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Dionysus Would Disapprove of the French Olympics Performance
Dionysus was a Greek god of alcohol, fertility and partying. According to the Greek mythos, he got humans drunk and made them have babies and then he made their fields fertile to feed the babies.
The ancient Greeks are a multifaceted and complicated people. One version of the Greek worship probably had Greeks making love in the fields to ensure a bountiful harvest. One version probably had wine-drinking games between married couples with slightly lewd jokes. Like many popular gods, he had many different interpretations at many different times.
But while being a complicated god, Dionysus loved quality wine and quality… fertility ceremonies, let’s say. He would have looked at the French Olympic performance with pure disgust. Even if we presume that the worship of Dionysus was as lewd as some Romans wanted it to be, it would have at least been well done.
So my main objection is not a matter of decency or that the performance was found offensive to the (surprisingly conservative) French middle class. Only that Dionysus would find it offensive because his rituals and songs were not very well done. In the most extreme interpretations of Dionysus, his followers had all the sexual peccadilloes of modern artists but they were devoted to arete and beauty. Having morally flawed artists is nothing new as the ancient Greeks could attest. But having incompetent artists would be unforgivable to Dionysus.
Published in Culture
A very original take, at the very least! Thanks, Henry.
The best takes are done by Dr. Bastiat, the most artistic takes are done by James Lilleks, the most empathic are done by either Susan Quinn or our Unitarian park ranger.
I only have the most original takes and I intend to make the most of them.
“Heeersh to you, Henreesh!”
Dionysus looks awfully..serious..in that picture at the top of the post.
You have a fair point. Please post your own interpretations of Dionysus. As long as they are of quality and CoC compliant. Dionysus encourages free expression but free expression of quality.
They may have said he was Dionysus, but the French Olympic version seemed more like Bacchus, at least filtered through a Disney Fantasia perspective. The Roman Bacchus was naughtier and looser. Dionysus might have scoffed at the French tableau because you can’t have any issue from the matings; when the drag queens are having at it, lack of issue is baked into the cake that they wish to force others to bake. Bacchus, in his late Roman cults, was more about the moment – getting together for a party and knocking boots regardless of class status.
It’s a bafflingly complex and messy religion, but I think for ordinary folk the mention of these particular gods boiled down to getting hammered.
You’re on to something that has been bugging me. The popular culture has been trying to recast beauty vs. ugliness into good vs. evil, and they are on the side of ugliness.
“Edgy,” “challenging” and “postmodern” are synonyms for “ugly.”
I subscribe to Thomas Jefferson’s comment that if something doesn’t break my arm or pick my pocket, it’s none of my business. But that doesn’t prevent me from calling something ugly if I think it is. That doesn’t make me a bigot. My opinion is my right, and is just as valid as anyone else’s. Refusing to pay for ugliness is also my right.
A real artist communicates, whether it is with words or images. A phony artist creates something unintelligible and sneers at the rest of us for being unable to understand it.
I would love to refer readers to Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, when Sam the Buddha preaches a sermon to monks who have been taught that there is no good or evil, so there is nothing worth fighting for. His thesis is that the Creator creates form, and is therefore an artist. The highest achievement of art is beauty, so there is moral justification in struggling for the symmetrical dreaming of the dream in which we live. It is a cynical effort, of course, in the plot of the book; but that doesn’t make it untrue.
I must admit that there is something attractive about a religion that encourages you to get swacked. Call it the Bible Belt.
Most religions encourage believers to aspire to things that are higher than humanity. Bacchus is there to remind the Greeks that humanity means you are human, and denying the reckless and stupid parts of humanity doesn’t work.
I do think that the Greeks believed in beauty for its own sake, having value of its own.
The Romans, to my mind, never really understood the Greeks outside their own bias. The Romans were biased towards reason and I think the Greeks had more of a balance. They were seen by the Romans as too emotional. I imagine the Greeks found the Romans stodgy.
Reason and emotion both have a place.
When we look at late Roman cults, well, the whole of their civilization was in decline.
In the early days of being on Usenet, circa 1994, I saw an unattributed quote, “Just because you are misunderstood, doesn’t mean you’re an artist.”