by Phoebe Sampson
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), provides a romantic, metaphysical journey through the rise and fall of art and culture in ancient Greece. Nietzsche endeavours to evade the nihilism of the mythological Silenus: “The very best thing for [humanity] is totally unreachable: not to have been born, not to exist, to be nothing. The second-best thing, however, is this – to die soon.”[i] The text posits two fundamental theses: Firstly, the pre-Alexandrian Greeks overcame Silenus’ nihilism by developing—from a productive tension between Apollonian and Dionysian artistic drives—a tragic culture which focalises the dramatization of suffering; secondly, the hegemony of Socratic rationalism has caused the degeneration of tragic culture, and the modern world’s only hope for a remedy to life’s suffering lies in the rebirth of tragedy through music-drama. In what follows, I will reconstruct Nietzsche’s account of the Apollonian and Dionysian drives, and the related origin and function of tragic culture. I will then detail their demise under the hegemony of Socratic rationalism in the new scientific culture. Finally, I will challenge Nietzsche’s adulation of Wagnerian music-drama and argue that, in the contemporary age, its function can be served by a number of media including absurd visual art and comedy.
Nietzsche’s metaphysical Apollonian and Dionysian duality is grounded in symbols of the ancient Greek gods Apollo—associated with the sun, art, light and rationality—and Dionysus—associated with hedonism, wine, passion and impulse.[ii] The Nietzschean Apollonian is a drive toward discreteness, individuation and order. It manifests as our rationality—that faculty of mind that “divides the world up into a plurality of discrete, spatiotemporal individuals” [iii]—and catalyses and maintains civilisation. The artistic expression of this drive can be understood as the physical manifestation of the metaphysical into beautiful, perceptible form—most notably through sculpture or Doric art.[iv] The “divine manifestation of the principium individuationis,”[v] Apollonian art exalts the beauty of individuation and boundaries, and propagates our aesthetically pleasing contemplation of the patterned, ordered meaning in the universe.[vi] Emphasising, however, that this discrete and ordered world is merely phenomenal, Nietzsche relates the Apollonian to an “illusion”; one who is wholly faithful to this force is “trapped in the veil of Maja”.[vii] [viii]
Compelling us to transgress this dream-like consciousness is the Dionysian: the dissolute, sensual, primal aspects of human experience. This drive reveals to us the true nature of reality, which, for Nietzsche, is a “primordial unity”.[ix] The “stiff, hostile barriers” between ‘individuals’—as well as between humanity and nature—are dissolved. Nietzsche turns to legendary Greek festivals and the Babylonian Sacae—where humans were transfigured into animals—as examples of Dionysian rapture. A more familiar contemporary experience is the self-dissolution one might experience at a concert or rave where the “veil of Maja [is] ripped apart” and the principium individuationis is reduced to mere artistic phenomenon.[x]
The Dionysian expresses our primal unity not only with nature’s creative powers, but also its destructiveness and chaos—the “dreadful witches’ cauldron”[xi] of grotesque absurdity and cruelty which is revealed as reality. To avoid ‘barbarism’ so culture can thrive, the Dionysian must be redirected into artistic expression by the Apollonian. Dionysian art expresses our desire for the destruction of form and interpersonal boundaries; we create a symbolic manifestation of our awareness of the chaotic reality of the world. Nietzsche asserts that music—particularly the united voice of the “chorus”—is the quintessential Dionysian art, stimulating us to “the metaphorical viewing of the Dionysian universality.”[xii] This is differentiated from the non-musical arts which are “images” of Apollonian phenomena, whilst music is the “language of the unmediated will”.[xiii]
Nietzsche exalts the Greeks’ successful integration of the synthesis of the Apollonian and Dionysian forces into a tragic culture. Even through something as fundamental as their creation of symbolic, personified gods, the Greeks realise a dynamic tension between dualisms that define human experience: order and chaos; individuation and dissolution. Exposure to life’s absurd suffering is valued as a source of meaning by virtue of the insight it delivers into the nature of reality. This tragic culture does not merely struggle against existential distress, but flourishes through artistic expression: that is, the Dionysian “analogous illustration”[xiv] of unmediated will is artistically curbed by the Apollonian tangible celebration of phenomenal ‘reality’. Greek tragedy provides transcendence from Silenus’ pessimism; rather than turning to death when confronted with the “terror and horrors”[xv] of existence, tragedians create from them a beautiful aesthetic presentation. Aesthetically pleasing media allow us to face suffering with passion and vigour, truly affirming human experience and existence.
