'Why Culture as Mythos Matters', Valley Humanities Review Spring 2014, 1

Valley Humanities Review Spring 2014 1

Why Culture as Mythos Matters

BY ADAM YOUNG

Introduction

In The Birth of Tragedy,1 Friedrich Nietzsche argues for a theory of culture based on an

existentialist view that life is fundamentally horrible and absurd. We can transcend this

fundamental and still engage in meaningful existence, but only through a balanced appeal

to the core tendencies of humanity. For Nietzsche, this appeal is the most central task of

culture. Is he right, however, to attribute culture with such significance and to say that

without it there is only horror and absurdity? When a balanced appeal to core tendencies is

made, culture can indeed be attributed with such significance. In the absence of this

significant culture, horror and absurdity then ensue, leaving only precarious human

existence. This can be evidenced through Nietzsche’s  work, as well as explaining how the

texts under discussion all relate to one another. In analyzing “Ekalavya, The Nishada,” a

short story from the classical Indian epic, Mahabharata, the positive existential implications

that follow from the presence of significant culture can be exposed. In exploring Joseph

Conrad’s  novella,  “Heart of Darkness,” and Peter Paul Rubens’  mythological  painting,  

“Drunken Silenus,” it can be validated that where significance is lacking, serious negative

implications for existence follow. For readers unfamiliar with the literary works, narrative

summaries will be provided before literary analyses.

1 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun Whiteside (London: Penguin Publishing, 2003), 40.

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Nietzsche’s  Theory, Major Terms, and the Texts

Nietzsche applies his contention to the mythos view of culture, that is, where cultures

are based on retellings of archetypal narratives. This gives people a sense that their lives are

meaningful, as it helps them through times of tragedy that affect the human condition.2 For

Nietzsche, the roots of Western culture fix themselves firmly in the mythos of Ancient

Greece, from which he delineates the core tendencies. The first is the Dionysian, derived

from the god Dionysus, which Nietzsche primarily associates with intoxication and excess.3

Here, he crucially draws a further link to passion––the glowing, thundering force essential

for propelling human life.4 The second tendency is the Apollonian, derived from the god

Apollo, which Nietzsche correlates to beautiful dreams.5 He states that in dreams, “the

wondrous  forms  of  the  deities  first  appeared  before  the  souls  of  men…” He claims dreaming

is  a  “joyful  necessity,” and through it “life  is  made  both  possible  and  worth  living.”6 Still,

neither tendency should dominate. Nietzsche implies that from Apollonian immersion

comes a disconnection from passion, while Dionysian indulgence––particularly of

intoxication and excess––destroys the beautiful dream, leaving only life’s horror and

absurdity. Thus, the tendencies are not parts of a mere dichotomy. Each complements the

other  “Just  as  the  reproduction  of  species  depends  on  the duality of the sexes.”7 For

Nietzsche, if we are to transcend horror and absurdity, we must embrace the balance of

tendencies that can be found within retellings of archetypal stories.

2 John  Carroll,  “John  Carroll:  Nihilism,  Existence  and  the  Future  of  Western  Civilization.”  YouTube video, 17:04. May 9, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQTvYUtakuM 3 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 14; 26. 4 Ibid., 17. 5 Ibid., 14-15. 6 Ibid., 14; 16. 7 Ibid., 14.

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With Nietzsche stressing Dionysian passions and Apollonian dreaming, in what can

we invest our passions? What deity-like forms can we dream of? Ideal figures are the

answer. Stories about the lives of such figures, as per the mythos view of culture, present the

characteristics of these ideals. These ideals function to inspire secular or religious faith, as

well as aspiration toward meaningful existence.8 Thus, it is  culture’s  appeal  to  a balance of

these tendencies, manifesting in the form of certain ideals whereby horror and absurdity are

negated, that serves as the meaning of significant culture.

