Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth Of Tragedy

"If a temple is to be erected, a temple must be destroyed!"

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is one of humanity's most influential and amaranthine thinkers. He was a German philosopher, political critic, philologist, writer, and poet. Some of his most famous works include Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1891), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), The Gay Science (1882), The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Twilight of the Idols (1889), The Will to Power (1901), etc. His impact isn't just on recently found scholarly insight, but additionally on the way numerous contemporary Western philosophers approach "life". The struggle for love, the journey for self-actualization and enormity, the cry for following your passion and making your life a masterpiece — these are all

Essentially, he talks about two contradictory outlooks manifested by the ancient Greeks: the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Together, they birthed one of the world's first, most famous art form—the Athenian tragedy. Apollo, the Sun god, is considered to bear rational clarity who lights up the world with knowledge. For Nietzsche, individuals who see things from an Apollonian point of view see the world as methodical, levelheaded, and limited by definite borders. They see humanity as rather discrete and separate people not as a nebulous whole. On the contrary, Dionysus, the god of wine, carnival, and ritualistic madness, viewed the world as disorganized, enthusiastic, and free from limits. The Dionysian perspective looks at humanity as a unified, energetic, formless whole into which the self is ingested. For Nietzsche, the Dionysian point of view was the more invigorating and imperative way to deal with life; he argued that the Apollonian, more "rationalized" view of tragedy extinguished some of life's mystery and romanticism. This has heavily influenced my thought process; life is an unrelenting chaotic process, to find order and analytical answers seems irrational. He provides a solid indictment of modernity while castigating popular culture. I truly agree with him when he says that mediocrity is the basis of modern popular culture and that people are increasingly moving towards unimaginative, materialistic and salacious incentives. He saw Classic Greek as the perfect model of a salubrious and organic culture in a State that breeds innovative and robust individuals. Another criticism of modern politics, Nietzsche argues is that it led to the loss of individuality, herd mentality, conformity of imagination, mass manipulation and