Nietzsche utilises Socrates as a third, less-than-favourable symbolic figure, introducing “Socratism”[xvi] as the belief that reality can be rationally comprehended by humanity through scientific endeavour. Nietzsche exposes in Socratism a terrible delusion: faith in the limitless power of science. For Nietzsche, the modern world’s Socratic scientific culture contradicts and destroys tragic culture, as the latter is enlightened by “Dionysian truth”— the reality of the universe as a chaotic, primordial unity.[xvii] Thus, Socratism can be understood as a paradigm of excessive Apollonian and an absent Dionysian drive. Nietzsche emphasises the self-limitation of Socratism; eventually, the naïve optimism nestled amongst the rules of logic deteriorates, and logic “turns around on itself and finally bites its own tail.”[xviii]
Nietzsche goes on to critique the modern world’s hegemonic scientific culture as excessively Socratic. The increasing prevalence of scientific culture later compelled other philosophers to expose the fallibility of such beliefs; in 1942, political philosopher Friedrich Hayek popularised the term “scientism”, describing excessive faith in the scientific method and the belief that valuable knowledge can only be attained through science.[xix] The hegemony of scientism tends to disregard anything which is not immediately perceivable by the conscious mind as absurd and unworthy of focus. For example, psychoanalytic therapies and psychodynamic models of the mind are almost entirely rejected in contemporary neuropsychology and psychiatry—in favour of biological and cognitive psychological paradigms—due to their abstract structures rendering them incompatible with the scientific method.[xx] With long-term psychoanalytic therapies being found to be effective in systematic reviews, the abandonment of a system with useful and vast therapeutic and diagnostic techniques suggests the loss of a great deal of potential discoveries and treatments in psychiatry.[xxi] Even medical conditions with invisible symptoms, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, are too often disregarded by doctors and psychologists as psychogenic or even mythical due to the lack of visible, recordable signs and symptoms.[xxii] Philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn astutely draws attention to the systematic consequences of faith in scientific paradigms in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970). When a revolutionary discovery is made that seems to contradict the universally dominant scientific paradigm, scientists (and the society that trusts them) “puzzle-solve” [xxiii] to reconcile this incommensurability with the potentially unstable paradigm; failure to do so is then often blamed on the scientist, rather than the paradigm.[xxiv] So, arguably, complete trust in science and its paradigms is near-impossible to justify reasonably, even without subscribing to Nietzsche’s romantic metaphysics.
Nietzsche goes on to lament the death of tragedy in such cultural climates which “[aim to] destroy myth” and Dionysian consciousness.[xxv] He warns that the resultant absence of Dionysian myth and consciousness entails the absence of a remedy to the absurd suffering of life, and, without such a remedy, cultures are condemned to plunder and gather-up less Socratic cultures, in search of a life-affirming metaphysics.[xxvi] Asserting the repressed Dionysian craving for myth as the driving force behind historical inquiry, Nietzsche offers an intriguing example of the ancient historian as a victim of Apollonian cultures. Dissatisfied and “eternally hungry” for myth, the historian rummages through “the most remote”, enigmatic “ancient times” of history in search of his culture’s mythical roots. Nietzsche likens this persistent pursuit of meaning to “a starving man’s greedy snatch-and-grab for food” and emphasises historical inquiry as developing out of a dreadful cultural absence of the Dionysian: “what is revealed in the gathering up of countless other cultures, the consuming desire to know, if not the loss of myth?”[xxvii]
Julian Young argues that Nietzschean tragic culture is necessarily pessimistic; when faced with the true, terrible nature of reality, Nietzsche exalts art, which now functions as a form of escapism into a realm of “higher existence”, much like religion.[xxviii] I disagree; the distinction between Nietzschean life-affirming immersion in art and blind faith in organised religion is quite clear. On the condition that one’s faith is given to an external, invisible, omnipresent force—God or science—blind faith promises a spiritual or intellectual sanctuary from mortal suffering or uncertainty. Art, however, empowers humanity to perpetuate our existence in a way that is enjoyable, utilising our tangible experiences of suffering to create and validate our own purpose—ultimately compelling us to, instead, have faith in our own powers.
