Performative Slurs: The Cruel Binding Power Of Language

A priest that pronounces a couple “husband and wife” can be said to be involved in two activities: the simple uttering of words, and actually binding two people into marriage. If the best man were to shove the priest aside and utter the same words, he is considered to be involved only with the simple uttering of words, but not the marrying of the bride and groom. What is it that gives the priest's words binding power? There are various instances of social convention in which words have binding power, and as Judith Butler notes,¹ certain utterances bind a person to shame. I will present an analysis of Butler's view, and I'll attempt to show that while she offers a good theory of how certain utterances by authoritative figures acquire binding power, there is little explanation as to how non-authoritative citizens seem to execute the same kind of binding power as it pertains to slurs and derogatory remarks. Examining Butler's position will help to establish the authoritative aspect of performative utterances, and I will turn to Nietzsche to provide a hypothesis of how non-authoritative citizens also exhibit binding power.

Performative Speech Acts

Austin defines performatives as those utterances that when stated one is not describing what one is doing, nor is one simply stating what one is doing, rather, one is performing said action; it is to do it.² When a priest states “I pronounce you...”, the utterance is neither a description, nor is it stating what it is the priest is doing, but the given phrase is to bind a couple in marriage. The success of a performative act depends on whether the act proceeds under certain circumstances: there must exist an accepted conventional procedure (certain persons uttering certain words in a certain context), the given procedure is executed correctly and completely, and the appropriate thoughts and feelings must accompany the act as well as the appropriate subsequent behavior.

Citation Of the Law

Butler is not adhering to all of the circumstances of performativity as she does not seem to express concern of whether the appropriate thoughts and feelings accompany a performative act for it to be successful. On the contrary, she seeks to dispense with the notion that a subject is what construes the power of performativity. This is not to say that thoughts and feelings aren't involved, but that a performative does not achieve success through a self-contemplative process in which a judge, for example, considers the situation, and by an instance of will, pronounces someone to be guilty or innocent: it is not a subject that establishes that a judge's words confer a sentence onto a guilty party. Austin's first condition states that there must exist an accepted conventional procedure for a performative to work, and in the case of a judge's sentence, Butler thinks that what the judge utters has binding power only if the judge cites the law. In addition to this, it must be the case that prior to the current trial, there must be a conventional legacy by which current “activity” emerges in the context of a chain of binding conventions: a trial cannot proceed in its contemporary fashion unless trials have successfully proceeded as such in the past, and the current trial mimics, or reiterates former trials.

We'll return to the idea of dispensing with the subject later. Sticking with citation, particular statements a judge utters acquire a binding force from previous discourse in the practices of law where other such successful performative acts were performed. Citing serves as an invocation of convention—a discursive practice that appeals to prior authoritative sets of practices, to a conventional legacy. If not for these prior, particular, law oriented linguistic activities concerning matters of authority and lawful citizenship, then a judge would be in no position for his utterances to have any binding power over the affairs of people in court.

Given that certain performatives have been repeated by certain persons on numerous occasions in the past, they have accumulated a force of authority and normativity over time. Whether it be the verdict of a judge, or the vows in marriage, either, as a performative act, gets its force due to an appeal to prior exercises that have been repeated on numerous occasions. Seeing as the best man in a wedding has not been the one to utter vows in the past, his butting in seems uncanny, and no one takes him seriously. Another of Austin's conditions of success is that the appropriate subsequent behavior compliments the performative. It is the string of successful performatives over time that constitutes conventional legacy; the best man has had no such success in the past, so he is condemned to being a bored spectator rather than the one doing the binding.

Femininity Is Not a Choice

Remaining with the wedding example, the best man cannot will it that his utterances having binding power because there is no historical force to support him, due to which his attempt will not be followed by the appropriate subsequent behavior. Instead, he will become the victim of ridicule for disrupting the ceremony. There are ways to fail in the face of conventional legacy, acts that are thought to disrupt, or not coincide with, the chain. In the case of the marriage ceremony, Butler thinks that the performative nature of the ceremony to bind two people together also establishes that the performatives involved succeed only if the players are of a particular sort. A priest cannot marry anyone, it must be the case that it be a bride and groom. Butler explains how this sense of performative success regarding marriage ceremonies also establishes taboo activity, acts that do not meet the conditions of performative success. In this instance it's the sex of the two persons to be wed. The performative nature of the marriage ceremony, then, establishes a heterosexualization of social bonds between people.

