I realized something important about the movie Fight Club.
As has been a recurring theme with my writing lately, Fight Club is a movie from the late 1990s which is seeped in postmodernism.
You can look at Fight club as a story with a 3 act structure:
1. The narrator begins to reject the society he lives in, resulting in meeting Tyler Durden and starting Fight Club.
2. The narrator engages with Tyler's new structure, Project Mayhem, which seems like an evolution of Fight Club after the former tore down all the structures that the people engaging in it lived within.
3. The narrator comes to understand the fact that Project Mayhem is not a good structure for life, acts against it, relying on a more traditional and humanistic model which relies on traditional morality and ultimately returns to some institutions that were lost.
One thing I want to start with is a reminder that in a previous essay, I defined our current era as the "postmodern era". Defining the "modern era" as from roughly the enlightenment to roughly the end of World War 2, the postmodern era began after the end of World War 2 as the western world grappled with the fact that the western world in the modern era which considered itself to be morally, philosophically, technologically, theologically, and practically superior to anything else was able to have first the meat grinder that was World War 1, and second the abomination that was World War 2 and in particular the atrocities of the Germans who were considered the most enlightened people in the modern world.
In Fight Club, we see a world already torn down by postmodernism. Traditional institutions such as the church, family, community, and morality are essentially eliminated, leaving only consumerism as the value that's "allowed" to exist. In this reading, consumerist culture becomes a simulacrum for the sort of fundamental things humans seek. Instead of building a life, the narrator fills his apartment with furniture that represents building a life, a simulacrum of the thing, empty and hollow in practice. "A fridge full of condiments, but no food". He finds some measure of meaning in the support groups for testicular cancer, because although he knows he's fake, the people around him feel real, and he's drawn to that. "Slide", says the talking penguin in his first hallucination, suggesting a fun ride. Marla Singer arriving at the support groups, a woman who is also clearly just as detached and fake as he is, reflects the truth that he doesn't belong in these groups. " 's a lie" she says, similar to the penguin but instead reflecting the truth of the matter in front of him, that even this deeply real thing he's found is for him a simulacrum of meaning because in the same way a floppy disk can save data but a save button shaped like a floppy disk does not, his engagment in the support groups is false even if the support group is real.
The initial solution for the narrator is more postmodernism. Tyler Durden and the narrator end up tearing down consumer culture as one of the last things remaining, tearing down corporate grand narratives, tearing down the civilizational politeness that keeps people from just fighting one another in the streets, and at first that rebellion feels cathartic. In the middle of the first act, the narrator and Tyler attack marriage, "I dunno, get Married." I can't get married...", showing a rejection of other forms of meaning, tradition, and grand narratives.
The second act has Tyler creating Project Mayhem. Project Mayhem is sort of a modern implementation of postmodernism. After wiping away everything and deconstructing everything, the new project combines postmodern deconstruction with a disturbingly modernist impulse for structure and purpose. It’s postmodern in how its entire purpose is to tear down society's structures, hierarchies, and grand narratives. But it’s also modernist in how it operates with military precision, rigid hierarchies, and a clear mission. It is cult-like because unlike postmodernism proper which tore down all meaning and grand narratives, it tore everything down and replaced it with a cult of personality around psychopath Tyler Durden.
One thing that's interesting about both Fight Club and Project Mayhem is that the sort of modernist impulse for structure and purpose is compelling for men, and so even today men end up creating their own Fight Clubs hoping to find meaning in the authenticity of punching another person or taking a punch from another person.
The third act starts as the narrator begins to realize that Project Mayhem is evil. It seeks to tear down existing power structures, but what remains is violent, results in the death of good people, and eventually is revealed to be built upon the ultimate simulacrum -- Tyler Durden himself, who is just a figment of the narrator's imagination. In the face of real consequences from blowing up a bunch of buildings, and the real violence and oppression Project Mayhem reveals to be engaged in, the narrator begins to realize in a sense that there are such a thing as values, meaning, and some measure of sense in the universe. In realizing that such things exist, it becomes the mission of the narrator to engage with the real work of trying to do the right thing and stop the bombs. In the end, what he really needs to do is to reject the nihilistic postmodern impulse embodied in Tyler Durden by symbolically killing himself. At the end of the movie, the narrator is joined by Marla, representing his embrace if not of marriage, of real connection and the institution of some measure of traditional relationships. The last line of the movie, "You met me at a strange time in my life" suggests some measure of resolution to the existential conflict which created Tyler, though the injection of meaning in his life does not necessarily solve all his problems since the bombs go off.
From a certain perspective, our present postmodern establishment can be viewed through a certain lens to resemble Project Mayhem. It too takes a postmodern deconstruction of society and creates a new set of rules, a new hierarchy, a new grand narrative that paradoxically claims to be centered around deconstructing society. Just like Project Mayhem, it creates a global community of acolytes who are willing to engage in horrible acts which violate natural law (violations of human rights, promotion of political violence, harm to innocent individuals or their property) to continue their project in pursuit of a utopia. And just like our narrator, people around the world are starting to reject the modernist implementation of postmodernism because the paradoxes result in negative outcomes. Societies have always tested new ideas, and will continue to, but while the allure of postmodernism was initially quite powerful just like Tyler's Fight club, the damage done by it will be similarly real just like the collapsing credit card buildings at the end of the movie. Similar to the movie, we're starting to see society embrace traditional values once again, wiser through the process of deconstruction and reconstruction.
