The Apollonian and Dionysian Struggle Within the Human Personality

The Apollonian and Dionysian Struggle Within the Human Personality

The Apollonian and Dionysian Struggle Within the Human Personality

PART FIVE

Norman W Wilson, PhD

In this section, the discussion will focus on the contrast offered by an Apollonian perception of inner images reflective of control. Any comparison with dreaming clearly suggests the character of the Apollonian state as one of introspection, contemplation tuned into the dream world of eternal ideas indicating an introverted character.

The implication here is quite clear. The Apollonian mode is an inner perception, an intuition of the world of ideas. Jung criticizes Nietzsche because of the implied parallel with dreaming state as merely perceptive on one hand and on the other, as merely eidetic. Jung believes a man whose attitude is predominately reflective, that is Apollonian, produces thinking, and ideas. Hmm. Aren't ideas just as much feelings as thoughts; for example, freedom, love, God?

Jung points out an interesting if not a somewhat different view in which the rational and logical elaboration is not valid. It brings us back to what he calls aesthetics. What is involved here is the intuitive-sensation type personality. A person of this personality type, according to Jung, does not differentiate the perception and contemplation of inner images into thought nor does this person differentiate the affective experience of instinct and sensation into feeling. He adapts by means of unconscious directives. His creativity may very well be limited.

What is interesting at this point is that Nietzsche believes an over-emphasis on the Apollonian to the neglect of the Dionysian forces, would destroy the possibility of creativity, and end up producing imitation and downright complacency. This is so closely aligned with the Jungian concept of the aesthetic-type personality that it's uncanny.

Rollo May in his The Courage to Create doesn't deny the Apollonian and Dionysian forces contending in the creative processes. May agrees that the Dionysian aspectthe upsurge of vitality, the abandoncan be studied psychoanalytically. Furthermore, he acknowledges the fact that nearly every artist has tried at some time or other to create while under the influence. [I find this to be perhaps an exaggeration.] Under such delusional conditions, the artist believes he has created something wonderful when in actuality it is not. May believes the intensity, this upsurge, and vitality must be directly related to the encounter with the raw creative experience not with something induced.

May asserts the important and profound aspect of the Dionysian principle should be ecstasy brought about by a union of form and passion and with order and vitality. Ecstasy, as May uses it, is the technical term for the process in which this union occurs. It is the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act. The problem in Nietzsche and Jung is they, through sensing the need for reconciliation of the Apollonian and Dionysian have missed the natural bridge between the twothe creative act or process which involves the total personality. It is not irrationality, but supra-rationality. May believes the Apollonian and Dionysian are related; that they must be related. That relationship exists at the point of encounter.

In conclusion, both the Apollonian and Dionysian principles are involved in the creative personality. Questions arise about the creation if one or the other of the two principles is lacking.

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