The conventional legacy of heterosexual marriage establishes a shaming taboo that “queers” all those who contradict the convention. “Queer”, then, serves as an insult, and similar to how a judge or priest cites prior authoritative practices in order for their utterances to have binding force, the insulting nature of “queer” gets its performative force by referencing historical operation: how it has been used to indicate contradiction to convention in the past. A part of the conventionality of the marriage ceremony is that it harmonizes two people in such a way that it produces jubilant feelings amongst attendees. Anyone who is seen as disruptive to such conventionality is outcast and ridiculed, and thus “queering” has developed as an instance of shame.

In a certain sense, one can infer that the past determines the future, and that all present conduct is the result of conventional legacy. There are those who oppose such an inference, and believe that one can create oneself in the moment, free from history and surpassing convention. Language, by this standard, appeals to a “will” or “choice”, and does not constitute a history of discourse. Sartre is a proponent of such a notion, and in his existentialism asserts that “existence precedes essence,” from which we are meant to understand that one creates who one is in each moment of one's life by means of choice.³ Sartre thought that if there is one truth to man it is that he is a conscience subject capable of overcoming history by conscientiously considering alternative actions. Butler believes this to be erroneous in that identity categories do not surpass historical discourse. There is no term, or statement, that can function performatively without a preceding historical force—no binding can occur without there being past instances for one to cite. In order to identify as some gender, that is, to be able to be bound to what one utters, there has to have been instances in the past where doing so bound others to respective identities.

Identity terms such as “I”, work in the same way, the successful use of which are predicated on a history of discourse. “I” is preceded by discourse—language has to have been designed in such a manner that allows for talk of subjectivity. It is in this sense that gender roles, such a femininity, are not a choice as Sartre conceives them to be. Instead, a history of discourse comes to form the subject. In the present day, “queer” has taken a more positive tone of performativity, one less confined to shame. However, Butler argues that one is mistaken in holding the idea that one identities as “queer” in an “out of the blue” fashion. It is because “queer” has existed as a mark of conventional contradiction that one is able to take it up at all—even in aiming to change the meaning of a term, one does so by reiterating the conventional use of it.

Our examples have been instances of authority executing performatives. How is it that those who are non-authoritative are able to cite for the sake of binding force? This question can be held to any and all instances in which the common person means to commit successful performatives. Is this to say that the common citizen is unable to self-identity if an authority figure is not present to bind one to a gender personality? Butler does not offer much in answer to these questions, and given “queer” seems to have been shamefully bound to particular individuals over time that we now look to challenge it today, it might assist us by having some sense of how performative success occurs in non-authoritative social circles.

Nietzsche: the Creditor/Debtor Relationship

I will focus primarily on the second essay of Genealogy Of Morals, in which Nietzsche discusses how it is we come to bind people to shame and punishment. Nietzsche's account does not depend on whether a person is authoritative or not, rather, his view offers the idea that the more distant one is from authority in the social chain of command, the more binding one's utterances become.

Nietzsche's theory refers to a certain type of relationship between creditor and debtor in which the memory of one's debts to another is what binds one to the performative utterances of others. In this relationship, an individual, or a group, confers something to another, and the latter fails to fulfill on what is conferred. Nietzsche also dispenses with the subject, and thinks that each of us is born into, and subjected to, a world that has started without us. A conventional legacy is already in place in that the language of the legacy immediately administers performatives onto a newborn: a “doctor” in a “hospital” utters one's “sex”—each of the elements in the equation successfully emerge through language in being a reiteration of how, by whom, and where similar activity has occurred in the past. As Butler points out, a doctor pronounces “It's a girl!” and from that point forward one is committed to “girling”, much like how a criminal is sentenced to jail by a judge, and how one is committed to “queering” if one deviates from normative social bond; the doctor's utterance is successfully performative. Due to the vulnerability of youth, one grows up absorbing the language of what constitutes “girling”, as well as “queering”, that latter being an indication of punishment should one deviate from the former. Any measure one takes against “girling” will be in the language of “girling”, as discussed above, as will any talk of subjectivity depend on the language of which being designed prior to such deliberation.

