I don't know how I got away with this, but I managed to write a philosophy essay on Fight Club.
Thus Spoke Tyler Durden: Nietzsche through a modern lens
Friedrich Nietzsche believed his ideas were ahead of their time, that he was in truth writing in a world not yet ready to hear the criticism he was levelling at Western culture, a sentiment articulated most clearly in Zarathustra’s Prologue. His philosophy concerned itself primarily with the ‘Death of God’, nihilism, and the possible responses to it. In particular, he warned against the rise of secular utilitarianism, and as a counter-point offered a new ideal to strive for in the shape of the ‘Superman’, or continually evolving ‘over-man’ that seeks to constantly discard itself and become something more. Thematically, Nietzsche’s philosophy is very much one that deals with the nature of human existence and experience, and like Marx before him, acknowledges the influence of historical circumstance on all facets of Western culture, especially the philosophy and science of the Enlightenment. Given his appreciation of historical context, and belief that his work came before the world was ready to acknowledge it, it is worthwhile to compare the works of contemporary scholars and artists, social commentators dealing with contemporary culture, with Nietzsche’s philosophical works to ascertain the relevance of his views to modern society.[1] For such purposes, I believe contrasting Nietzsche’s philosophy as portrayed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra with the novel Fight Club by author Chuck Palahniuk will serve to show that Nietzsche’s ideas are every bit as relevant today as they were in the 1880s, that society at large is still unready to accept his criticism, and also show where Nietzsche himself proved unable to live up to his own ideals.
Before critically evaluating how these two books compare and contrast, it is worth establishing why these two works in particular are suited to such close comparison. The authors themselves, Friedrich Nietzsche and Chuck Palahniuk are both provocative, challenging writers that confront their readers with uncomfortable issues dealt with in a blunt yet compelling manner. Inescapable in all the works of these two writers is the outright contempt they express for the utilitarian herd, the common man personified in Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the form of the Ultimate Man. Both Fight Club and Thus Spoke Zarathustra focus on a prophetic character heralding a new post-nihilist era of human vitality through a process of destruction and creation, tearing down the old order that Nietzsche would consider the ‘Shadows of God’ in order to establish new values and modes to live your life. The structure of Fight Club, in which the unnamed Narrator interacts in concert and in conflict with what is revealed to be his subconscious alter-ego Tyler Durden, in the process destroying his place of residence, his job, and his previously established world view and manifold of values in order to become Tyler Durden, is itself a dramatic portrayal of Nietzsche’s view on how one should comport their life as a process of destruction of one’s old self and appropriation of the world around you to create something new.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is most damning in his opposition to the Ultimate Man, his symbolic representative of secular utilitarianism and the irreligious Christian, characterized as a world-weary, mediocre, enervated man. Throughout Nietzsche’s writings runs this common thread of loathing for the simple, meagre, stupid and altogether common man unwilling to rise above himself, content to work just enough, to pursue pleasure just enough, to rest and live a sheltered, unremarkable life. Those content with mere life and mere health are seen as a perversion and insult to what Nietzsche believes is the only healthy and honest way to live, which is to affirm to the fullest extent an altogether more vital aspect of ‘Life’ and ‘Health’ as driving forces rather than things to be carefully ‘balanced’. It is important to note that Fight Club is situated in a culture informed by, and in fact determined by, a societal change that occurred immediately after Nietzsche’s lifetime that propelled the utilitarian ‘Ultimate Man’ ideal into dominance, namely the rise of the Consumer Society. The ultimate expression of Nietzsche’s Herd Morality, perhaps even his most nightmarish vision come to life, Fight Club exists under the shadow of the utilitarian herd-society where faceless corporations dominate, where space will be explored and exploited by corporate entities and “Every planet will take on the corporate identity of whoever rapes it first... The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Philip Morris Galaxy. Planet Denny’s.”[2] Zarathustra’s warning of the Ultimate Man as being one who takes “A little poison now and then: that makes for agreeable dreams. And a lot of poison at the end, for an agreeable dying.”[3] is realized in the Narrator’s situation in Fight Club, an insomniac begging for “little blue Amytal Sodium capsules” and “red-and-blue Tuinal bullet capsules” to help him sleep.[4] The Narrator identifies he is a part of the consumer culture, a slave to the ‘IKEA nesting instinct’, a man who is owned by the very things he owns.[5] Tyler Durden’s aphorisms recited by the followers of his movement proclaim “Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don’t need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don’t really need.”[6] Very much in line with Zarathustra’s observation that the Ultimate Man works for entertainment,[7] and the concern expressed in Fight Club is certainly relevant and accurate, as the “Magic System” of advertising that causes false needs is much discussed in sociology, for example by Leiss et al. in Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption in the mediated marketplace.