Barbara Ehrenreich: Dionysus is a recurring sociological impulse in the human spirit which compels us towards dance, festival, collective peak experience, and the solidarity and conviviality born from revolution. He is the rebellious force within us which spits in the face of alienation, isolation, and oppression. Any radical transformation of the world must include a "rebirth" of the Dionysian.
Sophie Strand: Dionysus is a lodestar for healthy masculinity, ecological groundedness, pre-/post-capitalist mindsets, and immanent spirituality. He is a queer, gritty, fungal representation of what the human species can be once we cast off the shackles of patriarchy and productivism.
Michael Pollan: Dionysus is the chaotic/passionate side of human experience and ecology. His mythic role is embodied in nature by radiant flowers like the rose and the peony, in historical figures like Johnny Appleseed, and in socio-political trends like the grassroots opposition to corporate monocultures and the McDonaldization of food.
Herbert Marcuse: Dionysus is the patron god of Orpheus and Narcissus because he represents a liberated ecosocialist psychology beyond that of the Promethean performance principle (the competitive, acquisitive, hierarchical "engine" of capitalism and class society). He is an erotic egalitarian entity which reconciles humanity and nature and which tears down the rigid dualisms keeping us from enjoying life.
Vikki Bramshaw: Dionysus is a vast array of mythological figures and anthropological currents, and as such he can't be neatly distilled down to a generalization like "the god of wine" or "the god of revelry". He is a liminal, panentheistic deity which animates our human tendencies to engage in ecstasy, ritual, ecology, creative destruction, theatricality, mystical union, and life/death/rebirth symbology. He is Zagreus, Bromios, Iakchos — the three-sided god who is both of the world and beyond the world.