Given that the initial utterance by the doctor commits one to “girling”, Nietzsche imposes that this aligns one with particular promises pertaining to the conventional legacy—one has vowed to reiterate a particular discourse within society. Doing this allows for one to partake in all the advantages society can offer. In this manner Nietzsche thinks that the self has made itself calculable: one looks to the future by reiterating the past. Calculability is a human measure for ensuring knowledge about our fellow humans, and this is largely constitutive of creditor/debtor relations. Our memory of our initial vow, serves as a promise to others that there will be no surprises. In the case of a “no surprises” society, the advantages alluded to before emerge—change has been conquered, reason can flourish! Marriage ceremonies will continue to proceed as they always have, ensuring the jubilation mentioned before for all eternity. Those that impose calculability fulfill the creditor aspect of the relationship, and it's the promise of gender normativity that one owes to all participants of a conventional legacy: one agrees to be another link in the chain.

Nietzsche describes this relationship as being a “social straightjacket”, a set of fixed ideas that is conferred to serve as reminder of one's promises. Fixed ideas come in the shape of “memories”, in particular, those that refer to instances of punishment made upon those who broke their promises—pain serves as the great memory inducer. Similar to how one is bound to “queering” when disrupting the heterosexual social bond, one is entitled to cruelty if one does not continuously reiterate normative mannerisms pertaining to “girling”. The creditor/debtor marks the origin of punishment as the creditor feels obligated to invoke injury on those who fail to fulfill on their debts.

I hope it to be no mystery that each of us serves as a debtor in one way or another, or in every possible way (slave morality), but who exactly are these creditors? One simple answer may be that they are authority figures, for it is their words that have binding power, as convention has it. However, given the formality of the various trades each of these authorities are involved in, it is not often that we hear authorities pronouncing one to “queering”. The priest pronounces a couple to be married, and indirectly establishes homosexual taboos in that we react in a manner that predicates its success. What of when we are not directly in the presence of authorities? How is it we are adamantly inclined to performatives? Nietzsche thinks our inclination to uphold our promises is empowered by fixed ideas of punishment, and because our attachment to the promise is strong, one thinks of oneself as deserving of shame and cruelty if one opposes convention (a Nietzschian example would be a Christian flogging of oneself). The authority may not be directly present, but fixed memory allows one to privately echo performatives. This is how we develop “bad conscience”, an illness that causes one to turn against oneself—one becomes one's own menacing authority figure. Nietzsche considers this an illness because, returning to our example, one believes that it is still the doctor who is binding one to the commitments of “girling”, while it is really oneself, and it is successful! In this manner it is not only authority figures who utter successful performatives, but also those who are ill.

The above instance shows how one serves as creditor turned against oneself. Seeing as anyone can serve as a creditor, it should not be thought it is done always in bad conscience, but anyone can invoke the right of creditor upon others. For those of us with “good memory”, adhering to this social straightjacket comes without question, but Nietzsche thinks that instinct still draws one to power. Those with good memory who are non-authoritative are reduced to having to exhibit their instinct from within the confines of the straightjacket. This means that one still plays along with the game that performatives are what have binding force between people in society. However, non-authoritative citizens do not match up with the all the qualifications for a successful performatives, such as being a certain person in a certain place, but only seem to meet up with the appropriate thoughts and feelings accompanying the act and the appropriate subsequent behavior (the latter covered by bad conscience). Nietzsche feels this gives non-authoritative performatives more power in that one has to put in extra effort to “get the point across,” and rather than being able to invoke convention, one commits another to “queering” by vicious insults and physical force—one should be ashamed of not being calculable, especially when the rest of us are doing our best to be so! The more removed one is from authority, the more inclined one is to resort to cruelty in order to instantiate binding power, and this type of tactic has an unforgettable affect, a memory made salient by the terror inflicted to produce it. The cruel performatives of non-authorities cause one to be far more inclined to the promises made not to “queer”, or to continue “girling”.

