THE DIONYSIAN PARADIGM

With an Outline of its Historical Evolution

Note: This is an outline of a paradigm, not a manifesto, it is open to many interpretations

 

Dionysos Risen

The Greek deity Dionysos had long survived in Western Art as a Romantic figure. However it was
not until the 19th Century that Europe saw the return of this archetype in anything like its original
form. The cultural magician who first reinvoked him was the poet and thinker Heinrich Heine.

Heine rejected the 'romantised' Bacchus of his time (often seen as an insipid Christ like figure)
and reaffirmed the Bacchic deity in all his passion, beauty and terror. A Western Shiva. A true
'revolutionary' archetype he claimed (equating it with the fiery archetypes of William Blake). His
vision was so inspiring that the Philosopher Nietzsche coined the term Dionysian for it. Making a
clear distinction between contemporary idealised and romantic forms of artistic expression and
the new Dionysian form. It would inspire him in fact into creating a whole new philosophy to fill
the existential vacuum left by religion and theism after the Enlightenment and the 'Death of God'.
While an enlightened atheist Nietzsche mourned the loss of a universal horizon after this Theocide.

 

Dionysiac Art

Nietzsche's new philosophy began and ended with art. It was, he claimed, an
aesthetic philosophy as opposed to all other modern philosophies which were ascetic.
But its consequences where far wider and changed the way we now see the world.

According to Nietzsche, Greek Art sought the perfect synthesis of what he
termed the Dionysian and Apollonian modes of expression. That is, the union of
Energy and Form. Like Blake, Nietzsche regarded the World as found on Contraries.
early Greek Tragi-Comedy and Pagan Music (repleat with dissonance) were art's
'ideal manifestation' he claimed. But this project failed after the Classical Greeks
began to fetishize Form, Harmony and Order, and repress the Bacchic element.

The Dionysian was the primal aspect of reality, raw nature, flux, life and death,
pleasure and pain, desire, passion, sex, aggression, the source of primal instincts.
In modern Psychological terms - The Libidinal Unconscious / The Id

DIONYSOS / BACCHUS - Ancient Deity of Nature, Life, Intoxication and Liberation
(later emasculated by Rome into a trivial minor god of wine and decadence)

The Apollonian was the humanized aspect of reality, civilization, harmony, balence,
order, form, stasis, peace, moderation, permanence, symbolism, language, reason.
In modern Psychological terms - The Ego and Superego

APOLLO - Classical God of Light, Wisdom, Beauty, 'Art', Harmony and Law

Apolline Art was idealized and static - Sculpture, Painting, Architecture

Dionysiac Art was realistic dynamic and life-affirming - Music, Drama

"The Dionysiac with its primal pleasure - experienced even in pain - is the common womb
of music and tragic myth. . . the Apolline is the realm of dreams and ideal forms."

The Birth of Tragedy , Nietzsche, 1871.

DIONYSIAN CULTURE

Soon Nietzsche extended the concept of the Dionysiac from Art to Culture in general


Three Level Model (of Late Nietzsche, in 'The Will to Power')

Primitive Dionysian - Tribal, 'Barbarian', Societies. 'Pure' Dionysian.

Dionysian Culture - Life-Affirming Dynamic Civilization. The Apolline Dionysian.

Apollonian Civilization - Disciplined Societies. Idealized Lawful Civilizations. 'Pure' Apolline.

Nietzsche favoured the middle form, but saw Greek culture as a continual war between the 1st
and 3rd forms, which only occassionallly achieved the true Dionysian form for moments in history
When given the choice of these two he tended to opt for the first as the most life-affirming.

 

Apollo was the God of the State, excess Apollinism led to Nationalism, Militarism & Totalitarianism

Dionysos was the God of the People, excess Dionysianism led to the rejection of Apolline values
and allegedly eventually to crazed 'Revolutionary Intoxication' and 'Sexual Debauchery'!!

European Culture is rooted in Greek Civilization, these categories applied to us too Nietzsche said.

Claiming contemporary European society had become pathologically Apolline (or 'decadent') he
called for the reaffirmation of the Dionysian in all its forms, in order to restore Dionysian Culture.





