[LMB] OT: Apollonian/Dionysian (was: Slash)

[paal at gis.net]

----- Original Message Follows -----
> On 03/01/07, paal at gis.net <paal at gis.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message Follows -----
> > > Kirsten, then Lois:
> > >
> > > > To which I reply (as she no doubt expects me to) that we live in
> > > > a Dionysian age, those of us in the West (the rest of you can
> > > > pipe up with your local zietgeist, of course) and hence have
> > > > rather more use for Apollonian correctives.
> >
> > Aaaarrrggghhhh!! on Dionysian versus Apollonian... again, this form
> > of metaphor/reference just Does Not Work for me. Yes, I know that
> > Dionysus was one of the ancient gods of revelation and celebration
> > involving being drunk as a skunk and in ritual awe and ecstasy
> > tearing apart those those unfortunate animals or males set up as
> > sacrificed, or found intruding on the rituals, and there sometimes
> > there were some ritual rationalist sorts of things about Apollo BUT
> > it is still dealing with -religion- and -belief- and when I think
> > Dionysian, I think of e.g. the unknown Elysian Mysteries and the
> > known excesses of celebrants of Dionysian revels, and thinking
> > Apollo, there are some at least equally gruesome things done, that
> > were at least equally chilling for being done NOT in a -drunken-
> > state of altered conscious, but done in cold calculating
> semi-sociopathic or psychopathic calculation.... >
> 
> The two terms have become terms of art since Nietzsche's _The Birth of
> Tragedy_, where he uses the two in restricted and opposing senses
> (although I suspect that many fen picked up the terms, originally,
> from _Stranger in a Strange Land_).  Reference back to the rather
> messier classical world's cultus patterns is now to misunderstand, the
> terms, which now have a life of their own rooted in the Nietzschean
> usage.

Nietzsche, aarrgghhh...  either I never studied it, or suppressed it.  I
am not an afficionardo of Nietzshche, who was a really vile sort and
especially vile regarding my lineage on top of that! 

I look more back to classicism for definitions for Apollonian and
Dionysian, and not tertiary twits...