Regarding the chosen texts, a challenge arises in testing theories outside of works

initially considered. For Nietzsche, these were as diverse as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Raphael’s  

Transfiguration, and other tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. In considering

stories diverse in form, period, content, and origin––even outside of Western tradition––one

can go  beyond  Nietzsche’s considered works to determine in what other capacities his

theory may apply.

“Ekalavya, The Nishada”

Summary

This short story focuses on a young Nishada prince, the title character, who aims to

become a disciple of Drona, a revered teacher of martial skills, namely archery. Ekalavya is

rejected, but nonetheless masters archery on his own, as inspired by an image of Drona.

Soon  after,  Drona’s  disciples  find Ekalavya in the forest and bear witness to his virtuoso

archery skills. Ekalavya is then brought before Drona, where he explains to the teacher how

he came to be so adept. Arjuna,  Drona’s favourite pupil,  becomes  jealous  of  Ekalavya’s  

8 John Carroll, The Existential Jesus (Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2007), 14.

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ability, and prompts Drona to ask Ekalavya to sever his own right thumb. Despite knowing

he will never practice archery again, Ekalavya submits and then salutes the teacher.

Analysis

In this story, we can locate two illustrations of significant culture from which

positive existential implications follow. The first figure of significance is Drona, who carries

the priestly  status  of  a  “great  Brahmin.”9 Drona’s  status  and  ability  as  a  teacher  rouse  

considerable Dionysian passion within Ekalavya. This becomes evident through the

“magnetism  of  desire” that grips the young prince; “All  one'ʹs  conscious  and  unconscious  

thoughts are drawn  towards  this…  desire,  and  all  one’s  actions  become  only  echoes of this

voice of desire.”10 Following Drona rejecting him, we are told that Ekalavya  “made  a  figure  

of  Drona… He called this image his guru. Daily  he  would  worship  this  image…”11 We can

think of this image as the deity-like form of an Apollonian dream. Ekalavya is so thoroughly

engaged with this image of Drona, that he forms a strong faith in his guru, resulting in him

becoming adept at archery. However, archery appears merely to be the means by which

Ekalavya can worship––it is not this skill itself that directly bestows meaning upon his life.

This we know from Ekalavya’s willingness to sever his thumb. Ekalavya then falls at the feet

of Drona and salutes him.12 This implies that the act of loving Drona has driven Ekalavya’s  

life toward having meaning. This is all Ekalavya seems to need, since he practiced archery

alone in the forest, without the expectation that he would meet Drona again. In other words,

Drona himself need not be present to assist Ekalavya with meaningful existence. With the

9 Kamala Subramaniam, trans., Mahabharata (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1965), 42. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 44.

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act of love to invest his passion and form his dream, Ekalavya experiences complete balance

of the Dionysian and Apollonian tendencies, yet no crisis of meaning. As such, horror and

absurdity become negated.

The second figure of significance is Ekalavya himself, as he possesses a number of

distinct, admirable characteristics though it is his balance of the tendencies to which these

characteristics conform that make Ekalavya significant. His Dionysian passion manifests in

an existence driven by love, which drives his refinement of his archery skills. His Apollonian

aspect then manifests in the form of beautiful artistry, as he creates immaculate grandeur

with his bow.13 With neither tendency indulged, thus providing modest boundaries,

Ekalavya’s further characteristics–– discipline, focus, selflessness, and humility––are

revealed. Combined, these characteristics form the teaching of ideal “Being,” an ideal of how

to live, a teaching that shines brighter than every other character in the story, including

Drona. While Drona is the revered teacher, Ekalavya serves as the archer who manages to

inspire the most admiration from those around him. For instance, Drona is “charmed”  by  

Ekalavya’s  story, which speaks to Ekalavya’s ideal characteristics. Additionally, Arjuna’s

jealously acknowledges an impressive truth that Ekalavya  has  become  “the  greatest  archer

in the world.”14 This label implies that among a group of aspiring archers, Ekalavya becomes

the only one who could possibly provide an ideal beyond Drona, for Ekalavya is not merely

great––he is the greatest, thus further inspiring faith and aspiration of significant culture.

