The Eternal Conflict Between The Apollonian and Dionysian Powers
And how to reconcile them
“You have everything but one thing: madness. A man needs a little madness or else — he never dares cut the rope and be free.” -Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
These were the words that Zorba uttered to his boss, Kazantzakis, in the infamous Greek novel, Zorba the Greek. In this story, Kazantzakis and Zorba are vivid representations of two opposite but intertwined powers: Apollonian and Dionysian.
On one hand, the narrator, otherwise referred to as boss, hires Zorba to work in a lignite mine in Crete, while working on a personal project on Buddhism and the notion of Sunyata. He is deeply enmeshed into propositional knowing and over-analyzation as a writer, and thus he lacks the joy of participating in his observations. Like Apollo, the boss is the harbinger of rational thinking, logic, order, prudence, and purity.
The middle-aged man named Zorba is a passionate lover of life, an authentic stout-hearted man, a spontaneous cry of vitality in a miserable landscape. His past hasn’t overshadowed his brightness, amazement, and ability to surrender in the power of now.
He appeals to emotions, instincts and constantly flirts with irrationality and chaos, almost possessed by the spirit of the god Dionysus. The continuous friction and interplay between the two heroes awaken in the narrator a true understanding of the meaning of humanity that couldn’t have been realized by studying or writing.
Not only that, but the story also provides symbols of transformation for the audience, as the reader begins to acknowledge the chaos and harmony residing in his/her own psyche.
In our daily life, we comprehend reality as black and white, or negative and positive. We get so much entrenched in the notion of duality, that we create conflicts in our thinking and emotional world.
For instance, many people still consider emotions like rage and sadness or state like ecstasy and madness as taboo or sometimes uncivilized. These are the same individuals that protect harmony like Templars did the Holy Grail and diminish chaotic tendencies to the realms of oblivion.
But should we sleep on madness and let radical order triumph?
Should we sacrifice spontaneity for the sake of prudence?
I believe that there’s a time and place for everything. There’s also great value in cultivating space for the entire spectrum of thoughts, emotions, and states that we can generate, without the need for any sacrificial lamb. Our psyche should be a flourishing garden, not a dusty closet full of rivalrous skeletons.
Propositional And Participatory Knowing
The ancient Greeks had many ways to speak about truth and knowledge.
Two of the most important ones were Episteme and Gnosis.
Our idea of truth, in the propositional sense, is deeply correlated with Episteme. It means to know, to be acquainted with, to understand through statements of facts. To know a thing, you must step out and observe it. That was what the boss believed in Kazantzakis’ novel. However, despite his gift as a prolific writer and interpreter of reality, he remained a passive participant.
Gnosis is knowing by becoming and sharing a fundamental identity with something, which can also be a byproduct of imitation and internalization. ‘We become what we behold’ said William Blake. To know a thing, you must embody it, just like Zorba the Greek did. The spontaneous hero was the embodiment of irrationality, madness, and chaos, using his full awareness and active participation.
“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven’t the time to write, and all those who have the time don’t live them! D’you see?” -Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
The boss and Zorba were ambassadors of the propositional and participatory knowing, respectively. But although presented separately, these potentialities lie within our brain and psyche.
Sole observation and Apollonian prudence can leave us stagnant. Dionysian participation provides the embodied perspective of being, but can potentially overwhelm our individuality.
So what should we do?
I believe that there’s a transjective state of being where the individual manages to cultivate a dynamic relationship between observation and participation in reality. These modes are extremely useful for their own reasons, and that’s what the narrator’s awakening is all about.
It’s one thing reading about being a dancer, and another taking part in a dance festival, right? However, combined both aspects of knowing can provide a holistic and transcending experience for the dancer.
Order And Chaos
Throughout the last few years, Jordan B. Peterson has been a profound illuminator for me, as he introduced the necessity of embracing both my Dionysian and Apollonian personality aspects.
The professor is all about rational thinking, explored territory, security, and order, but he is sober enough to gaze at the abyss and extract its value. He believes chaotic events can be indicators that our sequence of actions needs renewal. He suggests that suffering and struggle are unique resiliency cultivators.
According to him, the unexplored territory, or chaos, is also the realm of potentiality and creativity, and we totally are in need of it. In his own words:
‘Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering.’
— Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules For Life
We need to keep the terror of existence in check, while also being alert and engaged. If we only embody our Apollonian powers, we will get trapped in radical order and our creativity and vitality will be suffocated. If we completely indulge in Dionysian spells, we may descend and drown in chaos.
Thus, ‘we need to place one foot in what we have mastered and understood and the other in what we are currently exploring and mastering’ as professor Peterson says.
The Takeaway
Escaping our dualistic interpretation of the world and accepting the dynamic relationship between the two powers may be easier said than done. The ‘conflict’ between rationality and irrationality, prudence and spontaneity, order and chaos is deeply rooted in our DNA.
Is there a chance for reconciliation?
Is there a place for relatedness co-created between the two modes?
I believe there is, and I wouldn’t use the cliché of balance here.
Instead, I would say that a dynamic relationship is more appropriate,
where the individual constantly engages in a play between different colors of existence.
As aforementioned, I feel that there’s an enormous amount of value that can be distilled from every emotional or being state, be it harmonious or chaotic. This process may require facing aspects of ourselves we have considered inappropriate or ignored for ages. There’s a chance it will also demand a complete psychological rewiring.
Perhaps, like the boss in Kazantzakis’s novel, we may need an external stimulus that will spark our primordial need for participation in reality
and remind us of hidden meaning.
Whatever the case, it is my view that this journey demands courage and vulnerability, as it will probably bring into existence parts of our psyche that will make us struggle, but flourish as well. I’ll say that embracing both Apollonian and Dionysian powers is imperative if our goal is personal individuation.
