Vukalić Nermin

PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF FIGHT CLUB PHILOSOPHY

Bihać, January 2014.

I

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION..............................................11.1 Common Strangeness.....................................1

2. DETAILS THAT MAKE GOOD BOOKS GREAT........................32.1 Space Monkeys..........................................32.2 Sex, Prescription Medication, and Rock’n’Roll..........42.3 Perfection Is a Moment.................................52.4 The Consumed Consumer..................................62.5 I Am Totally Zen. Look At Me!..........................72.6 Can’t Drop Lower Than Bottom...........................82.7 The Good Thing About Dying.............................92.8 Those Who Have Nothing Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Lose It. 102.9 Since Disasters Unite Us We Might Need a Global Disaster

122.10 Undirected Anger......................................132.11 iSatan................................................132.12 Glory and sacrifice...................................142.13 “Happy Ending” Is an Oxymoron.........................15

3. CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM AS A CRITIQUE OF HUMAN NATURE.....173.1 The Reflection of Human Nature........................173.2 Capitalism, Consumerism, and Other Psychosis..........21

4. THE PARADOX OF FIGHTING FOR A PEACEFUL IDEA..............244.1 Practice What You Preach..............................244.2 Preach What You Practice..............................25

5. CONCLUSION...............................................29

REFERENCES..................................................31LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.......................................33

1. INTRODUCTION

The Fight Club is above all a critique of the system. We

all hate the system. We are not quite clear on what it

actually is, but we are sure we hate it.

“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 8:30 a.m. by an alarm

clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight

traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else

and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”1

I chose to open a paper on Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club

with a quote from another author to support my theory that the

rebellious spirit of its characters and their strange

behaviour are not at all uncommon. In essence, these

characters simply do what we lack the courage for, but we all

want to. We all see that something is wrong with the world. We

all want to change it. We all want to rebel.

.1 Common Strangeness

1 Bukowski, Charles (1975). Factotum, Black Sparrow Books, p.55

The strange behaviour of Fight Club characters is

provoked by the most common problems. Why such behaviour is

considered so strange then?

It would be easy to say that the average person lacks

courage, but as Fight Club suggests the issue is more complex.

The abuse of common man is, apart from the obvious,

psychological. This makes it difficult to even see the

problem. Most people are blind to it. They are simply unhappy.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”2

Because of the complexity of these issues, Fight Club

doesn’t offer a simple solution. Rather, it is a critique of

society and an insight in the problems one might face when

trying a simple solution. Even though anger is rarely a

solution, who wouldn’t be angry living in this world? Who

wouldn’t want change? Who wouldn’t want rebellion? Who

wouldn’t want a revolution?

Are you with me? Fight the power! After the “Flower

Revolution” and all those peace loving hippies turning into

what they did, it’s time we do something they never could,

take responsibility. We are the power. We are society. We are

what needs to change.

Fight Club depicts a radical change in the self, most

intimately of the protagonist, the unnamed narrator, and he as

a character is a classic “everyman”. Being incapable of

gradual change, or rather repeating the same mistakes, leads

2 Shakespeare, William (2003). Hamlet, (The New Folger Library Shakespeare),Simon & Schuster, New Folger Edition, p.27

to the inevitable change, but the choice of path that leads to

that change makes the change itself violent.

1. DETAILS THAT MAKE GOOD BOOKS GREAT

Fight Club has a meaningful story, but it’s the details

that make it what it is. Segments that are a part of the

whole, but have powerful meaning and can stand alone. These

segments made it possible for Fight Club to earn a cult

following that it now has, it is easy to quote and share. The

book itself is short, some 200 pages, and on point.

Glasgow Herald3 described it as: “Short, sharp and savage, this

haunting and strikingly original American urban nightmare is the most impressive

US fiction debut I can remember in years.”

Be it parts of dialogue, or thoughts of the narrator, or

even frame stories4, Palahniuk uses details to make his overall

point stronger and deeper.

.2 Space Monkeys

“It’s so quiet this high up, the feeling you get is that you’re one of those space

monkeys.

Pull a lever.

Push a button.

You don’t understand any of it, and then you just die.”5

There is no pride in being compared to a monkey, but

there is no pride in contributing to society by working on an3 The Herald is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. It is said to be the longest running national newspaper in the world. It is printed atCambuslang, just outside Glasgow.4 Mise en abyme, story within a story5 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.12

assembly line making important items such as classic deluxe custom

designer luxury prestige high-quality premium select gourmet pocket pencil

sharpeners6.

This passage describes an average life through a somewhat

comic analogy. And if it was a critique from a satirical

novel, it wouldn’t be that scary, but it is the embodiment of

a frequent thought.

“What’s the point?” There is no meaning to the sacrifice.

Men will gladly work hard, even die, if it’s for something,

but making classic deluxe custom designer luxury prestige high-quality premium

select gourmet cocktail umbrellas doesn’t really make for much of

a life achievement.

.3 Sex, Prescription Medication, and Rock’n’Roll

“During the French Revolution, Chloe told me, the women in prison, the

duchesses, baronesses, marquises, whatever, they would screw any man who’d climb

on top. Chloe breathed against my neck. Climb on top. Pony up, did I know. Screwing

passed the time.

