DIONYSIAN AND APOLLONIAN


The overly “Dionysian,” folks tend to act without thinking, or by ignoring the possible consequences of their actions. The “Apollonians” are those that think too much, yet act too little; they watch life pass by them as they think it through by standing on the side, largely motionless.

Nietzsche tells us that Greek culture was defined by two gods now there were loads of gods in ancient Greece as you probably remember from school but to Nietzsche there were only really two that mattered Apollo and Dionysus both sons of Zeus.

Apollo is the god of reason and the rational he is in a lovely Roman copy of an original Greek statue and yes it looks like his cock fell off.

Nietzsche coined a term the Apollonian to capture the atmosphere and spirit of Apollo it’s all about reason calm wisdom and logical thinking imagine it like some ideal psychologically mature confident grown-up.

Dionysus who’s the exact opposite he is about chaos emotion instinct and impulse the Dionysian involves runaway passion sex madness and chaos. Dionysus is also the god of wine.

Nietzsche argues that the opposition between Dionysus and Apollo runs right through Greek culture in fact through all of us we’re all a tantalizing mix of Dionysus and Apollo half logical reasoning human half frenzied impulse love in dancing beasts Nietzsche believed that at their finest the Greeks gave room for the tussle between Apollo and Isis.

Weirdly for a philosopher Nietzsche believed that Greek culture started to go wrong when the Greeks tried to forget about Dionysus they became too Apollonian because of philosophy in general and Socrates in particular with the arrival of Socrates on the scene the Greeks fell in love with the idea of being able to control everything through their minds being totally wise and able to understand everything they turned against drinking wine and reason.

Nietzsche argued that this was deeply dangerous and that real wisdom comes from accepting the Dionysian side of us. Nietzsche gave us these two words Apollonian and Dionysian to name something that’s in all of us but we never knew what to call there’s a side of us that wants to understand that longs for calm and wisdom and then there’s the side of us that’s drawn to darkness chaos sexuality and madness.

Nietzsche was very unfazed by all of this and it’s like he’s telling us from the grave to accept both of these parts of ourselves and don’t try and snuff one of them

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