Dionysus versus the Crucified: Thinking the Death of God with Heidegger, Girard, and Bataille

Girard has argued that in the opposition between “Dionysus” and “the crucified,” Nietzsche contrasts Christian martyrdom that resolves violence through pacifism with pagan festivals that affirm violence by ritualizing it. In agreement with Girard, this article shows how Heidegger’s discussion of nihilism fails to ethically confront the violence of Nietzsche’s Dionysianism, a criticism that applies equally to Deleuze. However, I argue that Bataille’s reading of Nietzsche confronts the violence in a manner that Girard fails to appreciate. Bataille interprets ritual sacrifice as a drama communicating the loss of identity experienced by those who contemplate the spectacle. Bataille demonstrates the complicity between Dionysian and Judeo-Christian martyrdom insofar as both implicate human beings in the violence of evil that the death of God consummates.