La petite mort7, the French called it.”8Chloe, or as the author

describes her, a skeleton dipped in yellow wax, is a woman who is so

6 Carlin, George (1999). You Are All Diseassed. (Advertising Lullaby) HBO Comedy Special7 La petite mort, French for “the litlle death” is an idiom or euphemism for orgasm. This term has generally been interpreted to describe the post-orgasmic state of unconsciousness that some people have after having some sexual experiences.8 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.19-20

close to death that her life insurance policy had paid off with seventy-five thousand

bucks, and all Chloe wanted was to get laid for the last time. Not intimacy, sex.

The fact that she is even thinking about sex in her state

says something about the psychology of human beings. It

uncovers a strange characteristic.

Sex is discussed throughout the novel. Especially

masculinity. Fight Club argues that masculinity has become a

brand, advertising companies use this weakness to sell

products to men. Being a man becomes owning the right watch or

car instead of knowing who you are.

That’s why motor oil is advertised by a girl in a bikini.

And you thought girls in bikinis were experts on motor oil?

Psychoanalysis9, with sex in its core, is shaping the

consumer culture. Sigmund Freud, its father, but also a critic

of all things American, must be turning in his grave. Women

sporting cigarettes as a symbol of female empowerment and the

ubiquitous bacon-and-egg breakfast were two public relations

campaigns inspired by Freudian ideas. Since the marriage of

psychoanalysis and public relations advertising companies have

come a long way in abusing said human weakness and

manipulating behaviour.

.4 Perfection Is a Moment

9 Psychoanalysis is a set of psycholohical and psychotherapeutic theories and associated techniques, originally popularised by Austrian physician SigmundFreud.

“Tyler called over, “Do you know what time it is?”

I always wear a watch.

“Do you know what time it is?”

I asked, where?

“Right here” Tyler said, “Right now.”

It was 4:06 P.M.”10

Meet Tyler Durden. When the narrator sees Tyler for the

first time they are on a beach, the narrator is watching Tyler

arrange driftwood so that its shadow looks like a giant hand.

Since shadows change as the Sun moves over the sky, the shadow

of the driftwood logs only looks like a hand for one minute.

Tyler goes through the trouble of pulling driftwood logs out

of the surf, dragging them up the beach and planting them in

the sand just for one minute of perfection. He sits in the

palm of the shadow hand. Perfection he himself created.

“While you are alive collect moments not things, collect respect not money,

and enjoy love not luxuries.”11

Right when the narrator, and the reader, meet Tyler one

thing about him is obvious, he is not burdened by bills and

rent. He is free. He is weird. He arranges driftwood logs so

that their shadow makes a hand to sit in. He doesn’t have a

stable job and he lives in an abandoned ruin of house. He is

nothing like what they say a man should be on TV, yet a reader

10 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.3211 Aarthi Khurana

easily falls in love with him. He is the single most

influential character in the novel.

.5 The Consumed Consumer

“And I wasn’t the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who

used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with

their IKEA furniture catalogue.”12

Human instinct demands a safe haven. The difference is

that for modern men luxuries are needs. Can you imagine what

riots would break out if the internet shut down for half an

hour? Most criminals justify themselves by thinking that they

were only securing their family’s future. The illusion of

safety is a highly addictive drug. People will go far and wide

for a fix.

And it’s very competitive! Besides demanding safety,

human instinct pushes people to fight for the alpha13 position.

In a culture where everything is a brand, this position is

reached by owning the most. The utmost of most precious and

most wanted consumer goods.

The narrator describes a set of dishes: “…set of hand-blown

green glass dishes with the tiny bubbles and imperfections, little bits of sand, proof

they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous aboriginal peoples

of wherever,” implying that nobody cares about these aboriginal

12 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.4313 In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community with the highest rank.

peoples, people only pretend to care to manufacture an image

of themselves as caring people. Bonus points for being a good

guy. Everything is a brand. Being a decent caring human being

that helps others is covered by the term “everything”, is it

not?

Slowly the safe haven becomes a prison, a prison of your

own making, trapped behind the walls you yourself built, the

things you used to own, now they own you.

It’s easy to lose yourself in this pursuit of trends.

This urban jungle. This organized chaos. And it all began

because people didn’t know what they want, so they asked TV.

Picture 1. Edward Norton14 and a quote by Dave Ramsey15

14 Edward Norton is a Hollywood actor who played the narrator in the film adaptation of Fight Club15 The quote is from Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan For FinancialFitness, but it fits Fight Club philosophy so well that it has become a common misconception to assume that it’s a quote from Fight Club.

“If you don’t know what you want,” the doorman said, “you end up with a lot

you don’t.”

.6 I Am Totally Zen. Look At Me!

“Worker bees can leave

Even drones can fly away

The queen is their slave

…

Without just one nest

A bird can call the world home

Life is your career”16

The narrator has changed. He is enlightened. But nobody

even notices. Sigh. All they notice is the dried blood on his

pants. He writes little HAIKU things and FAX them everybody.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear

it, does it make a sound?17 If the narrator is enlightened and

16 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.63-6417 “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” is a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and knowledge of reality.

no one notices, is he really enlightened? If he writes great

haiku and no one reads it, did he really write haiku?

