# Apollonian and Dionysian “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” name contrasting artistic impulses in Friedrich Nietzsche's *The Birth of Tragedy*, drawn from the Greek deities Apollo and Dionysus. The first emphasizes image and form; the second is associated with music, ecstatic experience, and the dissolution of ordinary boundaries. Nietzsche's point is not simply that one is good and the other bad: tragedy combines them. These terms can be an illuminating lens for technology cultures of formal design, measurement, improvisation, and collective experimentation. They are not established labels for two actual Silicon Valley organizations or proof that a given founder practices an ancient religion. Use them as an attributed philosophical comparison within [[wiki/Classical Antiquity in Technology Culture|classical antiquity in technology culture]]. ## Source - [Nietzsche, *The Birth of Tragedy*](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51356/51356-h/51356-h.htm), Project Gutenberg edition.