Conclusion

The power of language to bind each other to particular values, and manners of living, will play to the fate of each of us. While authorities act by reiterating the law, riding the comfortable wave of “justification”, common folk follow at their heels and aspire to be in the “right of masters”, to partake in administrative binding and to get a sense of what it's like to have people to look down on. I made mention before of how in one way or another each of us is a debtor, but which of us are creditors? A criticism can be made against those who punish due to lack of hindsight about the true nature of their promises, but this requires a particular kind of discourse in which the criticism is turned against oneself: in what ways do I bind people to my words?

1Judith Butler, “Critically Queer,” GLQ: A Journal Of Lesbian and Gay Studies

2J.L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Harvard University Press, 1975), 13-16

3Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism Is a Humanism”

Artistic Intuition and the World Of Utility

In a society governed by capitalism, there is no room for any personal endeavor that does not yield to some sort of financial utility—it must make sense for one to participate in any enterprise. It is by no means a contemporary feature of convention that art also serves as a utility of survival, as artists have composed works for the sake of financial security for centuries. The term “artist” is one that should be brought to question, as contemporary society conceives of the status of which as a profession, a job, and like any job, one is more driven by economic demands than by passion. Is art just another item of utility, an object that one uses for personal gain on some level or another (for either artist or audiences)? Is the artist simply another professional seeking to scrape out a dollar? My intention is to explore Nietzsche's notion of artistic intuition, and how it conflicts with the popular conceptions of art. In the process, I will examine his idea of Apollonian, as well as Dionysian, values in art. From my analysis I hope to indicate a sense of artistry that eludes the language of utility, and support a type of creative expression that is not isolated in subjectivity and rational discourse.

What Do We Mean By “Art”?

The most I can offer concerning a general meaning of the term artist is simply a personal interpretation as I have come to know the term growing up, or a dictionary definition. I am sure that many people have various understandings of the term, but as it pertains to my endeavor of challenging the popular conception, some sense of “art” as such should be provided. As a child, whenever I engaged, or at least attempted, in activity that seemed somewhat fanciful to adults, I was called “artistic”, or “creative”. The two terms seemed to accompany each other so often that I came to equate the two, using them interchangeably. Let it be said then that my childhood definition is that an “artist” is a creative person. Nauseatingly vague, yes, but no less so than the definition acquired from a digital dictionary: a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.¹ So it is one who produces a particular type of object, and by object I mean anything available to any one of our senses. What is this object, and how does it qualify as art?

At this point I depart from usage of textbook definitions, and return to personal interpretations. Art is a certain kind of object in which we bear a particular relationship to, and we apply the term “art” to set it apart from those objects that do not meet the qualifying standards. It is often thought that art objects are those that are different from those Heidegger describes as “ready-to-hand”.² These kinds of entities in the world are those we use by looking past them: when one operates a hammer, one does not theorize about it, nor does one take much notice of the hammer insofar as it is functioning properly in order to fulfill some end. Those objects that we do take notice of, but do not appear to be of any immediate use are “present-at-hand”. It's because we take notice of these objects that one is in a position to theorize about them. Art, it would seem, walks a fine line between the two types, as it an entity in the world available to the senses, and thus in a position to be theorized over. Also, art seems to serve as a utility for both creators and audiences in that it is argued that art assists in providing some sort of psychological end. Art may be cathartic for the artist, as well as pleasurable to audiences. It's this tightrope walk between both types of states that art is understood as being different from both present-at-hand, and ready-to-hand.