The narrator’s convictions are tested. He gave up all his

worldly possessions and his car and went to live in a rented

house in the toxic waste part of town, and now he has to

listen to Marla and Tyler calling each other human butt wipe. He

went to all this trouble, started Fight Club and got beaten up

there, he reached enlightenment, he is no longer a slave, but

nobody even notices. His instinct desires superficial

satisfactions. He battles it by trying to turn himself into

the calm little centre of the world.

The change comes from within. And it is quite

embarrassing what opposes it; and how difficult it is to deal

with such an embarrassingly superficial and nonthreatening

opposition.

.7 Can’t Drop Lower Than Bottom

A chemical burn. Even after that Tyler tells the narrator

he didn’t hit bottom.

Tyler becomes somewhat of a spiritual guide to the

narrator, and through that to the reader as well. He advocates

the idea that for a man to be free from societal burdens he

has to reach the opposite of what is conventionally considered

as success. He has to hit rock bottom. Rid himself entirely of

worldly possessions, but not only that, rid himself of worldly

worries and fears. Lose all hope. Embrace mortality.

Picture 2. Edward Norton and a popular quote from the Fight

Club18

Tyler tells a story about how soap was invented, human

sacrifice rituals were done by a river, and the people who

live there realized that in that particular part of the river

the washing of clothes is more effective. Literal sacrifice of

many of those before us made for our progress. Being prepared

to make such a sacrifice is what embracing mortality means.

.8 The Good Thing About Dying

“This is why I loved the support groups so much, if people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention.

18 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.70

If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you. Everything else about their check book balance and radio songs and messy hair went out the window.

You had their full attention.

People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak.

And when they spoke, they weren’t telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before.”19

In these few paragraphs the genius of Chuck Palahniuk shines in all its beauty and might. He turns a somewhat demented idea of going to support groups for the terminally ill when you are healthy into something beautiful as well as meaningful. By describing the difficulties of his protagonist to communicate to another human being, truly and really communicate, the author gets the complete attention of the reader.

Discretely brilliant. Most of us feel that a crowded placeis the loneliest place, and Palahniuk gives us a deeper understanding of this paradox.

Especially now, when digital communication is blooming, the individual is getting more and more alienated while meaningless nonsense is flooding everyday conversing. Old friends know less and less about each other. People know less and less about themselves. That is the reason Tyler and the narrator start Fight Club, their theory is that while being indanger you learn the most about yourself. Not only if you are a coward, everyone is a coward in the beginning. You find out how you handle that fact and what you grow into.

.9 Those Who Have Nothing Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Lose It

19 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.107

“I sat there, in the office of the manager of the Pressman Hotel.

I am Joe’s Smirking Revenge.

The first thing the hotel manager said was I had three minutes. In the first thirty seconds, I told how I’d been peeing into soup, farting on crème brulees, sneezing on braised endive, and now I wanted the hotel to send me a check every week equivalent to my average week’s pay plus tips. In return, I wouldn’t come to work anymore, and I wouldn’t go to the newspapers or the public health people witha confused, tearful confession.

The headlines:

Troubled Waiter Admits Tainting Food.

Sure, I said, I might go to prison. They could hang me and yank my nuts off and drag me through the streets and flay my skin and bum me with lye, but the Pressman Hotel would always be known as the hotel where the richest people in the world ate pee.

Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth.

And I used to be such a nice person.”20

This is an open invitation to revolt. The author is askingthe reader a direct question, what is it that we have that we are so afraid to lose? Considering what this planet has to offer, what our imagination can achieve, we have nothing. We are poor and limited by it. We have nothing.

Can’t drop lower than bottom!

People (who) are being brutally mistreated at work; they have no reason not to revolt. The good thing about hitting bottom is that the only way from there is upwards. Yes, we might go to prison and worse, but how is that worse than living inand leaving this very same status quo21 to our children.

20 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.11421 Status quo is a Latin term meaning the existing state of affairs. It is acommonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the statein which". To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are.

“It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!”22

Or as long as I am quoting Zapata, he had a lot to say on the subject:

“I want to die a slave to principles. Not to men.”23

In each of us there is a scale which balances between the desire to do better and the fear of change. Sadly, the irrational fear of change is extremely strong in most of us. And it is a most irrational fear. Change is inevitable. Life is change. Panta rhei.24If change is inevitable why not try to make things change to the better? To be honest, change is a law of nature and human society is very different from nature.One might argue that it has become completely and utterly alienated and unnatural.

Another reason it seems to a mere mortal that status quo is unchangeable is that life of an individual is short. I personally will probably not witness the change I dream of, but that does not and will never stop me from dreaming. Arguably this state of affairs is as old as civilization itself. Call it democracy or communism, when practiced by our society it inevitably turns into a dictatorship. Rule of the rich. Well, if they must rule, we must fight for it to be a fair rule. I personally don’t mind anyone having more than me as long as I have enough, as long as I am treated with respect. This is what we must fight for.