13 Ibid., 43. 14 Ibid.

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Heart of Darkness

Summary

An English seaman named Marlow, one with quite a passion for exploring the

world, seeks an appointment as a ferryboat captain as an excuse for journeying Central

Africa’s  Congo  River. However, nightmarish realities of colonization and a surrounding

wilderness combined with the mystery of the Congo’s native people  plague  Marlow’s  

journey. At the  river’s end, he encounters an exceptional, yet troubled, figure named Kurtz

who offers no consolation, but adds great implications to the story.

Analysis

In this text, we are confronted with the converse of “Ekalavya”  from the previous

piece, where significant culture is lacking. First, we must consider the negative existential

implications of this lack for Marlow. Throughout the story, Marlow criticizes European

culture for its profound lack of significance. Brussels, a city that represents culture, reminds

Marlow of  a  “whited  sepulcher.”15 This can be related directly to the book of Matthew which

reads, “Whitewashed  tombs,  which  on  the  outside  look  beautiful,  but  inside  they  are  full  of  

the bones of the dead and all kinds  of  filth.”16 This extension of thought evokes a strong

sense of discontent and lifelessness, which is the means by which Marlow has come to view

European culture. We can interpret the lifelessness inside the tomb-like city metaphorically,

as there being nothing at its core, or no ideal in its culture rather, that can give Marlow’s  life

a sense of meaning. What follows is his rejection of this culture.

15 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (London: Penguin Publishing, 2011), 11. 16 Matt 23:27.

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We may interpret the ensuing journey as  Marlow’s  attempt  to  restore  meaning  

through significant culture. Part of this is revealed through his zest for exploration. He

states, recalling his childhood,  “I  would  look  for  hours  at  [maps  of] South America, or

Africa, or Australia and lose myself in all  the  glories  of  exploration,” and further, in

adulthood,  “I  always  went…  where I had a mind to go.”17 In Apollonian terms, Marlow

describes exploration in a dream-like sense  by  using  the  word  “glory” in his childhood

recollection. In Dionysian terms, exploration  is  Marlow’s  passion––spending hours looking

at maps, losing himself in the activity, and his ambition to go wherever he had a mind to go

suggests the thundering, glowing life force that is Dionysian passion. The balance of

tendencies seem to drive Marlow’s  life from one stage to the next, imbuing his life with

significance. At this point though, he is yet to lose this balance, which is spurred by the

progress of his journey. However, exploration does not take the form of an ideal figure;

providing this had been the task of European culture which Marlow now rejects.

Exploration, which holds great significance for him, becomes his imperative for pursuing

the further significance of an ideal figure.

Although Marlow encounters no such figure, his life is now at risk of declining into

horror and absurdity, which becomes evident through his account of his existence as the

journey progresses. At one point, he equates losing direction on the river to being in a

desert.18 From  this,  we  may  liken  Marlow’s  “Being” to one without guidance, one where he

is  uncertain  as  to  what  may  sustain  his  existence.  He  further  states,  “There  were  moments  

when  one'ʹs  past  came  back  to  one…  But  it  came  in  the  shape  of  an  unrestful  and  noisy  

dream, remembered with wonder among the overwhelming realities of this strange world of

17 Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 8-9. 18 Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 41.

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plants, and water, and silence. And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a

peace.”19 Here, Marlow expresses a sense of longing for the bustle of European culture,

despite its insignificance, when confronted with the disturbing reality of the Congo River.

As  such,  Marlow’s  journey  has  not  become  one  that  propels  his  existence  towards  meaning.  

