Thank you for these videos. You really don’t understand how much they mean to me. There are days when I don’t want to continue on but your videos with your profound insight gives me motivation to push on and make something out myself, with hoping to be a master academic as you are and help others like you helped me. Very much appreciated.
Nietzsche disavowing the book in the preface of my copy is the reason why I didn't even bother reading the rest of the book. It also doesn't help that philosophical texts are a fucking headache to read through but this video is rich
Excellent video, thank you. I struggled growing up with a sense of duality and conflict in my being, especially against the backdrop of hardcore atheism personally. Discovering the Numinous and then reading The Birth of Tragedy really gave me insight into myself. I was able to settle the inner confusion of the Apollonian and Dionysian, both with-in and with-out. Jung and Gnosticism have added layers since. I find it difficult to express the sacrality of the Dionysian / Maya. This video will certainly be helpful!
George Name Have you ever read Hesse? Demian especially, but also Steppenwolf seem very relevant to your comment, both follow a narrative about the integrative reconciliation of duality, very much influenced by Nietzsche, Jung (and Gnosticism in the Jungian vein), Goethe, et al.
I've watched a few videos on BoT now, and I can say no one explains things more clearly, with as much detail, as you. Great videos, man. I'll be watching all your stuff over the next few weeks.
Fantastic video. I read the Birth of Tragedy a few years ago and think about it often. I have a request and a couple of questions. First, could you please write the name of the author from which Nietzsche got the concepts of Dionysian and Apollonian? My German is nonexistent, and I couldn’t get the name when you pronounced it. Second, your assertion that classical music is Apollonian while rock music is Dionysian left me thinking... If string instruments are Apollonian, aren’t they more present in rock than in, say, Tchaikovsky’s music? I mean, if I think of an Eagles song and then I think of Tchaikovsky’s 1812, the latter sounds more Dionysian. Or better yet, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, especially in the Witches Sabbath section, sounds ominously Dionysian. Aren’t wind instruments the Dionysian instruments par excellence? They are almost completely absent from rock music, though. I know rock’s guitars are electric, in that case, would you say that electricity is Dionysian? I also understand that Apollonian music is more about melody and Dionysian music more about rhythm and harmony, but then again, I think of the melody in a Beatles song and the repetitive pounding in some of Beethoven’s movements and the line seems to blur. That question, or set of questions, went on for too long. I’ll save the other questions for later videos in this series. Thank you.
First of all good Video and historical background on "The Birth Of Tragedy". Although, one of the reasons why Nietzsche basically jettisoned "The Birth Of Tragedy" is because he understood that book is the epitome of what you would get after being a follower of Schopenhauer and Wagner. The Translator of the Penguin Classics second edition of "The Birth Of Tragedy" says it best, "Nietzsche rages at himself for having been the idolator of Schopenhauer and Wagner, with the implication that if one takes those two on board spontaneously what one is bound to end up doing is to multiply them by another, the result being BT." (XXV, The Birth Of Tragedy). Not only this but Nietzsche basically also felt shameful for these 'dogmas' that one would get from idolizing them, and seems to be in a state of mind similar to a teacher or professor who look at a lecture they wrote a few years back thinking "how could anyone ever write such nonsense?" So when you say that it was a mistake for Nietzsche to disavow his book, it seems that you find this to be his best work simply for the reason that it is the work of Nietzschein which understands the most. I am curious to know if you have read any of his other works?