This civilization we live in is not everlasting; it is only six around thousand years old. This may seem like a long time to a creature which has an average lifespan of some 60 years, but in cosmic terms, it is no more than a blink of an

22 Emilio Zapata, as quoted in Heroes of Mexico (1969) by Morris Rosenblum, p.11223 Emilio Zapata, as quoted in Liberation Theologies in North America and Europe (1979)by Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky, p.28124 Πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei) "everything flows" either was not spoken by Heraclitus or did not survive as a quotation of his. This famous aphorism used to characterize Heraclitus' thought comes from Simplicius, a neoplatonist, and from Plato's Cratylus.

eye. It is short even when compared to how long humans, with the same DNA we have today, have existed. This attempt at civilization is bad, even for the standards of human beings, but it will change. And everything indicates that change is coming soon. Either that or our greedy owners will lead us into an ecological or war apocalypse. That is why we must fight. In essence, to survive.

.10 Since Disasters Unite Us We Might Need a Global Disaster

“I wanted the whole world to hit bottom.

Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn’t screw to save its species and every whale that gaveup and ran itself aground.

Don’t think of this as extinction. Think of this as downsizing.

For thousands of years, human beings screwed up and trashed and crapped onthis planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil.”25

Life is not fair.

In this section Palahniuk has his protagonist curse and daydream destroy all the French beaches he can’t afford to visit. The world is dark and he is angry because it’s so, but his anger brings the world nothing but more darkness. He brutally beats a man at Fight Club whom he repeatedly describes as a kid with a face of an angel. He wanted to destroy something beautiful.

This is the start of Project Mayhem. This is the turning point when what was eccentric, but justifiable by logic turns into insane chaos. Project Mayhem is to take the world hostageand create history. Ordinary men that are its members will 25 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.123-124

alter history as if they were great generals of noble descent.This is their time. This is now. This is their world, and all those ancient people are dead. They wanted to blast the world free of history. How can history and our ancestors that screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet for thousands of years teach us anything useful. Itis time for change and none of the things those ancient dead people believed or did matter. They were wrong. They did everything wrong. There is no point in cleaning up after everyone if we are going to screw up and trash and crap on this planet all over again.

In this turning point of the novel the author investigatesanother side of the human psyche, boredom. The protagonist starts Fight Club, where he fights strangers until one of themgoes limp or taps out, it may not seem fun, but one could never describe it as boring and now, now he is exactly that: bored with it. He wants more. People have this amazing abilityto develop a tolerance to pretty much everything; everything includes the nice things life can offer. After a while of living next to a wonderful waterfall or on a beautiful beach, people tend to take it for granted. What some dream of visiting for those living there is just an ordinary beach.

.11 Undirected Anger

“Even a week after fight club, you have no problem driving inside the speed limit. Maybe you’ve been passing black shit, internal injuries, for two days, but you are so cool. Other cars drive around you. Cars tailgate. You get the finger from otherdrivers. Total strangers hate you. It’s absolutely nothing personal. After fight club, you’re so relaxed, you just cannot care. You don’t even turn the radio on. Maybe yourribs stab along a hairline fracture every time you take a breath. Cars behind you blink their lights. The sun is going down, orange and gold.”26

No one ever stops to notice how strange it is that we actually do hate total strangers. We honestly wish them a most

26 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.139

horrifying death. And to their close relatives as well. No onemeans it, not when we calm down, but we don’t really think it’s that strange either. And the moment we are cursing the driver in the car next to our and whoever gave them their driver’s license, we are just one of their irritating mistakesaway from steering whatever deadly 4,000 pound hunk of metal we are driving right into them.

People are angry. They don’t even know why or with whom. They don’t even know they are angry; they just lose it at the most random places.

Life is not fair. It seems people simply accept that. Whatother choice is there? But we don’t. Deep down inside, in those parts of us we can’t control or understand, we don’t. Weare angry.

.12 iSatan

“If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?”27

Is hate better than indifference? We all rush to say that it is, but isn’t that how Satan became what he is? Society is a teenager; obsessed with sex, addicted to attention. Could itbe that this culture of worshiping celebrities is making us all extremely disappointed once we don’t become celebrities? Palahniuk implies exactly that throughout Fight Club. We were all promised we can become whatever we want to. We were all instructed to follow our dreams. How could we not dream of becoming rock stars? Becoming mature doesn’t mean people stop having these childish dreams, it only means we never admit to having them. But deep down inside, in that part of our psyche that was shaped by our childhood and can never be changed, deep down inside, we are disappointed.

27 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.140

“Which is worse, hell or nothing?”28

If you could choose either to disappear completely after dying, to leave no trace, nothing, or to continue living in hell, wouldn’t you have to think on it? Wouldn’t you need a day more to think about it? Wouldn’t you need to continue living, even in hell, just to think about it?

But why is it that Palahniuk discovers a strange new rule of fight club in this part of the novel that seems to be aboutthe selfishness of society? Palahniuk is saying that we all secretly want to be celebrated and to live forever, but still…

“Nobody’s the centre of fight club except the two men fighting.”29

That is the new rule of fight club. As if to indicate thatwe are all known to someone. We are all celebrated by someone.We all love someone more than we love our favourite rock star.

The fight of Fight Club is not about fame, it is about self realization. Dare I say it, it is about enlightenment. And enlightenment is not telling everybody that you are so Zen. Everybody says that, especially since the invention of social networking. Improving oneself to impress others is in its core wrong. And people who think that way are incapable ofappreciating improvement in others, because they are so preoccupied with their own self. If one is only improving himself in order to impress everybody else in a society in which everybody is too preoccupied with them self to notice improvement on anyone else, isn’t he predetermined for failure? A full circle. A full circle that creates frustrationand turns benevolent humane beings into arrogant and angered little Satans.

