God is dead. The “ Men of Science” have prevailed. We are living in a world--- in a time--- that will, in a matter of less than a generation, witness its downfall through wars of annihilation and mass suicide ( Birth of Tragedy, Sec 15). As one wise man said of this world:

We are compelled to experience this illusion, totally caught up in it and constituted by it, as the truly non-existent, that is, as a continuing development on time, space, and causality, in other words, as an empirical reality. (Tragedy, 2)

In what seems as a biting criticism of the man of modernity, the wise philosopher proclaims, in opposition to the many scientific and philosophical revelations that were born out of the Enlightenment, that man does not know his true existence. Furthermore, man has been looking in the wrong place for the basis of Truth. Those philosophers who gave birth to the Enlightenment, those who saw the world as an empirical entity, set the world on its heels. They gave birth to the logic of modernity, and it seems that, more than two centuries later, many of these ideas are here to stay. Oh, where has the tyranny of science taken us? How will we ever realize that our true existence lies in the metaphysical rather than the physical? It would seem like there is no hope for us humans--- we have seemingly come to the point of no return. Luckily for us, however, we have that same wise man to save us from ourselves--- Friedrich Nietzsche. So the questions remain: Why have we come to this point where the realm of scientific positivism rules? What happened to our belief in the Divine? Why did our world, which up until the time of the Enlightenment had rooted its culture in the Divine, suddenly become one of secular thought? How can we, as a culture, desecularize our secular tendencies? How can we solve the problem that is modern man?

Before we examine the ultimate remedy for modern culture, we must first understand the basis upon which Nietzsche views human existence. In the first section of his work, Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche outlines the two Greek gods upon which he believes the essential nature of human thought and activity arises. He outlines these two natures--- those of the Apollonian and the Dionysian---and examines their fierce opposition for control of nature. These two gods, as Nietzsche describes, are the two gods of art. But wait, why art? Isn’t the problem of modern man rooted in philosophy and science? According to Nietzsche, the fundamental problem in human existence lies in art. As he notes in his preface to Richard Wagner:

But perhaps such readers will find it offensive that an aesthetic problem should be taken so seriously--assuming they are unable to consider art more than a pleasant sideline, a readily dispensable tinkling of bells that accompanies the "seriousness of life," just as if nobody knew what was involved in such a contrast with the "seriousness of life." Let such "serious" readers learn something from the fact that I am convinced that art represents the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life….

As such, the problem of art becomes paramount in the problem of modern man. But who exactly are Apollo and Dionysus? What is their role in the world of art, and in turn, the metaphysical world of man? Why are they in such fierce opposition?

Apollo, the god of light and prophecy, is the ultimate symbol of moderation. He is alive in the dream state of man, and serves as a calm influence in the realm of man, and also as a symbol of individualization. He is most closely analogous to the world of dreams ( Tragedy, 1). In opposition to the dream like state of the Apollonian stands the wild drunkenness of Dionysus, the god of wine. The nature of Dionysus is rooted in the sensuous experience-- an experience rooted in music and dance. In a sense, Dionysus also represents a dissolution of boundaries; all entities--- man‘s dreams, the physical world, and the Divine world--- are one and the same.

In that we see the first battle between Apollo and Dionysus. This, according to Nietzsche, is the problem of the Divine. “ According to the ideas of Lucretius, the marvelous divine shapes first appeared to the mind of man in a dream” ( Tragedy, 1). As such, Nietzsche immediately recognizes the importance of art in life: art serves to be an interpretation of those dreams, which in turn are interpretations of the Divine existence. It is through art that we can access the divine figures. Nietzsche goes even so far to say that the empirical “reality” of the physical world is but an illusion of our dreams. ( He is seeking to compliment his own philosophical abilities here--- he uses Schopenhauer to do this: “ Schopenhauer specifically designates as the trademark of philosophical talent the ability to recognize at certain times that human beings and all things are mere phantoms or dream pictures.” )

