Daily reminder that the concept that the decadent Western Civilization is Apollonian and that Eastern civilization is Dionysian and somehow the key to "rejuvenating" the West is, in fact, a 19th century orientalist misconception.

The association of these deities to east and west is related to the movement of sun. It sets in the west, after its journey through the sky as Apollo, and it rises again in the east, after its journey through the underworld as Dionysus.

The idea that the human cycle of rebirth is associated to this movement is millennia older than civilization. The history of civilization doesn't fit this mythic circular perspective because it's unbalanced, it's linear.

Each solution civilization implements (muuh progress, dude!) creates a myriad of new problems, whose solutions create even more problems. And so it goes on, until the whole thing collapses under the weigh of its own mess.

There's no "rebirth" for civilization or for civilized men, only for barbarians.