Walking a line between these two states is not unique, however, in that a hammer motions between both at various times over the course of its existence; I imagine that no one walks about with a hammer in hand all the time ready to smash in protruding nails. It's still unclear as to what makes something an art object as opposed to being simply ready-to-hand, or present-at-hand. Another argument in favor of differentiation may be that art is unique in being simultaneous both. I feel no need to enter into details here in that this suggestion is outright confusing given multiple simultaneous perspectives. While for one who uses a hammer, it is ready-to-hand, but for any onlooker who is not involved in the other's endeavor, it's present-at-hand.

It seems as though we are looking for a conception of art, an understanding that allows for one to cover all cases of possible experience. Nietzsche's analysis of this is favorably noted, by myself, in his example of “leaf”.³ At some point in the very distant past, some creature or another that was capable of uttering sounds in some fashion came across a leaf and uttered “leaf”. This experience, which was unique to this particular creature, becomes the experience for us all in that we take his single utterance as the conceptualization of anything we might come to experience in the world that resembles that single instance. Nietzsche thought this to be the construction of concepts, the “equation of the dissimilar”, in which the application of a term is believed to cover the essence of an experience in all possible cases. Reaching an understanding of “art” appears to be making the same appeal in that we wish for the term to symbolize a concept that is the universal understanding for any given experience.

Returning to our conundrum of figuring out what quality, possessed by art, sets it apart from mundane, everyday objects, it does not do that any conclusion we might reach on the matter is ephemeral. In our current day and age it seems that if knowledge it to be reached, its object must be one that exists for all cases—our knowledge must be of something eternal and unchanging. If this were not the case, then of what use would knowledge be? Plato's “Divided Line” supplies us with a metaphysics that aligns knowledge with objects that surpass change and time, objects referred to as “The Forms”.⁴ Any type of disposition we may have regarding physical objects, things that change, switching between being ready-to-hand and present-at-hand (let's say), will be marked by belief or opinion. This type of disposition falls short of knowledge, and if the latter is to be accomplished, our sights must be set on objects that transcend the physical world. It should be noted that Plato placed art on the lowest of possible sections on his line, claiming that art is twice removed from truth, serving as a copy of a copy. While most of us are prone to agree with his idea of an object of knowledge, we are not commonly disposed to view art as being removed from truth. As such, there seems to be a desire to place art in the Forms, as something we can have knowledge of so as to set it apart from everyday objects, and to help us get ever closer to The Good. Reducing our epistemological relationship to art as one of opinion offers us no support on the matter.

Placing art in the Forms results in its conceptualization. As we tend to agree that art exists, and “art” is meant to signify a differentiation between objects so that there are things we would not phrase as such, art as a concept must function in a manner that transcends all experience in that it makes it possible for any one of us to understand any given experience, even those had by others. This understanding enables us to think that when a friend tells us “I went to look at some art,” that she did not go wandering about a hardware store. One may argue that our friend is a tool enthusiast, and from her perspective such hardware is art. A Platonic response may be that our friend is under the opinion that tools qualify as art, but for us we exhibit an understanding of concepts, and we are in a very good position to say that our friend is mistaken—those who exhibit understanding are in a far better place to speak of experience than one who is partaking in the experience.

Art As Utility

While there is still no exact understanding of what qualifies as art, we do have some sense of what we expect from an understanding of the concept of art. Although we are not eager to instantiate art as being ready-to-hand, our analysis so far seems to consistently align art with utility: that it is used to serve some rational end, or to fulfill a purpose. Perhaps art can be conceived as assisting us to understand Beauty, as it resides in the Forms, or to reach The Good. This is one such use, as I'm sure there are many that can be conceived. The point is not in establishing a proper use, rather that an understanding of art is commonly thought to coincide with utility. Other such possible uses of art have been alluded to: financial gain, and psychic health. Art seems to be predicated on economics, epistemology/metaphysics, and science.⁵

Economic stress is what I take to be the heaviest impression on artistic engagement. Survival is pressed upon us as one of the most demanding aspects of our nature, given that in high school it is endlessly emphasized that life cannot proceed without a job (parents tend to contribute to the same pressure). If this is the case, then any youth aspiring to be an artist will be thinking in terms of a professional living, one that provides financial security—one does art to the extent that there's money in it. Sometimes it may be the case that one passionately desires to make art, and it just so happens that there is a job market out there for such a passion. This type of person we will return to later, as the kind who is on the right track toward “creative acts”. For the time being we shall remain focused on those who are confined to reactivity. Nietzsche describes this state as one in which persons restrict themselves to acting in regards to, or in correspondence with, historical discourse. Reactivity, in a sense, is practical in that it allows for one to partake in all the advantages that society has to offer, and seeing as money is the particular advantage one acquires by the conduct under question, art is one's segue into the market place.