Dionysian Metaphysics

Nietzsche's Philosophy was more than a cultural analysis it always had 'metaphysical' roots:

The early Nietzsche saw the World dualistically, divided into a hidden world of Reality and
perceptual World of Appearance, following Kant. He also took up the idea of Schopenhauer, that
Reality was ultimately reducible to a panpsychic 'Will to Life', associating this with his concept
of the Dionysian. Though he modified Schopenhauer's 'Cosmic Will' into a 'Will to Power', a
striving not just for survival, but for growth and advancement (even at the cost of survival).

This general 'Will' drove the 'evolving' universe and brought it into existance, according
to Nietzsche, it was also manifest within (or as) all living things within it . The Cosmos was thus
divided and at war with itself. Including the human psyche which was he claimed just a bundle of
seperate desires or little 'wills to power'. The Apollonian mode was the imposition of order,
stability and unity onto this general state of 'chaos'. A necessary factor for existance.

The Dionysian was sometimes equated with the Greek idea of Chaos or Nyx by Nietzsche.



Late Nietzsche (influenced by Hobbes and Darwin) seems to have become a nihilistic materialist.
Rejecting his earlier 'Dionysian Idealism' he now saw the Dionysian as representing a 'random'
and purely physical phenomenal chaos. With the Apolline as our conceptual ordering of that chaos
into lawful scientific models. Psychologically, animals (including humans) were driven by their
Dionysiac instincts, of biological origin. Humans built Apollonian 'Egos' on top of this foundation.

The Apollonian drive was the drive to individualise, the Dionysian drive was the drive to belong
to something greater. The Apollonian was an 'unatural' imposition of abstract ideals on a
material and biological reality and often repressive. But it was also the highest aspect of Man,
the creation of an Individual Self from an unconscious fragmentary psychology, while the
Dionysian could lead to an atavistic reabsorbtion into the 'herd' and a 'mob psychology'.
Ideally the goal was the fusion of the Dionysian with the Apolline aspects of our psychology.

In his vision of political society the 'Slave Class' (everyone except the aristocracy) was ruled by
a Dionysian psychology. While the 'Master Class' (the aristocracy) was ruled by the Apollonian. Neither were fetishised by Nietzsche, a charge he reserved for Marxists and Conservatives alone.
He saw virtues and vices in both (though often being biased to the latter by his upbringing).
However Capitalism was seen as a victory of one section of the 'Slave Class' (the bourgeois mimics of the aristocracy) over both their former masters and another section of the 'Slave
Class'. But Nietzsche also denounced Christianity and Socialism as delusory solutions, based on 'slave morality' and martyr psychology. Politics were merely a matter of power relations for Nietzsche, not morality, he thus advised both revolutionaries and dictators on the logic of power.




In practice Nietzsche never achieved a sharp division between these two intepretations and often
oscillates between them even in his last works. His overall philosophy thus contained unresolved
contradictions. An oceanic psychic reality with an illusory concrete world, or a materialistic chaos
with a pan-psychic 'will to power'. It is conceivable that Nietzsche may have been struggling
towards a Hegelian resolution of this, that is - that the psychic and physical were part of one whole.

A consistent view in both intepretations is of the World as process or flux, with the 'Dionysian' as
its foundational base and the 'Apolline' as its surface, or superstructure. Basic ideas he took from
the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. A World based on a process of Becoming rather than a state
of Being. Though not necessarily an evolving one, as in his late phase, like Darwin, he held that
change was a mindless random process, subject only to scientific laws (where not even the 'best'
always survived). Such a process could be progressive OR regressive. He thought we were now in
an ongoing regressive, decadent Apollonian phase, but comforted himself with 'myths' of cyclic
return. It was this groundless pessimism that prevented Nietzsche from becoming a revolutionary.

This Heraclitean process philosophy (claimed by some as also being the original philosophy of
the Ancient Greek Dionysians) was also independently developed by A.N. Whitehead.

Nietzsche was ambivalent on the nature of the Apollonian, on the one hand seeing it as artificial
and illusory, while on the other seeing it as the basis of historical change and potential 'evolution'.
Nietzsche's ideal human was the 'Higher' or 'Dionysian' Man, who was an authentic, free spirit, in
touch with their primal nature, who attempted to unify and 'recreate themselves', by 'overcoming'
and 'sublimating' their various drives into a unified whole of their own aesthetic choice (true being).
The archetypal successful sublimator, and self-created being, was the (in)famous 'Over-Man'.
This process applied equally to social and cultural evolution, but had to be driven by conscious human action, there was no deterministic 'historical process' and all ends were open.