Having established that our Socratic, Apollonian world requires a remedy to life’s suffering, Nietzsche calls for a rebirth of Dionysian consciousness, which, he claims, can only occur through the “pure and power core of the German being.”[xxix] Nietzsche identifies Wagner’s music-dramas as rising “out of the Dionysian foundation of the German spirit.”[xxx] In combination with other references, as well as the text’s “Preface to Richard Wagner,”[xxxi] this establishes Wagner’s works as the apotheosis of Dionysian and tragic art, and thus our solution. Nietzsche’s urgency for a renewal of the function of tragedy is inspiring and impassioning. However, the obvious flaw in The Birth of Tragedy is Nietzsche’s seemingly arbitrary connection of art’s value to the medium of music,[xxxii] diminishing the value and power of a multitude of artistic forms.
Nietzsche could not have foreseen the colossal cultural and technological developments that would succeed him. It is clear today that the creation of television and, later, the internet, brought changes of unimaginable magnitude to global culture, in many ways leading us further than ever from Dionysian consciousness. The widespread use of technology such as the Metaverse, for example, creates what I have deemed a ‘post-Apollonian’ realm, defined by images, holograms and concepts of our already human-made Apollonian conceptions of the world. Furthermore, opportunities to personally ‘own’ virtual products and currency—as well as novel trends of “micro-labelling” [xxxiii] every conceivable aspect of our identities—compel us to arbitrarily individuate ourselves (and others) potentially more than ever, leading us even further from the Dionysian primordial oneness that, for Nietzsche, is reality.
However, these technological changes are mirrored in artistic developments which explicitly signify the tenacious prevailing of the Dionysian artistic impulse. Post-internet artist Jon Rafman, in his series You are standing in an open field (2013), depicts technological junk and typical consumerist detritus cluttering the visual foreground before sublime mountain peaks and waterfalls. Positioning viewers in “a portal where the material world meets the virtual,”[xxxiv] this series forces us to acknowledge the absurdity of our virtual—or post-Apollonian—constructs in contrast to the natural world. It could be argued that, because the conceptions subverted in Rafman’s series are post-Apollonian ‘images of images’, revealing their absurdity does not actually propagate the Dionysian consciousness, but simply peels back one layer of illusion to reveal another. However, I argue that when such ‘higher’ strata of post-Apollonian illusion are present, revealing their absurdity is a predicate to doing so for the more mundane; freedom from our immersion in a wholly simulated realm of virtual consumption is necessary before we can begin to disrupt our preoccupation with the illusory world.
Perhaps a more typically Dionysian artistic form is comedy, which wields a potentially unrivalled subversive power in contemporary society. Comedic television can be extremely powerful at revealing to us the arbitrary nature of our more mundane socio-political and even physical constructs. Comedy series Peep Show (2003-2015), for example, subverts viewers’ knowledge and experience of ordinary existence. Through the depiction of mundane life as bizarrely miserable, the series simultaneously reveals the absurdity of everyday activities—such as dressing, working, eating and interpersonal encounters—and portrays “the stubborn persistence of human suffering.”[xxxv] The formation of this existential Dionysian consciousness into a palatable, enjoyable work of art both meets Nietzsche’s creative criteria for, and serves the function of, tragic art. Furthermore, is the rapturous, collective laugher that comedy elicits from its audience not the most Dionysian reaction possible? Nietzsche’s metaphysical account of artistic creative forces through the ages is impressively constructed, and his critique of scientific culture rings true more than ever in contemporary society. However, his adherence to a radical binary that privileges music above other forms of art unfortunately limits his perceived avenues for a renewal of tragic culture today. Technological and social developments have positioned global society in a more ‘Socratic’ state than ever; fortunately, however, the Dionysian impulse evidently prevails through novel artistic conceptions and media, such as contemporary visual art and comedy television series, adapting to affirm human existence in the face of ever-evolving nihilistic threats.