By the way, why are all rock stars bad boys? Isn’t behaving badly, well, bad? Why are we so fatally attracted to darkness?

28 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.14029 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.142

.13 Glory and sacrifice

“We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do,we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. Thegreat depression is our lives.

We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them.

Napoleon bragged that he could train men to sacrifice their lives for a scrap of ribbon.

Imagine, when we call a strike and everyone refuses to work until we redistribute the wealth of the world.”30

Palahniuk argues that our lives in this age are completelymeaningless, that once man could sacrifice his life for his homeland. For victory. For glory! Or at least that’s what thatonce-upon-a-time man believed. And that was good enough. They believed it and their life had meaning. A purpose. We nowadayshave nothing. Our purpose is to buy clothing and cars we are told we should buy.

Palahniuk also goes beyond that, he implies that we can change everything. It is time for a revolution. We are about to explode, and like all a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction weneed to be focused in the right direction.

Palahniuk is not some senseless vandal preaching anarchy; he is an intellectual who sees what is wrong with the world and offers a solution. In essence the only problem this world now has is the stunningly imbalanced distribution of wealth. Wal-Mart’s revenue is greater than Norway’s GDP.31 Bill Gates, 30 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.14931 Source: International Monetary Fund/CNN Money. On the CNN Money’s list Fortune 500 for the year 2011 (annual ranking of America’s largest companies) Wal-Mart Stores are at first place with a revenue of $421,84 billion and the GDP of Norway in the same year was $414.46 billion estimate.

the owner of Microsoft, has $67.0 billion in his pocket32, while 1.22 billion people lived on less than $1.25 a day in 2010.33

Imagine, when we call a strike and everyone refuses to work until we redistribute the wealth of the world.

.14 “Happy Ending” Is an Oxymoron

When reading a good book, no matter how happily it ends, the reader is always sad that it ended. On the other hands, not many good books have happy endings. Fight Club ends in themost appropriate manner. The ending doesn’t resolve anything, like life is never resolved. That’s the problem with happy endings, they are not realistic. No one can live happily forever after unless they just a moment later. When somebody thinks they have learned something in real life, when they think they have found an answer, the very next day their resolve is put to a test, their answer doesn’t look so bulletproof when it is applied. That is why Fight Club cannot possibly give its readers any answers. Because questions FightClub asks the readers can find nowhere else but within themselves.

Palahniuk compares the doctors and staff of the mental hospital the protagonist is in to God and angels.

“You can’t teach God anything.”34

The protagonist is put in a mental hospital. Maybe becausehe has a different understanding of life. Maybe it is too different. Maybe it is not “normal”. But even in the mental hospital, even when the doctor tells him the right way to live, like advertising once instructed him, like his

32 Forbes list of billionaires33 According to statistics of The World Bank.34 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.207.

neighbours once suggested, like everybody a long time ago knewwhat was best for him, how he should live his own life, well, even then he disagrees. He even tries to teach the all-knowing, almighty God something.

2. CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM AS A CRITIQUE OF HUMAN NATURE

The novel Fight Club is above all a critique of capitalism. It is extremely philosophical in nature, but on the other hand it has a lot of exciting action, violence, and sex which appeal to the capitalist consumer. The novel, like the author, as well as the protagonist, is in chains of the society it exist in. The impression is that Palahniuk would criticize any other social order he was a part of, and rightlyso.

“Democracy is the worst form of government except all the other forms that have been tried.”35

Many different social orders have been tried throughout human history, but every single one of them, when put to practice, has one and the same problem. Unbalanced distribution of wealth. And just to make everything perfect, Chuck Palahniuk wrote his novel in the era of capitalism. An economic system based on the strongest and worst characteristics of human nature.

“We were saying how very important it is to bring about in the human mind a radical revolution. The crisis - is a crisis in consciousness. A crisis that cannot anymore, accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions. And, considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression, and so on… It seems to me, though man has cultivated the external world and has more or less mastered it, inwardly he is still as he was: a great deal of

35 Chuchill, Winston (1947). Speech in the House of Commons.

animal in him; he is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive. And he has built a society along these lines.”36

Capitalism is a philosophy that is based on the human inclination to being competitive, acquisitive, greedy…

.15 The Reflection of Human Nature

Man is an animal. We tend to forget this. We tend to thinkof ourselves as better than animals. Superior. Man is an arrogant animal.

We think we are super evolved because we have computers wecan put in our pockets and baseball caps, little cocktail umbrellas and machine guns. Don’t forget the machine guns. They are an undisputable example and proof of our savagery. Scientifically speaking, our DNA hasn’t changed much for the past 40,000 years.37 We still operate on the same instincts. And we have built a society along those lines.

Attack is the best defence. So we attack. To survive, that’s the excuse. Someone enlightened would probably have more faith in their fellow human beings. Someone enlightened would try to find a peaceful solution. Someone enlightened would lead by example and put their guns away. Someone enlightened would have gotten themselves killed.