The ethical aspects of Nietzsche's Dionysian philosophy has often been described as having
the courage to face the most pessimistic possibilities about Life while at the same time drawing
the most optimistic conclusions from this. A realistic stance for all 'romantic' eutopians...




So much for history, but Dionysian Philosophy is NOT Nietzschean Philosophy.
Since Nietzsche's death, Dionysian Philosophy has been adopted and adapted by everyone
from authoritarian fascists to liberatarian anarcho-pacifists, and all points in between, its most
coherent interpretation is generally regarded by dilligent Nietzsche scholars as nearer the latter!



The most contemporary 'adaption' of Dionysian Philosophy being more intelligent examples of
the semantically orientated, anti-foundationalism, lumped together, with other trends, under the label 'Post-Modernism'. The likes of Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze being key theorists in this
phase of development. Though it is important to distinguish these from the 'degenerate' Po-Mo
of the 80s, where the linguistic base of the philosophy led to its decline into a form of 'semantic
Idealism' in which 'hyper-reality' replaced 'reality', in a way analogous to an ascendency of Apollonian abstraction, which while recognising its unreality, none the less denied even a
Dionysian foundation and thus became detached from 'embodied reality' and the 'physical'.


Perhaps the most significant (post)modern Dionysian perspective is that of Mikhail Bakhtin. A
Russian Philosopher of the 30s and 40s, who achieved popularity in the Russia of the 1960's,
best known in the West for his commentary on Rabelais (of 'Do what thou wilt' fame) in which
he outlines a 'theory of the Carnival'. For Bakhtin (a name some have said can be derived from 'little Bacchus') the Carnival is an ambivalent autonomous zone, in which all normal power structures temporarily breakdown and are replaced by the ludic rules of fun and comedy. It is the festival of the 'Holy Fool' (an important figure in Russian folklore), and its defining features are ambivalence and hilarity. Bakhtin regarded the works of Rabelais as the literary representation of the Carnival. While a Marxist (for which he can perhaps be excused given his historical location) Bakhtin did not derive the obvious political conclusions from this (not surprisingly as he was sentenced to six years in exile by the Communists for mere suspicion of subversion), but others
did. The Post-Feminist Feminist (sic) Julia Kristeva has drawn most extensively on Bakhtin.
Kristeva emphasised the dynamic, transgressive element of Bakhtin's Carnival, and declared
more openly its socio-political relevance. Since then the 'carnivalesque revolt' has become real.

 

Some modern writers have sought to use the myth of Orpheus to attempt to 'resolve' the
Dionysos-Apollo polarity. Orpheus being the 'great mediator' of Greek myth, who brought
'harmony' between opposing forces (with varying success). In various versions of his myth he
was said to be the 'son of the god Apollo' by a 'mortal woman', or of a Thracian King 'of the line
of Dionysos' and a 'living Muse from Lesbos', or even that he was the living 'incarnation' of
the god Dionysos (thus uniting the most basic dualities of Greek culture within one archetype).