Phoebe Sampson is completing a BSc/BA at UQ, with majors in Biomedical Science and Philosophy. In particular, feminist theory, critical phenomenology, and existentialism have been central academic and personal interests in her pursuit of a career in psychiatry.
ENDNOTES
[i] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth Of Tragedy Out Of the Spirit Of Music (Nanaima: Richer Resources, 2008), 16.
As the primary text consulted in this essay, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music (trans. 2008) will be referenced with an abbreviation, page and section number only, from this point forward (e.g., BT 19 (§4)).
[ii] Charles Oman, A History Of Greece From the Earliest Times To the Death Of Alexander the Great (London: Longmans, Green & co, 1895), 51.
[iii] Julian Young, Nietzsche’s Philosophy Of Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 34.
[iv] The most plain of the three orders of ancient Greek art and architecture. For example, a Doric column is characterised by a plain, unadorned capital and a simple, fluted body. See: Oman, A History Of Greece From the Earliest Times To the Death Of Alexander the Great, 104.
[v] The “principal of individuation” is our conception of the criteria which distinguish one thing from another.
[vi] BT 19 (§4)
[vii] BT 12 (§1)
[viii] The concept in various Eastern religions of the world of illusion; a “magic show” concealing the true nature of the world with illusions of the empirically attainable world as permanent, unchanging reality. In Greek, Maja also translates to magic (μάγια). See: Brij Lal, “Piercing the Veil of Maya the Creator of All-Pervasive Illusion,” Journal of Religion and Psychical Research 29, no. 4 (2006): 16-18.
[ix] BT 13 (§1)
[x] BT 13 (§1)
[xi] BT 15 (§2)
[xii] BT 57 (§16)
[xiii] BT 57 (§16)
[xiv] BT 57 (§16)
[xv] BT 17 (§3)
[xvi] BT 52 (§15)
[xvii] BT 39 (§10)
[xviii] BT 54 (§15)
[xix] Friedrich Hayek, “Scientism and The Study Of Society: Part I,” Economica 9, no. 35 (1942): 267-51, https://doi.org/10.2307/2549540.
[xx] Joel Paris, “Is Psychoanalysis Still Relevant to Psychiatry,” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 62, 5 (2017): 308-312, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0706743717692306.
[xxi] Saskia de Maat, Frans de Jonghe, Robert Schoevers, & Jack Dekker, “The Effectiveness Of Long-Term Psychoanalytic Therapy: A Systematic Review Of Empirical Studies,” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 17, 1 (2009): 1-23, https://doi.org/10.1080/10673220902742476.
[xxii] M. H. Ward, H. DeLisle, J. H. Shores, P. C. Slocum, & B. H. Foresman, “Chronic Fatigue Complaints In Primary Care: Incidence and Diagnostic Patterns,” The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 96, 1 (1996): 34-46, https://doi.org/10.7556/jaoa.1996.96.1.34
[xxiii] John Horgan “What Thomas Kuhn Really Thought About Scientific ‘Truth’,” Scientific American, 23 May 2012, Cross-Check, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/what-thomas-kuhn-really-thought-about-scientific-truth/
[xxiv] For example, inconsistencies in the orbital paths of Mercury and Venus leading to the discovery of Neptune.
Deborah Kent, “The Curious Aftermath Of Neptune’s Discovery,” Physics Today 64 (2011): 46-51, https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/64/12/46/413457/The-curious-aftermath-of-Neptune-s.
