On display at the Capitoline Museums, Rome, Italy.
Source: Wikimedia.
IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETICS a contrast is sometimes made between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. Made famous by Nietzsche, this schema was first used to describe the thought and art of Ancient Greece. On the Apollonian end we have all that is rational, intentional, structured, abstract, or well ordered; on the Dionysian side we find all that is passionate, instinctual, chaotic, sensual or protean. The Apollonian strain of western culture is associated with daylight, law, mathematics, sculpture, discipline, and the city; the Dionysian strain is associated with nightfall, violence, poetry, music, drunkenness, and nature. The Apollonian element is stereotypically male; the Dionysian element is stereotypically female. The Apollonian ideal is realized by the solitary philosopher solemn in thought. The model Dionysian is an ecstatic madman frenzied with the crowd.
Many trace the contest between the Apollonian and Dionysian halves of the soul across the history of Western civilization. This dichotomy explains tensions in our 21st century culture just as well as it explains the works of ancient Greece and Rome. But if Nietzsche’s schema is enduring, is it also universal? Does the battle between the Apollonian and the Dionysian rage in all civilizations—or just the Western one?
Two years ago I posed this question to a friend of mine, who writes on Substack under the pen-name “Antonius Tetrax.” Born in China but trained as a classicist in the West, Antonius is equally at home reading Horace and Du Fu. Few are better qualified to make comparisons between ancient cultures East and West. We discussed the question for several hours. Only later did I discover that Antonius made a record of our conversation. He recently published a highly stylized version of it on his Substack: “On the Strangeness of the Greeks and Other Subjects: Part I” and “On the Strangeness of the Greeks and Other Subjects: Part II.”
Antonius has rewritten our conversation in the form of a classical dialogue. Some may find this style annoying, but if you have dipped your toes in Cicero or Xenophon I trust you will find this 21st century classical dialogue entertaining.
Our conversation was wide-ranging. Among other topics, we discuss the following questions:
- Is Daoism “Dionysian?” Is Confucianism “Apollonian?”
- Why is classical Greek culture so horrified with children, procreation, and family life?
- How do Daoist and Bacchic attitudes towards sex compare? Were ancient Chinese and ancient Greek sex rites equivalent?
- Does the jianghu ethos of Chinese martial arts and wuxia tales have a counterpart in the West? Is the modern Communist Party of China more jianghu or more Confucian?
- How do we rank ancient Chinese philosophers in terms of IQ?
- Which would a neo-Confucian scholar find more sympathetic—Kantian ethics or Antigone?
- What does Greek anti-natalism say about western civilization as a whole?
None of our answers to these questions are as developed as they might be if I defended or presented them in a proper essay. That is the weakness of this genre. On the other hand, between Antonius and myself there are a dozen observations worthy of a sustained essay that would never have been raised at all save for this dialogue. Most of these ideas I am still playing around with; I am not sure any are correct, and do not have the time it would take to present any at essay-length. The dialogue format then allows us to present a series of tentative ideas that would not otherwise be published. I hope you find them worth pondering.
Read the full thing HERE.
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A thought that occurred while reading – why not Sun Wukong as Dionysian hero? He destabilises the harmonious moral order of heaven in a frenzy of indulgence, and while he can to an extent be controlled by representatives of cosmic order, such as the Buddha or Sanzang, his own nature is instinctive and subversive. This is even more the case for his companions, such as Zhu Bajie.
It’s not an ideal match, since Sun Wukong also bears the potential for… enlightenment? sagehood? much depends on your reading of ‘Journey to the West’, and how syncretistic or satirical you see it as. He does, ultimately, find some form of reconciliation with the cosmic order he destabilises, but perhaps also only after exposing its hypocrisies, for not even the Buddha’s own disciples, by the story’s conclusion, have been spared parody.
Great observation – here’s an immediate response:
(1) The character of Sun Wukong in the classical novel we have today is an amalgam of at least two folk traditions: one is the troublemaker monkey-king who disrupts the celestial court and hubristically challenges Daoist and Buddhist authorities (Tradition A) and one is the dutiful and loyal follower, servant and protector of Sanzang on his journey to India (Tradition B). There’s a geographical divide of the traditions, with A circulating in the south and B in the north. A has elements of local spirit worship; its protagonist can be some other kind of beast or monster and usually more cruel and sinister than Wukong from the novel. The character in this tradition can be more properly be called Dionysian.
(2) On the other hand, tradition B has a stronger motif of “enlightenment”, and originally the servant figure was much more passive and colourless than Wukong in the novel. What the does is to take a milder version of Tradition A, and making it a prequel to Tradition B. About 85% of the story revolves around Tradition B, even though the ratio may be much lower in the abridged translation by Waley. It’s a conscious choice on the author of the novel’s part to suppress the more Dionysian aspects of the archetype, and to “tame” it for literary or educational reasons.
(3) Bajie is symbolised by the technical term “wood mother” in the narrative. I’m not expert in Daoist terminology, but apparently this term refers to the natural instincts of man (hunger, thirst, libido etc.). As such he may be a symbol of phusis, but not the perversion or transgression of phusis, as Dionysus often effects. Judging from the story as a whole, there’s a strong educational element (learn to tame one’s instincts) in Bajie’s character arc as well, so even when read with the most chaotic lens Bajie isn’t Dionysian through and through.
Very interesting — any speculations on the origins of tradition north vs south?
Sorry for the late reply, TG. I’m no expert in folklore, but the “mountain spirit” type story seems prevalent in the South since antiquity, preceding the story of Sanzang. It may even be related to local shamanism or other animist beliefs. Tales of travel, whether of not of the orthodox Buddhist kind, is common in the north because of the geographic reality — they are closer to the steppes and has more contact with the rest of Eurasia.
It is an ideal match. The Apollonian is the sublimated Dionysian, that’s the whole point!
And a story where a Dionysian disturbs the moral order then comes to accept his place within it fits perfectly in that dichotomy.
1) can you get Tetrax to write more?
2) regarding the Chinese and Hebrews not being anti-family, it comes to my mind that they haven’t been democratic – a family can be a problem when a city’s common property of all native armed men.
@Silva–
I’ll try on 1).
On 2) I think you have come very close to issue. But I do not think it is one of democracy per say–Greek oligarchies also had a similar ethos. Sparta perhaps is this ethos taken to its logical extreme.
What they did have was a very strong notion of a public, as contrasted with the familial or the private.Private interests vs. public interests were a big deal, and private meant familial.
But also, the Greeks were pederasts.
True about Sparta – they had kingship and yet a sense of common property.
On “pederasty”, there’s the question of whether one means only the model in which the eromenos becomes a typical male adult, or also models involving slavery and eunuchs. In any case, it’s my impression that, in terms of future eromenos integration, so to say, Afghans have had it in a social structure as family-based as anyone’s; Athenians’ property (that I know!) was a city well-positioned for trade and silver mines, while Afghans have had the kind of property that usually moves with male kin (I don’t quite know that Sparta adopted a distinctive social model *after* capturing the Messenians).
On whether commonly-owned city-states specifically breed anti-family ideologies, the mahajanapadas and Buddhism would be relevant, but I think the sources are few?
It’s funny that they associated violence & drunkenness with femininity because today I think we’d associate both those with masculinity!