The scientific understanding of art can take many view points, depending on the exact study one is disposed to. The one in question here is a concern of psychological well-being. This tends to be complimented by observations regarding the disposition toward survival discussed above. If one confesses to having artistic ambitions, whether or not one seeks financial gain through them or not, the ability to exercise such ambition is not always readily available due to economic demands. Someone who wishes to practice dance may not always be able to if one must attend to work in order to have access to the market place. In this event, science may “observe” that artistic practices serve as cathartic expression—a manner in which to combat psychological repression. Art then serves the purpose of promoting better health by scientific standards. This too is understood as “practical”, and that it is “reasonable” for one to pursue art. The language of science and economics may both wonder: “If it were not the case, then why would one do it?”

The Intuitive Drive

Camus' idea of the absurd consists of the scenario in which the rational man meets the irrational world.⁶ The absurd is not something that is contained in the world, instead it is what emerges from our desire to become calculable, to have insight into all ends—we create absurdity. What of the irrational man? We have thus far discussed those of us who are led by the notion that all meaningful activity in art must be predicated by utility, a reasonable purpose. These insights constitute a good portion of Nietzsche's idea of Apollonian values in art. We'll return to this notion later, but prior to our current point, we made mention of a person who has a passion for art, and by chance, happens to find a market for his expression. We might ask, what if the market had not happened to be in the artist's favor? Would she have “turned back”, and resorted to bagging groceries at your local supermarket? This would make sense, would it not, to keep one's eye on the practical prize?

Like Camus, Nietzsche also establishes a conflict: when the rational man meets the intuitive man.⁷ While Camus' battle results in the absurd, Nietzsche's ends up with tragedy. This consequence will be elaborated on once we reach the Apollonian/Dionysian values, until then we should examine what Nietzsche means by the intuitions. In the same text where Nietzsche discusses the formation of concepts, he also talks about how the function of language is not to serve as a literal description of the world and events. Instead, language is metaphorical, enabling one to interpret one's experiences rather than describe them. It's in this way that our current conventions are merely someone else's art. In the case of “leaf” it was someone in the past who made such a noise at an experience, and this initially was a creative act. However, from then forward we have been in the position of copying someone else's act—we have been reactive to a language. We have also been reactive to an understanding of language, to its literal functioning as being able to make sense of the world. In this way our current reasonable discourse is a less an instance of subjective will, and more a matter of reiteration.

What is it then to be intuitive? This can be viewed as a simple antithesis of the rational man, but this isn't completely accurate. To be involved in the everyday play of metaphors is, in some sense, to be an everyday poet. The routine discourse is one that imprisons us in that we seek to implore word as a literal description of how things are. Looking back at our notions of art, the conceptualization of “art” is a means of solidifying our experiences in order to think that one single experience grants us access to the understanding—we express a drive to be calculable. Nietzsche does not think this “rational” drive is the only one we have, there is one that is still held to reiteration, and yet aspires to make new provinces of discourse. This sort of person is not disillusioned, she exists in the conceptual prison like anyone else does, and a history of concepts is what she has to work with. Rather than fit herself to the concepts as they are reiterated by others, she listens to her drive to actively engage concepts. Similar to how a lighthouse listens for the horn of a ship encased in heavy fog in the night, someone who hears the call of the intuitions puts up no resistance to the oncoming force. Think of a child given a puzzle to put together: the child did not create the pieces, they are simply what have been given to her. Adults look down at her and expect her to piece together a particular image, to follow the manner in which things have been conceived to fit together. The child's intuitive drive compels her to put things together in whatever manner she feels like. The end result is probably something that makes little sense to those who operate off of mere reiteration: when has a landscape been pieced together is such a way that a mountain stands upside-down?! Where is the sense in putting things together in a way so that the common man is confused?