[xxv] BT 79 (§23)
[xxvi] BT 78-79 (§23) Interesting implications arise here for post-colonial thought—in particular, the Dionysian as a factor contributing to the phenomenon of orientalism—which lie outside the scope of this paper.
[xxvii] BT 79 (§23)
[xxviii] Young, Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Art, 47.
[xxix] BT 80 (§23)
[xxx] BT 68 (§19)
[xxxi] BT 10
[xxxii] Young, Nietzsche’s Philosophy Of Art, 36.
[xxxiii] Wolff, Lotte, and Cochrane, Brandy. “Queer legibility and the refugee status determination process,” Sage 0 (2023): 1-21. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/13634607231168768
[xxxiv] Lindsay Howard, “Jon Rafman On Standing In an Open Field,” Jon Rafman Blog (blog). 14 April, 2014, https://foundation.app/blog/jon-rafman
[xxxv] Sam Bain, “The Stubborn Persistence of Human Suffering RT @dayman766: @sambaintv What Sociological Themes Do You Hope Viewers Take Away From Peep Show?” Twitter, 7:25am., 11 Nov 2015, https://twitter.com/sambaintv/status/664192211425353728
Sam Bain is one of five co-creators of Peep Show.
WORKS CITED
Bain, Sam. “The Stubborn Persistence Of Human Suffering RT @dayman766: @sambaintv What Sociological Themes Do You Hope Viewers Take Away From Peep Show?” Twitter, 7:25am., 11 Nov 2015, https://twitter.com/sambaintv/status/664192211425353728.
de Maat, Saskia., de Jonghe, Frans., Schoevers, Robert., & Dekker, Jack. “The Effectiveness Of Long-Term Psychoanalytic Therapy: A Systematic Review Of Empirical Studies.” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 17, 1 (2009): 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/10673220902742476.
Hayek, Friedrich. “Scientism and The Study Of Society: Part I.” Economica 9, no. 35 (1942): 267-91. https://doi.org/10.2307/2549540
Horgan, John. “What Thomas Kuhn Really Thought About Scientific ‘Truth’,” Scientific American, 23 May 2012, Cross-Check, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/what-thomas-kuhn-really-thought-about-scientific-truth/.
Howard, Lindsay. “Jon Rafman On Standing In an Open Field.” Jon Rafman Blog (blog). 14 April, 2014. https://foundation.app/blog/jon-rafman.
Kent, Deborah. “The Curious Aftermath Of Neptune’s Discovery,” Physics Today 64, no. 12 (2011): 46-51. https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/64/12/46/413457/The-curious-aftermath-of-Neptune-s.
Lal, Brij. “Piercing The Veil Of Maya The Creator Of All-Pervasive Illusion.” Journal of Religion and Psychical Research 29, no. 4 (2006): 16-18.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth Of Tragedy Out Of The Spirit Of Music. Translated by Ian C. Johnston. Nanaima: Richer Resources, 2008. https://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/Nietzsche-The-Birth-of-Tragedy.pdf.
Oman, Charles. A history Of Greece From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Alexander the Great (5th ed.). London: Longmans, Green & co, 1895. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=xnAUAAAAYAAJ&dq=Apollo+%22most+Hellenic%22&pg=PA51&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Apollo%20%22most%20Hellenic%22&f=false.
Paris, Joel. “Is Psychoanalysis Still Relevant to Psychiatry.” The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 62, 5 (2017): 308-312. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0706743717692306.
Ward, M. H., DeLisle, H., Shores, J. H., Slocum, P. C., & Foresman, B. H. “Chronic Fatigue Complaints In Primary Care: Incidence and Diagnostic Patterns.” The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 96, 1 (1996): 34-46. https://doi.org/10.7556/jaoa.1996.96.1.34.
Wolff, Lotte, and Cochrane, Brandy. “Queer Legibility and The Refugee Status Determination Process,” Sage 0 (2023): 1-21. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/13634607231168768.
Young, Julian. Nietzsche’s Philosophy Of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Featured photo by Gaspar Uhas on Unsplash
EXORDIUM 