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My current nonfiction read is The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, and he's currently explaining how Johnny Appleseed's apples were actually used for making hard cider, rather than put to nice wholesome All-American purposes like lunchboxes and pies, and comparing him to Dionysus.
And of course now I'm imagining The Hymn to Dionysus as a Western.
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TĂźrk savaĹ uçaÄÄą gĂśsterisi Turkish warplane showâĽď¸đ
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 â the three-sided god who is both of the world and beyond the world.
But how do our theories of consciousness account for the banalities, the trivialities and all the seemingly arbitrary bits and bobs of mental flotsam that have no bearing on our survival, yet occupy so much of our waking thoughts?
â Michael Pollan, Inside Voice: What Can Our Thoughts Reveal About the Nature of Consciousness (The Guardian, Feb 19, 2026)
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Deep down I suspect that many gardeners regard themselves as small-time alchemists, transforming the dross of compost (and water and sunlight) into substances of rare value and beauty and power.
Michael Pollan
The garden is an unhappy place for the perfectionist. Too much stands beyond our control here, and the only thing we can absolutely count on is eventual catastrophe.
â Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (Michael Pollan, 2026)
"For feelings are, by their very nature, conscious; how could there be a feeling that wasnât felt, or experienced?
In this respect, feelings may be different from other kinds of mental contents.
Computer-simulated thoughts can do what real thoughts doâthink of an algorithm that can convincingly answer complex questions, as large language models now can.
But would computer-simulated feelings qualify as real feelings? Or do feelings depend on having a body?
The centrality of feeling and emotion to our experience of consciousness is scarcely mentioned in most theories of consciousness currently on offer.
Affect is not one of the five axioms of integrated information theory; it doesnât figure into global workspace theory either.
This is odd. Can you think of a conscious experience that isnât in some way colored by feeling, either positively or negatively?
Yes, apparently, if youâre the typical AI engineer, neuroscientist, or philosopher of consciousness.
(âŚ)
âThe stereotype was that emotions and feelings were feminine,â Damasio explained, âand not as serious or useful a process as rational thought.â
Scientific research back then was generally conducted by men who prized their rational faculties above all else, and I asked Damasio if he thought that this fact had contributed to the neglect of feelings.
âWithout a doubt,â he said.
I was reminded of Alison Gopnikâs cautionary note about the inherent biases of what she called âprofessor consciousness.â"
