BOOK INSIGHT
Apollonian and Dionysian: Another Way to Understand Art and Society
Outlining Nietzsche’s main argument in The Birth of Tragedy
Order, rationality, chaos, and madness exist within every human being. Generally, these conflicting traits will be the object of judgments of good and evil, regardless of the starting point from which the judgments are taken. Indeed, “Man cannot live without judgment” — Nietzsche.
Good and evil constitute the most cliche dichotomy of the many opposites. In everyday life, we can find the type of people who tend to impose rules on every situation. They want a reason, logic, precise definitions, and harmony, and dislike any form of chaos. On the other hand, we can also find the type of people who tend to follow their impulses, love freedom, and hate any form of restraint.
Both might be considered as a kind of personality distinction only. But some views suggested the opposite that it’s a whole nature that struggles within each person. Lock and Hume, think humans are basically good, but life simultaneously internalizes a variety of values which in turn form a variety of perceptions and attitudes that often records inconsistencies of stance in the life track record.
These conflicting traits, which are inherent in every human being, were affirmed by Kant when he asserted that humans are still immature, irrational, and egocentric, until they can discipline themselves, namely by recognizing moral laws.
Nietzsche assumes, this dichotomy is eternal in every human being, which arises naturally and can also be seen in a wider spectrum of life, including historicity in art, psychology, ethics, and politics.
Apollonian and Dionysian
Apollonian and dionysian were mentioned by Nietzsche in his first work The Birth of Tragedy as a result of research into art, especially ancient Greek tragedy. Despite its controversy, — he himself later admitted this early work as dubious, strange, and somewhat incomprehensible — it introduces two basic concepts that would continue to appear throughout his works.
The terms apollonian and dionysian are philosophical concepts, as a juxtaposition or dialectic between figures or schools derived from Apollo and Dionysus, the two gods of art in Greek mythology. Apollo is the god with an image of rationality, order, precision, and purity. Dionysus, on the other hand, represents irrationality and chaos, emotion and human instinct.
Apollo encompasses everything that is structured. Sculpture, or art that relies on the structuralization of form in general, is the most apollonian art. Rational thinking based on the logical structure is also apollonian, as this impulse tends to put things in their place, it also makes individuals clearly separate humans and ideas from each other.
Dionysus encompasses the opposite traits. Music is the most dionysian of art, as it doesn’t appeal to the rational mind, but rather the emotional. Dionysian don’t recognize categories and tend to blur the line between self and nature.
In its actualization, the dionysian is concerned with the nature of reality, while the apollonian is concerned with the means of its appearance. It’s a kind of relationship between matter and energy. If the form of a building structure is apollonian then the representation of its values and spirit behind it is simply dionysian. Similarly, the emotions felt from a painting are dionysian.
Art, according to Nietzsche, derives its continuous development from the duality of apollonian and dionysian. These two opposing natures will always be in a struggle, just as the reproduction of the species depends on the duality of the sexes with their endless conflicts that are only interrupted by periodic reconciliations.
Reconciliation
Despite their apparent opposition, Nietzsche implies their merger as ideal, as it allows dionysian energies to be applied constructively within the apollonian framework. The fierce opposition between them only pushes each other towards a stronger birth. The culmination of their merger would give birth to a character that is both apollonian and dionysian.
This merger was briefly seen in Greek culture. But it didn’t last long as they reverted to apollonian. The transition, as we see on Nietzsche’s mark, was mainly influenced by Socrates with his logic and rationality, so the principles of order slowly dominated and disqualified other aspects of life, especially those of dionysian origin.
At a critical stage, the prioritization of the apollonian reduces the pure meaning of man. Nietzsche related the apollonian to Schopenhauer’s principium individuationis of a man trapped in a veil of Maya:
“Just as a sailor sits in a boat trusting to his frail barque in a stormy sea, unbounded in every direction, rising and falling with the howling mountainous waves; so in the midst of a world of sorrows the individual man sits quietly, supported by and trusting to the principium individuationis.” — Schopenhauer
This means that, at a certain stage, apollonian form an unshakable belief in every person, an absolute in them, and resentfully discard everything that is inherent in nature as given. Apollonian principles turn into nothing more than an illusion that extends the distance between human and humane status. This is where the dionysian tide needs to be raised to free them from the veil of Maya. Not to appeal to either, but to take advantage of both as a complete whole.
Many views trivialize the dionysian and seek to promote only the rational and structured parts of what humans can do, Nietzsche argues this is not only foolish but detrimental. However, this doesn’t mean that we should make an unlimited surrender to the dionysian. Rather, it means accepting that part of every human being desires this and trying to harness that impulse for more constructive purposes.
However, while the order is important, psychology, sensitivity, will, and all emotional drives are necessary. Only through these can humans establish an emotional engagement with their world and give color to the interpretation of the meaning of life. Sometimes, some things cannot be adequately explained and actualized by logic and rationality alone.
In what way will such questions as the unity of nations, the foundation of their laws, their political paradigms, the values underlying every policy, or how social relations with the characteristics of a particular society are organized be answered? Such questions require more complex answers than mere principles of causality.
It’s rash to rigidly separate the two elements unless life is to be lived with very limited understanding. However, apollonian and dionysian remain useful ways of looking at art and society as a whole.