Looking back at my childhood, when adults referred to me “artistic”, this is not because I was reacting to a historical discourse, rather, I was involved in senseless activity—it was of little concern to me what practical basis there was for putting the pieces together as they have fit before: I fancied the idea of coloring the sky purple, or making a mustache for myself by gluing macaroni noodles to my face. None of these features bore much utility, except under the eyes of the psychologist who diagnoses my irrationality as healthy, but the doctor is merely someone on the outside looking in—the party is a mystery unless you're in on it.

Apollonian/Dionysian Values

This outlook of conceptualization, and utility already provides us with some insight into the Apollonian sense of art. The alternate sense of art that Nietzsche highlights is the Dionysian.⁸ To each sense he assigns specific styles of art: sculpture, and perhaps painting, pertain to the Apollonian, while music and dance belong to the Dionysian. The point of the latter is that the art contained therein is “non-imagistic”, while the former seeks to produce imagery, or form, in one way or another. One may wonder what the point is of differentiating styles of art in this way, is this not also to conceptualize? I can imagine various interpretations of Nietzsche that may yield equally plausible responses. I tend to refer back to what was said about the intuitions, and how one is not disillusioned from conceptual imprisonment, but what this dichotomy seeks to establish is the manner in which we engage historical discourse. The child can either put the puzzle together in a way that makes sense, or she can make a different picture—it may not necessarily be new, but it does not adhere to the language of utility.

Each of the values pertain to a different type of involvement: the Apollonian deals in dreams, while the Dionysian engages by intoxication. This relationship is very much in resemblance of the rational man against the intuitions, as the Apollonian is very much like the rational man. The appeal to dreams is similar to how we resort to conceptualization, as dream, as conceived for our purposes, seeks to elude individual experiences. Our encounters with the physical realm is saturated with change and instability, a horrific landscape for the rational soul. Focusing on dreams is to turn our heads upward toward Mount Olympus, to the gods that transcend a world in flux. Here we find not only Forms, but form, as mathematical precision is also available to knowledge. Sculpture fits just fine here in that one endeavors to mimic things as they appear; the better a work resembles mathematical precision, or shapes, the more sensible it is in the eye of society. In this manner of art, we are disposed to what is intelligible, to entities that surpass change and position themselves in such a way so as to be available to the intellect. The Apollonian artist, then is one who partakes in images that spring with life eternal, a practice that places one apart from others. The language of subjective contemplation reigns as one considers oneself as tapping into something by means of a rational dialectic, searching for combinations of imagery that are useful for reaching Beauty—one must imagine the pieces of the puzzle fitting together so as to be perceived as Beautiful, for it is the beautiful work that succeeds in capitalistic landscape. This subjectivity is beyond individual experiences so as to avoid the horrific deceptions of opinion and belief, and this refuge from the terror of the world also separates one from other people—after all, “hell is other people.”⁹ It's in this way that the task of conceptualization is made easier in that we do not consider the imprisoning factor of our poetry.

Dionysus serves as the antagonizing brother to Apollo, the kin the latter wishes would not show up for holidays. Endeavors in Dionysian art are not imagistic, they are not concerned with producing a product that aligns itself with some concept. While music and dance were mentioned as being practices that emerge from Dionysian art, one may argue that each of these two styles lend themselves to both the present-at-hand, and ready-to-hand in that “music” and “dance” indicate a conceptualization, and both can be conceived as being involved in sensible enterprise. This kind of criticism, however, is still encased in the tradition of utility and the understanding, and so there is still much effort in framing all events and activities in a rational network of purposes and usefulness. The language of utility will not be able to comprehend Dionysian art without becoming queasy and fearful. Thinking back to our artist who just happens to find a market for her practice, this economic gain shares more with luck that with rational purpose, for the artist would have continued with her passions regardless if there was a market for her to take comfort in. “What nonsense,” exclaims the survivalist as well as the epistemologist, while the psychologist proclaims “it's still useful as it concerns one's health!” Such shouting touches a deaf ear to the artist who seeks not to react to historical discourse, but to be actively engaged in one's passions. Both of the reactions to the artist are in vain in that they are still predicated on the notion of sensible utility—each residing in the tongues of rational purpose as a means to The Good. Each disposition is housed in a place where the literal function of language is constitutive of concepts, and it's because of this that dream is even more enticing in that each is unaware that they are dreaming.