Rather,  it  has  become  one  of  the  abolishment  of  his  “habitual barriers and boundaries [of]

existence,” which a balanced appeal to the tendencies would have provided.20

It now becomes crucial that  Marlow’s  previous  sense  of  “losing  oneself  in  the  glories  

of  exploration”  becomes  inverted, since exploration loses the form of a beautiful Apollonian

dream in which he can invest Dionysian passion.21 This is reinforced by his current attitude

towards exploring, claiming “I…  shall  not  try  now.  The  glamour’s  off.”22 Upriver, Marlow

cannot risk taking a chance for escape in the dark wilderness. He then has little choice but to

continue with his appointment, doing so with the knowledge that the only thing in his life

that appealed to the balance of tendencies is souring.

This leads into negative existential implications for Kurtz, the troubled character

from the end of the river. In the initial account, Kurtz is deemed to  be  “remarkable,” with

many admirable qualities, including his talent as an artist and musician, his influence as an

engaging speaker, and a man of great action and intellect. These are all allusions to Kurtz

displaying aspects of an ideal.23 Greatly contributing to this ideal is Kurtz’s  towering  

ambition––to virtually establish himself upriver as a sacred figure amongst the native

people. Initially, Kurtz succeeds. However, through Marlow's first-hand contact we find

most  of  Kurtz’s  ideal aspects squandered: “The  shade  of  the  original  Kurtz  frequented  the  

19 Ibid. 20 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 39. 21 Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 8. 22 Ibid., 9. 23 Ibid., 22; 90.

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bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mold of

primeval earth.”24 We can couple this  and  Kurtz’s  dying  words––“The  horror!  The

horror!”25––along with Nietzsche’s core reference to life’s  fundamental  nature, “Aware  of  

the truth from a single glimpse of it, all man can now see is the horror and absurdity of

existence…  ”26 Kurtz’s last words suggest he had glimpsed this truth, which suggests him to

be a figure whose balance of the Apollonian and Dionysian had been completely obliterated.

While the natives seemed to be receptive to Kurtz, in the eyes of Marlow he was a failed

ideal. Where Marlow is able to escape, however tenuously, the horror and absurdity upriver

in his steamboat, Kurtz seems to have dwelled too long without significant culture. As such,

what ultimately eludes Kurtz is the possibility of continuing with life.

“Drunken Silenus”

Analysis

Like  Conrad’s  text,  Rubens’ work suggests negative existential implications for

certain characters. The focus here is on three in particular: Silenus himself, the on-looking

child, and the nude woman.27 However, before considering any implications, one must first

examine Silenus as an embodiment of culture teetering towards horror and absurdity. From

this, the negative implications will follow. We can understand him as this embodiment from

24 Ibid., 85. 25 Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 86. 26 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 40. 27 Silenus is depicted as the naked, overweight, bearded figure. He is positioned centrally within the work. The on-looking child is positioned to the right-hand side with his hand  on  the  goat’s  head.  The  nude  woman  occupies  the bottom left-hand corner.

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the following observations: Silenus is an educator  and  “father  of  the  satyrs.”28 He is then,

essentially, a leading figure to learn from; this much Silenus shares with an ideal of

significant culture. Yet it is the knowledge he imparts that has him teetering away from

significance. Nietzsche describes  him,  outside  of  the  Rubens’  depiction,  as  the bearer of

“terrible  wisdom.”29 This he recites to  King  Midas:  “Miserable,  ephemeral  race…  The  best  of  

all  things  is…  not  to  be  born,  not  to  be, to be nothing. But the second-best  thing…  is  to  die  

soon.”30 This view hardly presents an ideal in  which  to  invest  one’s  Dionysian passion for

life, or in which to form an Apollonian dream. As such, the view not only makes no

balanced appeal to the tendencies, but it makes no appeal at all. In the absence of significant

culture where there are no ideal figures, and thus no restraint afforded by the balance of

tendencies, Silenus can indulge two purely Dionysian aspects––intoxication and excess.