A VERY APOLLINE TABLE OF DIONYSIAN DUALISM

NOTE OVERLAPS SHOWING DIALECTICAL INTERELATION AND RARITY OF PURE MODES

DIONYSIAN	APOLLONIAN
NATURE	CIVILIZATION
CHAOS	ORDER
PROCESS OF BECOMING	STATE OF BEING
DYNAMIC / CHANGING / 'ALIVE'	STATIC / FIXED / 'DEAD'
FORCE	FORM
ENERGY	MATTER
FLOW AND EXCHANGE	POOL AND COLLECT
LIFE - DEATH (Death under Late Orphism)	ETERNAL LIFE (Late Orphist - Life)
CREATION - DESTRUCTION	PRESERVATION
CYCLIC TIME	LINEAR TIME
CONNECTION	INDEPENDENCE
SPONTANEITY	ORGANIZATION
BODY AND EMOTION	MIND AND SOUL
INSTINCTUAL / NON-RATIONAL	INTELLECTUAL / RATIONAL
BIAS	BALENCE
EXCESS	MODERATION
CONCRETE REALISM	ABSTRACT IDEALISATION
PLURALITY	SINGULARITY
DIVERSITY	UNITY
COOPERATION AND COMPETITION	COMPETITION OR COOPERATION
OCEAN / SKY / SPACE	LAND / GROUND / TERRESTRIAL
'RANDOM' CHAOS	PURPOSEFUL INTENTION
'BOTH ...AND' DIALECTIC	'EITHER ..OR' LOGIC
COMEDY AND TRAGIC DRAMA	ROMANTIC LEGEND
MUSIC (+VIDEO?)	SCULPTURE AND PAINTING
DANCE	MUSICAL AMBIENCE
RHYTHM AND DISSONANCE (DRUM)	HARMONY AND MELODY (HARP)
PRIMITIVE (ANCIENT)	MODERN (NEW)
BASIC ROOTS	COMPLEX SUPERSTRUCTURE
POWER	STRUCTURE
INTIMACY	DISTANCE
SUBCONSCIOUS	CONSCIOUS
ANIMAL (Predators under Orphism)	HUMAN
COLLECTIVE	INDIVIDUAL
NATURE	NURTURE
TRANSGRESSION	BOUNDARIES
LIBERTY	DISCIPLINE AND LAW
EQUALITY	HIERARCHY
MALE AND FEMALE (Orphist Feminine)	MALE OR FEMALE (Orphist Masc)
THE COMMON PEOPLE / SLAVES	THE ARISTOCRACY / MASTERS
REVOLUTIONARY	CONSERVATIVE
SENSUAL PLEASURE	ASCETIC
SEXUAL DESIRE	PLATONIC LOVE
SADO-MASOCHISM	BONDAGE AND DISCIPLINE
LIGHT AND DARK (Dark under Orphism)	PURE LIGHT (Orphist Light)
BLACK AND WHITE (Black under Orphism)	PURE WHITE
COLOUR (Orphist riot of colour)	GREY (Orphist rainbow)
'BE THYSELF'	'KNOW THYSELF'
'DO WHAT THOU WILL'	'THOU SHALT NOT...'
EARTHLY AND CHTHONIC (Orphist Hades)	HEAVENLY (Orphist Olympus)
SIGNIFICANCE / EXPRESSIVE ART	MEANING / LANGUAGE
LEFT AND RIGHT (Left under Orphism)	MIDDLE AND CENTRE (or Right)

Note: Unlike Nietzsche, ruling class Greeks, who had a less developed version of this dualism from around 550 BC,
saw both these contraries as real, in conflict, and took sides accordingly (mostly with the Apolline and Olympian). Later, after 450 BC an attempt at dualistic harmony was sought by the Dionysian Mysteries, which begat the Orphic
Mysteries which later became dogmatic Orphism. Late Orphists totally reinterpreted this Dualism around 300BC,
making Dionysos (like Orpheus) the mediator between an enlightened Apolline and a Bacchic Chthonian 'darkside',
but this was increasingly rejected in favour of a 'New Age' Apolline Orphism (apparently under the influence of the
usual powers that be and self repression). This process of course eventually degenerated into ascetic forms of
Gnosticism and finally Christianity (with Dionysos and Orpheus effectively merging into a new mediator, 'Christos')

Initiates of the new Dionysian Mysteries are free to inteprete all of the above according to their
own lights. Dionysianism being a lived experimental philosophy, merely guided by theory

How this theory evolved further is outlined in the final section of this introduction.

Bacchanalian Art and Romantism

Not a great effect on theory, but a proliferation of interpretations by artists (see culture section).
Nietzsche was a major influence on the avant garde culture of late 19th Cent / early 20th Europe.
His ideas were mostly absorbed into late Romanticism, but sometimes diluted or tainted with a
Christian influenced Orphist interpretation (Christianity being essentially Romano-Judaic Orphism)
Though some retained a rawer, iconoclastic vision truer to the original Nietzschean idea.
The culture also revived and / or absorbed parallel movements such as Shivaic and Taoist
Orientalism, late Radical Hegelianism and Blakean Mysticism. It reached its peak in the Fin de
Siecle, with its aesthetic Orphic Symbolists, led by Mallarme, on one hand, and on the other, their antithesis the 'Nietzschean' Decadents (who had recuperated Nietzsche's derogatory term into a
description of a 'world weiry' synthesis of Dionysian instincts and Apolline rational detachment),
an ethos typified by Rimbaud and Verlaine. And an eclectic movement championed as a mix of
both in Britain, by the likes of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Machen (and later in America in a somewhat
different, though highly imaginative, form by HP Lovecraft and his many imitators).