“… but it’s also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. Did you ever notice who it is… stop to think who it is we kill? It’s always people who’ve told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, John Lennon. They all said, “Try to live together peacefully.”BAM! Right in the head. Apparently, we’re not ready for that. That’s difficult behaviour for us. We’re too busy trying to think up ways to kill each other.”38

36 Krishnamurti, Jiddu (1966). Ojai 3rd public talk.37 Loren Cordain argues that the human genome has changed only .02 percent in 40,000 years.38 Carlin, George (2005). Life Is Worth Losing, HBO comedy special

Men will do all kinds of monstrosities to survive. Or if they are manipulated into believing that they are in danger.

Picture 3. Fight Club fan art39

“The 9/11 attacks resulted in 2,996 casualties, which include 343 fire-fighters and 59 police officers who were in trying to save victims inside the World Trade Center. The War on Terror launched by George W. Bush Jr. has led to at least 227,000people (more than 300,000 according to other estimates). This includes 116,657 civilians (51%) between 76 – 108,000 insurgents or Taliban Islamists (34% to 36%), 25,297 Iraqi and Afghan soldiers (11%), and 8,975 American, British, and other coalition forces (3.9%).”40

Palahniuk uses this obsession with safety to, in a way, liberate people. Fight Club is an underground boxing organization where members, well, fight. They put their life in danger. Ignoring everything their instinct tells them. At

39 Fan art or fanart are artworks created by fans of a work of fiction (generally visual media such as comics, movies, television shows or video games) and derived from a character or other aspect of that work.40 An article by Jean Marc Manach on OWNI.EU

one point in the novel Tyler gives the space monkeys an assignment to start and lose a fight on the streets, with someone who isn’t a part of Fight Club. The fighting in Fight Club is not about fighting, it’s about releasing oneself from fear. From the fear that prevents ordinary men from greatness.From the fear that is abused by the government and advertising. The US, as the major military force in the modernworld, never attacks and they never fight on their own land. Isn’t this a bit of a paradox? They travelled all the way to Vietnam and Panama and Iraq to defend themselves. And advertising, advertising helps us build a safe and pleasant home. For a payment and interest that eventually takes that very home. Project Mayhem members have no worldly possessions.They only have enough money for their own funerals. Now, that is freedom the people of US will hardly ever understand. Freedom of fear. When a Fight Club member enters a fight, besides getting to know the Fight Club member he is fighting, he gets acquainted with himself. Fighting is always fighting with and for yourself. Against your own fears. Tyler lets his boss brutally beat him, but still, he wins that fight, he winsa pension at no more than 30, but also he wins because he doesn’t care about losing. Physical wounds heal fast. It’s theanger of failure that haunts.

Palahniuk is the creator of an interesting term, “nesting instinct”. He claims that IKEA and many others use this human obsession with building a perfect and safe little home to selluseless and meaningless products all through the awesome powerof advertising.

“Like so many others, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct. If I saw something clever like a coffee table in the shape of yin and yang, I had to have it. I would flip through catalogues and wonder, “What kind of a dining set defines me as a person?” I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of… wherever.”41

41 Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. 20th Century Fox, 1999. Film.

We no longer desire or wish for coffee tables in the shape of yin andyang and glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfection, they are no longera luxury, they are a necessity. We must or have to have it. While half of the world is starving, while the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of wherever are dying daily by the thousandswe justify ourselves for overpaying some glass dishes with theillusion that we are helping these peoples by buying their product. Wow.

Sexuality is another major animal instinct. Reproduction. And it had to be strong in order for there to be 8 billion of us, in order for us to keep reproducing during war and famine.Nowadays sexuality is abused by advertising. Men are told owning a certain car model will make them the Alpha male. Palahniuk presents the argument that men in today’s society have been reduced to a generation of men that do nothing themselves, but have become anesthetized with watching others do things instead. Masculinity becomes a brand, a means to sell products to men. “Being a man” then becomes owning the right watch or car instead of knowing who you are and what your values really are.

As a result the Narrator, Tyler, and the other members Fight Club reject this spoon-fed approach to living and try tofind themselves. By putting themselves through the experience of fighting and facing fear and pain, they hope to strip away the unnecessary parts of their lives and discover their true selves.

The Narrator also experiences emasculation in the face of Tyler’s relationship with Marla he feels like he has lost his place next to Tyler, who embodies a perfected sense of masculinity. Ironically, Tyler exists in the Narrator’s mind as a prime male physical specimen. Something that is reminiscent of how advertising says men have to look. Without Tyler’s attention, the Narrator feels a rejection bordering onromantic jealousy.

The threat of castration exists throughout the book. First, the Narrator meets Bob at a support group for men who have lost their testicles to cancer. Later on, the threat of castration is used by Tyler and space monkeys to get the police commissioner to call off his investigation. The Narrator, too, is threatened with castration for trying to imagine, particularly because they feel they have just begun to appreciate their masculinity due to fight club and Project Mayhem.

Picture 4. Fight Club film adaptation cast

But hey, sex sells. Brad Pitt (playing Tyler Durden) surelooks like the advertising created ideal of masculinity, exactly what the novel and the film were supposed to be criticizing, but that compromise can be interpreted as an accidental critique, society is so fixed that even those who criticize it must adapt or they will not sell, their voice will not be heard.