[8] Rather than enduring the hardships that will form better character, the people depicted Fight Club exist in denial of the world’s cruelty. The Narrator resorts to guided meditation to distance himself from pain,[9]> the support groups he attends have sanitized names like “Above and Beyond” rather than “Brain Parasites”, and the cancer victims and other sufferers lie about their prospects, claiming to be improving and on the up-and-up.[10]> Concern about the painful or unpleasant aspects of the world is portrayed as an insincere exercise in vanity, with the observation that “maybe Walter’s thinking about a meatless, pain-free potluck he went to last weekend or the ozone of the Earth’s desperate need to stop cruel product testing on animals, but probably he’s not.”[11] The conditions that motivated Nietzsche’s perspective in the late 1800s are even more prominent now in a media-saturated consumer-culture, and are taking on an increasingly grotesque and cruel form, killing through apathy and complacency. Fight Club highlights the darkest aspects of Nietzsche’s belittling and casually belligerent Ultimate Man, most profoundly with the cynical observation of the Narrator’s job as an automobile recall co-ordinator, where death and human suffering is reduced to a simple equation to make it easier for the perpetrators to manage.
Nietzsche’s response to the Ultimate Man was to propose that mankind fix a new goal, that of the Superman. Rather than a fixed state, the ideal of the Superman is a deliberately unattainable point to focus on, investing the value of pursuit of this ideal in the process rather than the destination. The Narrator of Palahniuk’s Fight Club has literally internalized this process of discarding the old personality in order to obtain the new one, perpetually reinventing himself through the destruction of his previous life. Many aphorisms and desperate pleas by the Narrator and his alter-ego reference this theme, particularly the central mantra of Fight Club:
Deliver me from Swedish furniture.
Deliver me from clever art.
May I never be complete.
May I never be content.
May I never be perfect.
Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete.[12]
Deliver me from clever art.
May I never be complete.
May I never be content.
May I never be perfect.
Deliver me, Tyler, from being perfect and complete.[12]
Perpetual destruction to make way for a new self and a new world truly defines Tyler Durden throughout the novel, it determines the state the Narrator is trying to achieve. In attempting to become his alter-ego, the Narrator destroys his condominium home with home-made dynamite, abandons his support groups, and assumes a new life as founder of underground ‘fight clubs’. When he has achieved this and becomes complacent of what he has achieved, he blackmails his employers, converts his house into barracks, and begins a social guerrilla movement called Project Mayhem with the fixed goal of breaking society up and tearing it down to make way for a new world order. When he has built his army of ‘space-monkeys’ and is worshipped as a hero, he once more plans to sacrifice the life he has, this time decentralising the movement and attempting to martyr himself with the controlled demolition of the world’s tallest building in order to crush a museum and blast free of the grasp of history. Throughout his continual evolution, constant reference is made to destruction and evolution. “At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves”[13], “Disaster is a natural part of my evolution... toward tragedy and dissolution. I’m breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions, because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit”[14],”Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything, that you’re free to do anything.”[15] Tyler claims the greatest moment in the Narrator’s life is the point where he inflicts upon himself the greatest physical pain he will ever know with the lye burn, to shock him into acknowledging that he will die some day and to abandon his utilitarian, ‘safe’ preconceptions. To ‘hit bottom’. The most real moment of his life where all that came before and all that will follow is merely a story in comparison. During this process, Tyler details a story of sacrifice that would lead to the discovery of soap, the item synonymous with civilization was discovered through human sacrifice, and without human sacrifice we would have nothing.[16] The Narrator’s/Tyler’s plan to create a new world, is to shock people out of complacency and the herd mentality, to confront people with challenges to awaken in them the will to fight and the sense of power and possibility they possess if only they are willing to suffer and sacrifice. The Project Mayhem homework assignment to provoke fights with strangers in order to show them their power and fighting spirit, and awaken them from the utilitarian malaise, is a more direct and physical version of Nietzsche’s fondness of provoking people intellectually to shock them into a desire to engage with their beliefs and assumptions critically and consider alternative perspectives. This is even more forcefully achieved through the process known in the novel as ‘Human Sacrifice’, where members of the Assault Committee of Project Mayhem seek out individuals representative of the ‘minimum-wage slave’ and hold them at gunpoint, taking their drivers license and leaving them the ultimatum that if they aren’t well on their way to realizing their dreams within a given period, the gunman will return and kill them. This is a far more forceful and external practice than Nietzsche’s urging to follow a personal philosophy of health and evolution.
