[MD] The Birth of Tragedy/CH2 and the MOQ

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Mark]
One of my interests is drawing in the masses, as I try to do in 
conversations outside of this forum.

[Arlo]
What I like about Nietzsche (among other things) is that he not only 
breaks from the tradition of defining 'art' as 'that painting on the 
wall over there', but suggests the undefined, pre-intellectual, 
immediate aesthetic is the point where 'creativity' bursts into the 
world of form. In many ways, his contact between Apollonian and 
Dionysian parallels Poincare's (and Einsteins, and Pirsig's, and 
Peirce's) inquiry into the source of hypotheses.

[Mark]
As I see it in my simple way, A/D is said by Nietzsche, as an expression 
of "energy" as described by the analogy of world view. What does N say 
about their interconversion? DQ and sq are often depicted as distinct 
concepts with DQ promoting sq.

[Arlo]
I am hesitant to use 'distinct' in many of its conventional 
understandings. While we can think and talk about 'Apollonian' and 
'Dionysian', I think its clear in Nietzsche that he's talking about a 
very dialectical relationship, a Yin-Yang, where the two are 
inextricably interactive or inter-dependent. Someone said to me once its 
like watching a tennis match but keeping your eye on the ball, yes, 
there are opposing players, but the game's progression is revealed as 
the ball moves between them. Its a two-dimensional analogy, to be sure, 
but it works on a simple level.

One of the concerns I've had with Pirsig's MOQ has been the idea that DQ 
is (analogous to) a 'force', but 'sq' is more like a 'dead thing' left 
in its wake. In Nietzsche's formulation, both the Apollonian 'tendency 
towards form' and the Dionysian 'tendency towards dissolution' are 
'forces' (in the analogous sense). It is a more direct Yin-Yang system, 
if you will, and I think overall it works better than a force/dead-thing 
analogy. I'm going to use the word 'value' slightly more constricted 
than Pirsig, but in many ways Nietzsche maps Pirsig's MOQ by thinking of 
Apollonian as tendency towards "value" (sq) and Dionysian as tendency 
towards "freedom" (DQ).

In stating 'DQ promotes sq', I think what's missed is that 'sq re-paths 
DQ'. What I mean is that sq isn't passively left behind, but these 
patterns of value alter the course/direction of DQ by virtue of being 
agenic. So you have this emergence of form that then alters the 
trajectory of what forms appear in the future. In a long analogy, 
consider that the iPod (as it is) is only possible subsequent to a 
species having an opposing thumb. Our inventions, in other words, are 
shaped by our restrictions, and these include the gamut of 
inorganic/biological/social and intellectual composition.

Simply, the arrow points both ways. And this is why there is a 'tension' 
between the two, there is a 'pull' from each side, but within each side 
there is also the ability to move towards the other. The unformed must 
not only resist form, but it must include the ability to be formed; and 
the formed must not only resist being dissolved, but it must include the 
ability to allow itself to be dissolved.

And, according to Nietzsche (and I think Pirsig), when these two 
oppositional forces are in balance, is the point where 'art' as revealed 
through human activity has its greatest emergence.