So there it is, the reason why none of the social systemsseem to work when put to practice. People. People tend to ruin

everything, from nature to poetry. To themselves. And capitalism reflects exactly those flaws that make us ruin everything. A businessman, when making a business deal will automatically assume that the other businessman is trying to rob him, so he robs him first. Attack is the best defence. This is the prime principle of capitalism. Profit is the most important thing. Empathy is a luxury. Trust is more than a luxury; trust is simply foolish and naive. Being robbed once upon a time is the excuse for every person robbing someone. It’s a closed circle.

Ironically, the most successful capitalists are aware of these flaws and have no problem with abusing them, thus creating the consumerist culture based on advertising, advertising that abuses human nature, or rather human weaknessto sell products. The 7 billion people of this planet could not possibly agree on anything, except for one thing, and thatis that adverts are beyond stupid. But they work. They got us mesmerized. They have us buying things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.

Isn’t it time for us to start using our heads? These things we do are all to satisfy our primal instincts, being Alpha male, reproducing… There is little to none thinking involved in our decision making. People, you are the result ofbillions of years of evolution, start thinking accordingly.

.16 Capitalism, Consumerism, and Other Psychosis

Survival of the fittest. No excuses. Not for weakness. Anyone who fails is weak and deserves what they got.

Who can afford to get sick? Who has time to appreciate or create art? Who has time to enjoy a sunset? How can the poor pay for education? How can one profit if he can’t afford to invest?

The excuse most of us never visit our relatives, our own mother, is because there is no time. We spend our lives buying things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like. Is this really it? Is this the meaning of life? People seem to never stop and think about it. Hey, who has time to stop and think?!

Picture 5. Fan art with a quote from the novel42

Palahniuk attacks (violently) the abuse of men. Abuse of men by themselves among others. All for a profit. All for Swedish furniture. All for clever art. All for maple flooring.Let me put this in capitalist terms, “Is it worth it?”

Is living comfortably worth living a meaningless life? Isit, oh God’s middle children? The middle class people of developed countries are given so much; food, shelter, education. If someone thinks this is not much, they should read the statistics on how many people in the world don’t have these

42 Palahniuk, Chuck (1996). Fight Club, W. W. Norton, p.93.

basic necessities. And these people, the poor of third world countries, don’t have anything because they give everything tothe middle class people of developed countries, if we, for thesake of the argument, forget the filthy rich. And these people. These middle class people of developed countries, whatdo they do with everything they were given? Nothing. They get depressed for no reason. They eat drugs to fall asleep and to stay awake. To feel better, to feel less. They live a meaningless life. Buying cars and furniture they were told is “cool”. No love. No passion.

Palahniuk drives his protagonist mad in an attempt to show how insane, how mentally ill, our society is. Because hisprotagonist makes sense, he is smart and says the truth, and the truth is the reason why he is put in a mental institution.

People can’t accept the truth, because truth is the problem is not the system; “the system” is just another term for the people. Capitalism as an idea in theory is not bad, people are bad. Take religion, for example, a beautiful idea, propagates love and peace, but when put into practice by humanbeings it turns into jihads and the Spanish Inquisition. People have so much potential for beauty, we just choose the opposite.

3. THE PARADOX OF FIGHTING FOR A PEACEFUL IDEA

So, when taking into consideration everything Fight Club tells us, is there a way to take this philosophy and put it topractice?

Yes. But we can’t, because we are human beings. There can’tbe a simple answer. There cannot be one true answer. Because we are human beings. All of us individually have our own truths. I have never met a human being that is evil and enjoysdoing evil. It doesn’t exist. Beating a child is without question an evil thing to do, but when a father beats a child he thinks he is teaching a lesson. Or that was the lesson his father taught him. When a solider kills he believes he is

fighting for some purpose, for his country, for freedom. When a boy cheats on his girlfriend he doesn’t think about how it will make her feel. People have different beliefs and understandings of the world, what is wrong for some is right for others. This difference between us is something no change in system can solve. This is a problem we have to solve on ourown, from within ourselves. We will never all have the same opinions, so we have to learn to live together and tolerate different opinions.

Fight Club, with all its violence and vandalism, teaches us, in the end, that fighting is not a solution. We fight for our ideals, we fight to make people think and see things the same way we see them, we fight to solve our problems forgetting that fighting is the problem.

.17 Practice What You Preach

In fight club, the underground boxing organization, the members fight each other to learn about themselves; to change themselves; to evolve. Every feat of vandalism they do or plotto do is a message. The buildings that Tyler wants to blow up are all empty. Violence is not the point; violence is a means to a goal. The goal is the change of the self.

But how can we as readers put these ideas to use in the real world? Are we expected to beat each other and blow up buildings? I am sad to admit that a lot of people interpret Fight Club and similar books exactly so. This says a lot aboutpeople in itself.

So let’s try harder and seek for an interpretation that is at least not stupid. First thing that comes to mind, since Fight Club and fight club are both about learning about oneself and changing oneself, is that we as readers might think and work on our own selves. Individually. A great

problem of the world, which Fight Club indicates to, is that everybody seems to think they themselves have already evolved;they just need to work on getting the rest of the world to join them in the bliss of evolution. That is simply arrogance.Fight Club in essence doesn’t offer a solution; it offers a means to reach a solution. Because this is a problem we must all solve for ourselves, within ourselves.