As has been a recurring theme with my writing lately, Fight Club is a movie from the late 1990s which is seeped in postmodernism.
You can look at Fight club as a story with a 3 act structure:
1. The narrator begins to reject the society he lives in, resulting in meeting Tyler Durden and starting Fight Club.
2. The narrator engages with Tyler's new structure, Project Mayhem, which seems like an evolution of Fight Club after the former tore down all the structures that the people engaging in it lived within.
3. The narrator comes to understand the fact that Project Mayhem is not a good structure for life, acts against it, relying on a more traditional and humanistic model which relies on traditional morality and ultimately returns to some institutions that were lost.
One thing I want to start with is a reminder that in a previous essay, I defined our current era as the "postmodern era". Defining the "modern era" as from roughly the enlightenment to roughly the end of World War 2, the postmodern era began after the end of World War 2 as the western world grappled with the fact that the western world in the modern era which considered itself to be morally, philosophically, technologically, theologically, and practically superior to anything else was able to have first the meat grinder that was World War 1, and second the abomination that was World War 2 and in particular the atrocities of the Germans who were considered the most enlightened people in the modern world.
In Fight Club, we see a world already torn down by postmodernism. Traditional institutions such as the church, family, community, and morality are essentially eliminated, leaving only consumerism as the value that's "allowed" to exist. In this reading, consumerist culture becomes a simulacrum for the sort of fundamental things humans seek. Instead of building a life, the narrator fills his apartment with furniture that represents building a life, a simulacrum of the thing, empty and hollow in practice. "A fridge full of condiments, but no food". He finds some measure of meaning in the support groups for testicular cancer, because although he knows he's fake, the people around him feel real, and he's drawn to that. "Slide", says the talking penguin in his first hallucination, suggesting a fun ride. Marla Singer arriving at the support groups, a woman who is also clearly just as detached and fake as he is, reflects the truth that he doesn't belong in these groups. " 's a lie" she says, similar to the penguin but instead reflecting the truth of the matter in front of him, that even this deeply real thing he's found is for him a simulacrum of meaning because in the same way a floppy disk can save data but a save button shaped like a floppy disk does not, his engagment in the support groups is false even if the support group is real.
The initial solution for the narrator is more postmodernism. Tyler Durden and the narrator end up tearing down consumer culture as one of the last things remaining, tearing down corporate grand narratives, tearing down the civilizational politeness that keeps people from just fighting one another in the streets, and at first that rebellion feels cathartic. In the middle of the first act, the narrator and Tyler attack marriage, "I dunno, get Married." I can't get married...", showing a rejection of other forms of meaning, tradition, and grand narratives.
The second act has Tyler creating Project Mayhem. Project Mayhem is sort of a modern implementation of postmodernism. After wiping away everything and deconstructing everything, the new project combines postmodern deconstruction with a disturbingly modernist impulse for structure and purpose. It’s postmodern in how its entire purpose is to tear down society's structures, hierarchies, and grand narratives. But it’s also modernist in how it operates with military precision, rigid hierarchies, and a clear mission. It is cult-like because unlike postmodernism proper which tore down all meaning and grand narratives, it tore everything down and replaced it with a cult of personality around psychopath Tyler Durden.
One thing that's interesting about both Fight Club and Project Mayhem is that the sort of modernist impulse for structure and purpose is compelling for men, and so even today men end up creating their own Fight Clubs hoping to find meaning in the authenticity of punching another person or taking a punch from another person.
The third act starts as the narrator begins to realize that Project Mayhem is evil. It seeks to tear down existing power structures, but what remains is violent, results in the death of good people, and eventually is revealed to be built upon the ultimate simulacrum -- Tyler Durden himself, who is just a figment of the narrator's imagination. In the face of real consequences from blowing up a bunch of buildings, and the real violence and oppression Project Mayhem reveals to be engaged in, the narrator begins to realize in a sense that there are such a thing as values, meaning, and some measure of sense in the universe. In realizing that such things exist, it becomes the mission of the narrator to engage with the real work of trying to do the right thing and stop the bombs. In the end, what he really needs to do is to reject the nihilistic postmodern impulse embodied in Tyler Durden by symbolically killing himself. At the end of the movie, the narrator is joined by Marla, representing his embrace if not of marriage, of real connection and the institution of some measure of traditional relationships. The last line of the movie, "You met me at a strange time in my life" suggests some measure of resolution to the existential conflict which created Tyler, though the injection of meaning in his life does not necessarily solve all his problems since the bombs go off.
From a certain perspective, our present postmodern establishment can be viewed through a certain lens to resemble Project Mayhem. It too takes a postmodern deconstruction of society and creates a new set of rules, a new hierarchy, a new grand narrative that paradoxically claims to be centered around deconstructing society. Just like Project Mayhem, it creates a global community of acolytes who are willing to engage in horrible acts which violate natural law (violations of human rights, promotion of political violence, harm to innocent individuals or their property) to continue their project in pursuit of a utopia. And just like our narrator, people around the world are starting to reject the modernist implementation of postmodernism because the paradoxes result in negative outcomes. Societies have always tested new ideas, and will continue to, but while the allure of postmodernism was initially quite powerful just like Tyler's Fight club, the damage done by it will be similarly real just like the collapsing credit card buildings at the end of the movie. Similar to the movie, we're starting to see society embrace traditional values once again, wiser through the process of deconstruction and reconstruction.
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