Silenus being intoxicated,  as  per  the  work’s  title, furthers him as an embodiment of

culture moving towards horror and absurdity. This can be understood given the etymology

of intoxication, which essentially means  “into  poison.”31 Yet, this meaning not only partners

with the death association of Silenus’ terrible wisdom, it also gestures towards the two

planes of existence: the vertical plane, symbolizing life, and the horizontal plane,

symbolizing death.32 In  Rubens’  work,  the  latter  dominates. Regarding excess, its indulgence

manifests as the eradication of a moral boundary, whereby pedophilia becomes permitted. It

28 Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World,  3rd  ed.,  s.v.  “sātyrs and sīlens”.  Satyrs  are  the  half  man/half  goat  creatures  within  Rubens’  work.  One  is  depicted  just  left  of  Silenus’  head,  while  others  are  depicted  as  babies  on  the  bottom  left,  suckling  the  nude  woman’s  breasts.     29 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 25. 30 Ibid., 22. 31 New Oxford American Dictionary,  version  2.2.3,  s.v.  “intoxicate”.  The  word  begins  with  the  prefix  ‘in–’,  meaning  ‘into’,  which  is  followed  by  the  Latin  ‘toxicum’,  meaning  ‘poison.’ 32 John Carroll, The Western Dreaming: the Western World is Dying for Want of a Story (New South Wales: Harper Collins, 2001).

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is from these points of excess and intoxication that we can now think of the negative

existential implications for each of the three figures.

Excess is largely present in the nude woman’s  behavior, as she plays openly with the

genitals of a baby satyr beneath her.33 Her bent-over position situates her horizontally, and

the baby satyrs are her only support. In other words, the only thing supporting her existence

is the eradication of a moral boundary. Yet, it is boundaries such as those that are moral that

help to sustain existence.34 The  implication  here  is  that  this  woman’s  existence  is  precarious.  

Silenus, too, gestures towards the horizontal. His gaze is focused downwards, his body tilts

away from the vertical, his stumbling forwards suggests he could fall, and the position of

the toes on his right foot––tucked underneath––could suggest instability in maintaining the

vertical, emphasised by his immense body weight. Coupled with these hints at the

horizontal, his vacant expression may echo his terrible wisdom, for if the best thing is not to

be, and the next best is to die soon, then it would seem of little importance for Silenus to

concern himself with maintaining the vertical.35 The on-looking child directs his gaze

towards Silenus, and his expression is not one displaying rejection or disgust, but rather

curiosity and comfort in what he is seeing: the implication being that the child accepts the

teachings of Silenus. If this child is to take Silenus as his educator, his existence is certainly

in danger of teetering towards the horizontal, for an appeal to balancing the Apollonian and

Dionysian is seriously deficient.

33 Accentuating this is a gaze of curiosity and, perhaps, the smirk of keen interest from the old woman positioned just above the on-looking child. Her stare suggests approval. 34 Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 39. 35 Ibid., 22.

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Conclusion

As I have argued, it  is  by  culture’s  appeal  to a balance of the Apollonian and

Dionysian tendencies, which manifest in the form of ideal figures from mythos––significant

culture––whereby the fundamental horror and absurdity of existence is negated. Positive

existential implications followed from significance in the case of “Ekalavya, The Nishada.”

Ekalavya finds an ideal figure in Drona, while also presenting himself as a figure of

significance. Conversely, negative existential implications followed when significance was

lacking. In Heart of Darkness, European culture was deficient for Marlow, but his journey to

restore significance was an ultimate failure. His struggle to negate horror and absurdity then

ensued. Further, Kurtz struggled to establish significance but lost his life. In “Drunken

Silenus,” while the on-looking child understood the corrosive excess that Silenus displayed

and  permitted,  significance  was  deficient,  which  led  us  to  think  of  the  child’s  existence  as  

tenuous. The same rang true for the nude woman. It can ultimately be concluded that within

the culture-as-mythos view, it is inherent that we seek and grasp the significant culture that

transcends  Nietzsche’s  fundamental  reality. When this significance is lost, however, we then

see the extent to which culture can matter.