Picture 6. The trademark Fight Club soap

Palahniuk describes fights in fight club, he depicts insomnia, he guides us through meditation away from the pain of being terminally ill to his power animal’s cave, we can feel everything the Narrator feels, we can see everything he sees, we reach enlightenment as he reaches it. There is no enlightenment. That is what enlightenment is, learning that

there is no enlightenment. There is no revolution that will provide a happy ever after. Even when we reach the right beliefs, when we make the right choices, we will still question, we will still be tested. Daily. What we can do is goout, have a beer with our friends in the local pub and talk about Fight Club and similar books, discuss everything, seek the truth through listening and giving arguments, and try to have fun along the way.

.18 Preach What You Practice

This is the age of information. Information is power. In the sense that information is a form of knowledge. In this ageof information knowledge is often abused. Disinformation is also power. Propaganda is control. Manipulation. We as the people, ordinary people who want not much more than food on our table and a roof over our heads, people who want somethingfor everyone as opposed to people who want everything from themselves, we have a sacred responsibility to inform and warnour fellow human beings of the truth. This is what Fight Club is. This is what fight club is. Counter-propaganda.

Picture 7. Fight Club novel cover

People think of revolution as anarchy, chaos, coup d’étatsand war, but we have already tried that many times over. History repeated itself enough. This is a revolution in the self, a revolution of the spirit and the mind. And before thisrevolution, no actual change can happen. We change governmentsand leaders, we change our social systems and nothing really changes… Because we have not changed. Man is still as he was; a great

deal of animal in him; he is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive, competitive. And he has built a society along these lines.

Fight Club doesn’t advocate vandalism; it invites us as readers to use our own heads. To think for ourselves and not be manipulated by advertising and political propaganda, to strike and quit our mundane, repetitive, soul-sucking job if we hate it so much, and we all do. And rightly so! The workplace, the advertising, the propaganda, it is all designedto keep us in line. We must abandon this illusion of safety inorder to be free.

“It’s only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything.”

Satisfying our IKEA nesting instinct won’t satisfy our soul, so what’s the point? Life is not about achieving a goal, collecting all the best toys, completing an inventory of furniture, buying the coolest car, life is about the journey. Enlightenment cannot be reached, it can only be lived.

We will never reach our goal, but if we ever did what would we do? Wouldn’t that mean that life is over? People forget, sharing with others, watching a game of football with friends, working on a car you like, that’s life. That is happiness.

“Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let… let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they may.”43

Tyler says this while he and the Narrator are at a bar having a bear. This is it. This is what we should do. Go to a bar, have a bear, talk. Maybe we reach some conclusion. Maybe we don’t. Even if we don’t we will learn something. And even if we don’t learn anything, hey, we had a bear with a friend, that’s nice, isn’t it?

The problem is that we try to resolve every problem with guns or fists. Or at the very least yelling. There is no

43 Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. 20th Century Fox, 1999. Film.

civilized conversation. Arguments have become synonymous with fighting. There is no discussion. That’s why Tyler invites us to evolve. We still act like mindless beasts, buy sports cars we cannot afford in hope that it will get us laid. Disputes over turf are resolved by brute force. Survival of the fittest. And we have built a society along these lines.

Violence breeds violence. Revenge. It’s a never ending cycle. Lay down the guns, die a fool. Maybe in a generation ortwo you will be remembered as the first man who was ever right. Maybe students with beards will protest reminding the world of your courageous death. Maybe it will be a giant leap for humanity. Hey, remember? We have nothing, thus we have nothing to lose.

I know we have a lot, I appreciate, but don’t tell me you are happy and satisfied… Because you wouldn’t die so much fromstress related illnesses and consume so much drugs that release anxiety. I know we have a lot, but comparing with whatwe are entitled to, we have nothing. This is our world. Not Carlos Slim’s. Our. Everyone’s.

So practice what you preach and preach what you practice. Spread the word. If you have this knowledge you are obliged toshare it. This is much like being a witness to a murder, you know it is dangerous to do the right thing, but it is the rightthing. You are witnessing a global crime, your fellow human beings are being abused everywhere, you have to do something, anything. Organize a Talk Club if you are afraid of fighting, sit down with a couple of friends, have a couple of laughs anddiscuss ideas. Talk. Information is power. Knowledge is power.Spread the word.

4. CONCLUSION

To conclude, Fight Club is above all a critique of the system, but Fight Club implies that the system is not some mysterious force, it is only us. Fight Club criticizes and proposes a change in the system, thus a change in ourselves. It depicts the insanity of the modern consumer culture in all its glory. The novel criticizes advertising and political

propaganda telling us how to live, because of that the novel itself does not tell us how to live, how to achieve this change, it only claims that change is necessary and that we have to think for ourselves because that is the only way to achieve true change.

Picture 8. Fight Club soap with the first rule imprinted

Palahniuk when asked what Fight Club is about stated, “All mybooks are about a lonely person trying to connect with other people.”

To apply Fight Club philosophy in our own reality we as readers need to follow this simple advice and connect with other people. That is the solution. That is the revolution.

Break the very first rule, talk about Fight Club.

Picture 9. People are rebellious by nature

REFERENCES

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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