 

 

Dionysiac Psychodynamics

The most significant theoretical interpretation of Dionysian Philosophy came from Sigmund
Freud. While claiming never to have read Nietzsche, Freud never the less 'inherited' a girlfriend of
his, the nihilistic Russian 'feminist' Lou Salome, who championed Nietzsche's ideas after his
death. It was probably her influence that led Freud to praise Nietzsche as a significant forerunner
of Psychoanalysis, though more cynical commentators have called Nietzsche its 'real founder'!
But one significant difference Freud certainly introduced to the theory was its universalisation.
Whereas Nietzsche saw the theory as primarily relating to Hellenic culture, and secondarily
to Modern European culture, Freud saw its insights as applicable to every mind and culture.
It was a psychological theory not a cultural one from then on. Freud also assumed the radical
stance of aspect Dualism (seeing matter and mind as different irreducible aspects of one reality).
Alas Freud was even more conservative than Nietzsche and argued for the limited repression of
the 'Dionysian' Id to preserve 'Apolline' Civilisation. Thus defusing Nietzschean radicalism.


Freud's protege Jung was probably more conservative still, but at least he acknowledged
his debt to Nietzsche, and refered to the 'Dionysian Unconscious', as well as recognising the
metaphorical and 'archetypal' importance of Mythology and Occultism (though others such as the brilliant Herbert Silberer got there before him). He is also remembered as a pioneer of that very
Orphic synthesis of Dionysian 'Randomness' and Apolline 'Meaning' in the intrigueing and
'magickal' notion he called Synchronicity. An idea that also revolutionised the concept of Magick.
His mythological thesis was greatly expanded by libertarian psychologist Joseph Campbell.

But the real Dionysian Psychologist was the second protege of Freud and colleague of Jung's,
who helped both men develop their theories, the bohemian German anarchist Otto Gross. Gross
was a Revolutionary who accepted the full radical Nietzschean implications of Psychoanalysis,
argueing far from it being destructive, the health of society depended on the total liberation of the
sublimated Id, full sexual freedom and a 'hedonist' lifestyle. Gross greatly influenced not only
a few of his fellow Psychoanalysts, and many anarchists, he was also a major influence in the
first, 'counter cultural' alternative communes in Europe. Introducing drugs and bohemianism to
the puritan 'New Agers' who founded such communities! In many ways he could be seen as a
precursor of Wilhelm Reich, R D Laing and Timothy Leary combined (many of his ideas in fact
prefigure theirs). Not surprisingly he was totally ostracised by the Psychoanalytic Establishment
and died in the gutter in 1920 at the age of 40. His memory was erased from the official history of
Psychology (almost), but he was well remembered in artistic and countercultural spheres and
would be a defining influence on artists as diverse as D H Lawrence and the Berlin Dadaists. Many
also regard him a father of Surrealism (his influence can certainly be felt in its political offspring
Situationism). It is only recently that his influence is being acknowleged. One of his lesser
known ideas was of Patriarchal Religion as a pathological phenomenon in society, that could
be 'cured' through return to a form of 'Paganism', through the revival of the Cult of Dionysos,
and eventually a return to Goddess worship. These ideas proved popular in early counterculture.



