pomo hoo-ha, or gotten gaga over the Anselm Kiefer pieces, or at the Chagall stained glass wall, but no! You had to walk silently through the museum, all in your integral head. Boy, you pick some strange times to talk integral." "You are right. I'm sorry…..You are right. I went over the line. Just like I did last week after the movie…I’m sorry." We sit in electric silence for a couple minutes. She is seething, I'm feeling like shit. And yes I'm goddamn mad at her. "Fine," she finally says. "Let's just have our wine and food, talk or whatever, and then we will just go home. Okay?" "Okay, I'm sor--" "Oh, and Luke?" "Yeah?" "You aren't getting any action tonight. Tonight I don't think I can be integral enough for you." I hate it when she says that. To be Continued….
	Last time we checked, Matthew "Flex-Fro" Dallman was still The Man. When he isn't sunning himself besides Frank Gehry museums, he can be found rocking the 1s and 2s as co-host of the Integral University Art domain. His website.

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