Even though Nietzsche places great emphasis on music, my bias as a dancer will be toward dance. My area of practice is in breakdance, an activity I find to be an exquisite example of intoxication. One of the unique features to this style of dance is that is has very few foundational moves, and being involved in it usually entails that one expresses great skills of improvisation. Because of this, rational onlooker are usually given a headache at the sight of the unpredictable movements, and someone spinning on their head—heads were made for thinking! Breakdance is still young in its age, and quite far from possessing any sort of professional stability, but this does not prevent practitioners from partaking in it. Returning to the criticism mentioned above, is it not the case that even in dance one is orchestrating a product for audiences to conceptualize? Maybe so, if we're to remain in that sort of language, but the important feature to grasp in Dionysian art is its notion of intoxication. This mode of living is not like dreams, where in the latter one lives amongst images that appear to purport Beauty. Instead, a dancer is not one who is a spectator to art, a dancer is art. Being intoxicated is to be so infused with one's activities that the thoughts and language of product and utility fall flat in the dirt: one does not subjectively experience oneself as being a rational agent that molds things together so as to create a product, set apart from appearances and experiences. In Dionysian art one returns to the forefront of hell, and meets with other people again, becomes friends with flux and terror. In breakdance, with little foundation to play off of, the moves one exhibits are temporal, and one acquires great excitement at the notion that one's efforts are ephemeral, and financially futile (and for a good portion of the time physically hazardous). Convention emphasizes that it's a terrible thing for one to be conducting oneself in a manner that is insensible, to abandon all sense of future comfort, but after partaking in the ecstasy of dance, calculability appears to be nothing but a boring refuge. The Dionysian is not completely blind to Apollonian aspiration, as when the two meet, tragedy is what emerges: the intoxicated artist can no longer take the rational man seriously. Conceptualization and utility operate as a great cane to walk us through life, but if the daredevil intuitions call to us, if we feel driven to putting the pieces together in way that is shocking, even to the artist, this gives us a taste of creative activity: making new linguistic/symbolic provinces that do not match up with reiterated conduct. There is no sense of planning one's movements in breakdance, nor does the practice involve any logical discourse in providing a product for the sake of some benefit, one just hears and succumbs to the call of intuitions.

Conclusion

This analysis is not meant to be a judgment. For those who practice art, whatever this term might mean to one, I am not disputing that it can be a practice that one can simultaneous enjoy and have it be an economic resource. My position is simply to put ideas on the table for contemplation, or spite, if you will. If anything, I mean to take notice of the popular trend in our society that everything we do is done under the scope of utility, that passion is restricted to calculated planning—subjective discourses reigns supreme. To gain sight into an arena of discourse that is not limited to utility is difficult in that it will be done through concepts and the language of the original creature. I advocate that we don't lose sight of the child, the horn in the night, and that art can partake in practices that are both terrifying and temporary, and do so without restraint.

1Dictionary.com

2Heidegger, Being and Time

3Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying In An Extra-Moral Sense”

4Plato, The Rebuplic

5I'm aware that psychology is arguably a science, but for the sake of this discussion I'm addressing psychic health as such seeing as certain scientific discourse asserts that artistic expression is psychologically beneficial as fact. Given this, it's argued that it's practical to pursue art because of its scientific benefits.

6Camus, The Myth Of Sisyphus

7Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying In An Extra-Moral Sense”

8Nietzsche, The Birth Of Tragedy

9Sartre, “No Exit”