Apolline Anthropology

The 'universal Dionysian' idea soon caught on in other social sciences, notably Anthropology.
In the mid 1930's (contemporarily with Spengler, see below) Ruth Benedict, rooted in the school of
cultural Anthropology of Franz Boas, distinguished two basic 'patterns' of culture, the Apollonian
and Dionysian. Differing somewhat from Nietzsche she did not suggest a simple Primitive-Modern
dichotomy but rather claimed the dualism was even present in pre-civilized cultures. For Benedict
the cultural 'pattern' was the template which shaped a monocultural society's institutions, psycho-
social orientation and personality types. Demonstrated by the patterns of behaviour, action and
thought in such cultures. She used 'Dionysian' to denote a pattern of culture engendering and
encouraging emotional freedom in social responses and 'Apollonian' to denote one producing
emotional restraint, control and order. In her study of the death customs of American Indians
she identified the restrained grief of the Zuni tribe as Apollonian and the wailing orgy of the
Kwakiutl as Dionysian. While not without its critics Benedict's theory was enthusiastically
taken up not only by other Anthropologists but also the supporters of Dionysianism.
The theory works well enough for non-literate 'folk cultures' where the social heritage - of
institutions, customs, values, skills, arts and modes of living - of a close knit community is
uniformily passed on by oral traditions, ritual and behavioral habituation. In pluralistic literate
societies composed of various subcultures this generalised analysis is more difficult. Some
Sociologists took up the term and began refering to Dionysian and Apollonian subcultures.

 

Oswald Spengler and the Decline of the West

Another major interpreter of Nietzsche's Dionysian paradigm was Oswald Spengler.
Though a deeply conservative (if not fascistic) thinker Spengler produced a book, 'The Decline
of the West' that contained some of the most incisive criticisms of our times ever written.
Criticism entwined with an equally insightful vision the Dionysian mode in modern urban society.
Briefly, Spengler argued that western civilization had degenerated into a shallow and artificial,
'mass culture', cut off from nature and based on false ideals, narrow rational utility and
consumerism. A passive, rootless society shaped by illusions generated by marketeers and the
mass media. An alienating shell of a society with no sense of community, other than an internally competitive rule of the mob. In contemporary terms, an atomized chaos of competitive -but low achieving - conformist 'clones', with no idiosyncrasy or deeper values other than the latest consumer trend. Decrying 'democracy' as the victory of the herd over a higher culture of autonomy, individualization and meritocracy, and 'equality' as a leveling down to mediocrity, he called for a return to 'organic' community based equally on biological reality, human feeling and deeper individual values, that would recreate a higher culture of aristocratic virtues and produce nobler individuals. Alas for Spengler this 'organic society' was often quite a traditional and conservative one, with a taste for 'high culture', but despite this reactionary aspect his broad criticism won him many supporters. Spengler's critique was entirely made within the paradigm of the Dionysian and Apollonian, and like Nietzsche he sought a positive synthesis of the two, rather than the rule of one or a bad mix. In general Spengler was criticizing the cold and artificial Apolline hegemony of the modern world, which had been harnessed to a degenerate form of the Dionysiac (effectively what Leftists would call bourgeois culture), but his own Apollonianism also inclined him as a critic of the 'Urban Dionysian' as well. He argued that modern rootlessness, nihilism and conditions of poverty were a breeding ground for a 'flotsam and jetsam' of new 'barbarians'. He prophesised the coming of 'New Primitive Men' and 'Intellectual Nomads' living a 'vagrant existance from shelter to shelter', a new kind of 'hunter-gather'. Spengler saw this as another cultural plague of modern society and looked forward to the extinction of such a degenerate breed!

Spengler Inverted: Theo Adorno and William S Burroughs

Spengler's Decline Critique was well recieved by people from a variety of political backgrounds
and set the script for future critiques of western society, both left and right, from that time on.
The ideas were not new but had never been set out in such a comprehensive way before and
so 'in tune' with the spirit of the age. But not all those who were impressed by it took it at face
value. The founder of Post-Marxism, Theodore Adorno, was among one of the first to take up
the Spenglerian banner. Adorno agreed with most of Spengler's critique (even its affirmation
of high culture), but argued that far from the new 'Urban Dionysians' being a social plague
they were in fact the 'negative' manifestation of the roots of being (or non-being in Adorno's
complex terms) - in a sense an eruption from the repressed subconcious of the World into the artificial mass consciousness of society - a phenomena with the, faint but real, potential to
negate the dehumanising culture of bourgeois consumerism. While couching this critique in the
over complex terms of his negativist Hegelian Post-Marxism, Adorno is essentially just repeating
a Nietzschean formula for the undermining of Apollonian civilization through the invocation of
the forces of Dionysiac rebellion. A civilisation to be replaced by a new classless high culture.
Adorno's ideas greatly influenced the Frankfurt School and through them Situationist Theory.