It would seem to a normal man that the terms dreams and intoxication would be synonymous; however, as Nietzsche notes, these are quite different terms. The Apollonian man, though he is very invested in those dreams he has, has the ability to recognize that these dreams are mere illusions, and thus uses them as a means to access the divine. The Dionysian man, however, with the dissolution of boundaries, is not able to discriminate between dreams and reality, or, furthermore, dreams and the divine. In his reveling drunkenness he takes his dreams to be reality. Nietzsche sums this dichotomy of the Apollonian and Dionysian artist in this way:

Up to this point, we have considered the Apollonian and its opposite, the Dionysian, as artistic forces which break out of nature itself… on the one hand as a world of dream images, whose perfection has no connection with an individual’s high level of intellect or artistic education, on the other hand, as the intoxicating reality, which once again does not respect the individual, but even seeks to abolish the individual and to restore him, through a mystic feeling of collective unity. In comparison to these unmediated artistic states of nature, every artist is an “Imitator”, and, in fact, an artist either of Apollonian dream or Dionysian intoxication, or finally, as in Greek tragedy, for example, simultaneously an artist of intoxication and dreams. ( Tragedy, 2)

This third artist Nietzsche refers to as the dual artist. And thus, as one could interpret this passage, the highest form of art, in which the Apollonian and the Dionysian work in harmony, is exhibited in Greek tragedy, hence Nietzsche’s essay The Birth of Tragedy.

The beauty of the dual artist is his ability to see beyond himself and into a higher reality--- the Divine. Neither the strict Apollonian nor the strict Dionysian artist can do this to the extent of the dual artist; the Apollonian, tied to the principia individuationis, cannot see beyond his own ego, and the Dionysian, who cannot separate between dreams and reality, cannot recognize the higher reality when it actually there to be seen. In the workings of the dual artist, we see both the Apollonian and the Dionysian impulses working together. For example, Nietzsche outlines the process through which the Dionysian lyrical artist creates his art. He first experiences music as a reflection of his Primordial Oneness--- the Father of all Things. This music then becomes a reflection in the mind of the artist; however, this refection lacks in imagery and concepts. This metaphorical dream image, gives rise to another dream ( now experienced during the artist’s dream state) which in turn is a reflection of the same Primordial Oneness that gave birth to the entire process ( Tragedy, 5). In this process the cyclical nature of art and appearance comes to the forefront--- everything, it is discovered, is an appearance of something else, but ultimately, an appearance of the Divine.

It is, however, the Dionysian tragic artist which Nietzsche examines most closely. In Greek tragedy he examines the role of the chorus of the half-men, half-goats known as the satyrs. These satyrs, according to Nietzsche’s reflections of Schiller, “moved on ideal ground, a ground raised high above the common path of mortals” ( Tragedy, 7). It is through the chorus of satyrs in which seeing beyond oneself is possible; as a group, individuality is surrendered, and the chorus becomes one--- the ideal spectator for tragedy. As such, the satyr is able to see beyond his own self and into the Divine reality. We see that this ability to go beyond oneself is instrumental is accessing the Divine. “ Why does Homer give us descriptions so much more vivid than all the poets? Because he sees so much more around him… if someone just possesses the capacity to see a living game going on and to live all the time surrounded by hordes of ghosts, then that man is a poet” ( Tragedy, 5).

Eventually, Nietzsche notes, the beautiful middle- world of art, represented most vividly the Greek tragedy, declined and died. The myths, youthful symbols of Dionysian wisdom, died out as a result of the “Men of Science” born out of the critical nature of Socratic culture. The very aim of the Socratic culture is the destruction of myth ( Tragedy, 23). Nietzsche notes:

For it is the lot of every myth gradually to creep into the crevice of an assumed historical reality and to become analyzed as a unique fact in answer to the historical demands of some later time or other. The Greek were already fully on their way to labeling cleverly and arbitrarily the completely mythical dreams of their youth as historical, pragmatic, and youthful history. For this is the way religions tend to die out, namely, when the mythical pre-conditions of a religion, under the strong, rational eyes of an orthodox dogmatism become classified as a closed totality of historical events and people begin anxiously to defend the credibility of their myths, but to resist the naturally continuing life and growth of those myths, and when the feeling for the myth dies out and in its place the claim to put religion on a historical footing steps onto the scene. ( Tragedy, 10)

Myth died because the dynamic nature of the Divine was ignored. Instead of experiencing the Divine through the appearances of their dreams, people were told to base the Divine in the historical events which preceded them. Because of this “orthodox dogmatism”, the Divine became of a static rather than a dynamic nature, and as such, people started to lose touch with the Divine. More and more, man started to base reality in his empirical existence rather than in the Divine. It is this man that Nietzsche refers to as the subjective non-artist.

The subjective non-artist is the prevalent creature in modern culture, according to Nietzsche. Subjective, because he bases the reality of his existence according to the whims of his own egoistic desires; non-artist, because he does not choose to dwell in the middle world of art but rather in the bottom world of empirical existence. He has become the interpreter of his own dreams, not seeing them as appearances of the Divine but rather as appearances of his own physical reality. As an artist, he thinks he is the source of his own art ( as Nietzsche quotes Schopenhauer, section 5). The culture of the non-artist is a culture of secularization, and Nietzsche finds that fact very disturbing.

Then how are we to desecularize our secular world? How is the subjective non-artist supposed to be transformed into the dual artist of Apollonian and Dionysian nature? First and foremost, the myths that were symbolic of Dionysian wisdom must come to the forefront of culture. For without myth, Nietzsche hypothesizes:

Every culture loses the healthy natural power of its creativity: only a horizon defined by myths completes and unifies a whole cultural movement. Myth alone saves all the powers of the imagination and of the Apollonian dream from their aimless wanderings. The images of the myth have to be the unnoticed omnipresent demonic guardians, under whose care the young soul grows to maturity and whose signs help the man to interpret his life and struggles. Even the state knows no more powerful unwritten laws than the mythical foundation that guarantees its connection with religion and its growth from mythical notions.

(Tragedy, 23).

It is through myth that the non-artist of modernity can travel back to the mystical foundations of his culture; it is through myth that we can harness the “aimless wanderers” of Apollonian dreaming and instead steer them towards the experience of the Divine. It is through myth that man sees the objective against which to base his existence; he must see himself not in the context of himself, but rather in the glorious light of the Divine. Judging from Nietzsche’s solution to the problem of modern man, one may surmise that the “Men of Science”, those who believe they are moving forward to the beacon of light known as Truth, are in reality moving further and further away from it. Religion, rather than being the nonsense of naiveté, should serve to be the foundation on which culture is built and continues to grow. As Nietzsche corrected Schopenhauer’s hypothesis in Section 5, the artist must recognize a higher reality. He must recognize that his dreams do not derive their existence from himself but rather they derive their existence from the Divine. Rather than being a source of art, the artist is merely the medium projecting the images of the Divine; likewise, the entire scope of humanity is merely a projector of Divine wisdom. The gods Apollo and Dionysus find their strength in these myths--- only in the blossoming of myths can these great gods of art also blossom. It is through the rebirth, or renaissance, of these two gods in which our newly secularized world can become desecularized. That, Nietzsche asserts, will solve the problem of modern man.

But then again, one could have spared the poor Nietzsche over 40,000 words and seemingly multitudes of hours, days, and years by simply stating the very simple and seemingly obvious thesis of the Birth of Tragedy: The growth of science and reason is killing man’s creativity and sense of a mythical existence; the strength of culture lay in the mythical traditions that gave birth to it. Nietzsche was in this way an essential traditionalist. But he was neither the first man nor the last to defend the merits of religion and mysticism. As Nietzsche’s German predecessor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg once mused: “ He possessed a great deal of philosophy, or of common sense that looked like it.” Friedrich Nietzsche was a man of much common sense.