However it would be an even more radical reworking of Spengler that would have the greatest
social impact. Like Adorno, William Burroughs saw great potential in the 'Urban Dionysian',
but unlike him, he did not see it as a purely 'negative' force setting the stage for the emergence
of a new high culture, but as a positive cultural force in its own right, and the blueprint for a
new way of life. It wasn't in some newly imagined high culture that salvation was to be found,
but in an emerging popular culture at the grassroots of society. While a devout and anarchic
individualist, with a contempt for 'communism' and social collectivism, Burroughs never the less
despised consumer capitalism and bourgeouis society even more and championed what would
become known as the 'alternative society'. Burroughs believed that radical subcultures could
become 'counter-cultures'. Subcultures that rather than just occupying a cultural niche in a
'superculture' actually sought to oppose it and create an alternative that would one day replace it.
Such cultures would do this not only by creating insular alternative ways of life, but also by
infecting mainstream society with 'cultural viruses' (akin to the modern notion of Memes) that
would undermine and slowly convert, and absorb, the 'superculture' into the 'counterculture'.


Regardless of how successful this has been, or will be, Burroughs' ideas where not idle
speculation, but based on groundbreaking linguistic theories put forward by Alfred Korzybski,
which saw culture as a product of language as much as ideas and behaviour, and sought to
transform it through linguistic change. Many of Korzybski's ideas were inspired by Nietzsche
and prefigured Post-Structuralism. This cultural change through language dominated Buroughs'
thinking, but the bearers of the new culture would be Spengler's 'Urban Dionysians'. With this in
mind he became a mentor to the emerging poets of what would become the first 'counterculture',
Cassidy, Kerouac, Ginsberg and others of the 'Beat Generation', who Burroughs identified with
Spengler's 'new barbarians'. Burroughs wasted no time in introducing them to Spengler,
Korzybski, Nietzsche, the Dionysian, and psychedelic drugs, and the counterculture was born.
Ginsberg's poem Howl being one of the finest works of art produced under Burroughs influence.
By the sixties Kerouac was describing both the Beats and their 'successors' the Hippies as an
ongoing 'Dionysian Movement'. More of which can be explored in the Culture Section.

Post Nietzschean Dionysianism: From Foucault to Hakim Bey

Post-Structuralism was a parallel development to Burroughsian theory, similarly couched in
language theory and inspired by Nietzchean ideas and sometimes similarly focused on transforming society (though to a lesser extent). There were differences of course, principally a focus on 'radical consumption' rather than 'radical production', and with hindsight these differences can be seen as both strengths and weaknesses. But the theories produced by the French stars of this new philosophy were equally Dionysian. Based on the Heraclitean concept of flux and more specificaly on a radical anti-foundationalism, together with an awareness of and desire to transcend binary opposition and dualism, it is not hard to find the Dionysos in the works of Foucault, Derrida and especially the 'Nomadic Philosophy' of Giles Delueze. One important difference was the Post-Modern mistrust of anykind of narrative, and particularly religious narratives. While the latter was commendable it also led to a reluctance to use mythological metaphor. Lyotard had toyed with calling his post-philosophy 'Paganism', but shyed
away from it due to feared religious implications. Even so the interest these writers had in
psycho-analysis meant they could not entirely reject mythic imagery. Another link was through the
Dionysian surrealist Bataille, who prefigured many of their ideas and linked them to Nietzsche.

 

This was all to change however in the adaption of their philosophy by the post-situationist Hakim
Bey. Famed for his notion of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (perhaps derived in part from Bakhtin) , Bey created along with it a philosophy that weaved the ideas of Burroughs and the Post-Structuralists, particularly Delueze, into a new eclectic paradigm, though one more poetic and inspiring than philosophically coherent. Even more significantly he also added to this blend a liberal portion of pagan (and modern) mythologising, as well as a dose of politised chaos magick.
A mix that inspired a new generation of Dionysians, a term Bey isn't adverse to using himself. The link between Bey's philosophy and Chaos magick was made even more implicit by the man who introduced his ideas to Britain the famed Chaos magi Joel Birocco. Crucially it is a development that shows that the Dionysian Paradigm is a continually evolving one which will certainly continue.