There are obvious parallels between Fight Club and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Tyler Durden is certainly a modern representation of the creation of an idealized Superman/Overman for one to pursue, but there is still a great deal of difference between the vision portrayed by Palahniuk, and the ideal Zarathustra claims to herald. Tyler Durden is a far more externally-active agent than Nietzsche’s inwardly-focussed Superman. In essence Tyler is more a social activist than a process of personal development. More striking, however, is the fact that although clever and capable, Durden is far less refined than Nietzsche’s Superman drive. Nietzsche strongly supported the ‘noble’ ideal, that he referred to as the ‘Master’ morality, which he described as loving tradition and despising the new, an opinion completely contrasted by Durden’s plan to destroy a national museum because “This is our world, now, our world, and those ancient people are dead.” In this perhaps it can be seen that Nietzsche could not surmount his own desire to hold onto tradition and relinquish history to the flux and flow of time; that he is weak in clinging desperately to history and attempting to fix it solidly when it should be allowed to be destroyed, sacrifice it to affirm the changing world. Even so, the Narrator’s motivation in creating Tyler Durden is a desire to be noticed, to no longer be ‘God’s middle children’.[17] Tyler Durden exists not to embrace the freedom of a post-nihilistic world where God is dead and buried, but to act out in petulant anger to force God to take him back. Not only is the creation of Tyler an attempt to gain God’s notice, the Narrator is unable to continually sacrifice himself and become his alter-ego. In Tyler’s final act, he subconsciously sabotages his attempted martyrdom.[18]
Ultimately, the novel Fight Club is a modern exploration of someone struggling to live up to Nietzsche’s ideal of the Superman, unable to escape the herd society that Nietzsche warned us against. Far from a perfect example of perpetual self-overcoming, this book highlights the difficulties involved in attempting to live your life in pursuit of the Superman, emphasising that it will never be a complete process, that it is one doomed to failure, and that that very failure is perhaps the purpose itself. As we are told in the Narrator’s recollection of the very first time he ‘meets’ Tyler Durden:
One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.
Nietzsche was naturally suspicious of universal truths, and perhaps set an impossible goal because a useful lie is enough.
[1] The subtitle of Beyond Good and Evil, “Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future”, simply begs us to consider Nietzsche’s philosophy in the context of the times we now live in, to see how well his assumption has held up!
[2] Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Adelaide, 1997, p.171.
[3] Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Trans. Graham Parkes, New York, 2005, p.16.
[4] Palahniuk, p.19.
[5] Palahniuk, pp.43-44
[6] Palahniuk, p.149
[7] Nietzsche, p.16
[8] Leiss et al., ‘Advertising in the Transition From Industrial to Consumer Society’, Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption in the mediated marketplace, London, N.Y., 2005, pp.83-87.
[9] Palahniuk, p.75.
[10] Palahniuk, pp.34-35
[11] Palahniuk, p.55.
[12] Palahniuk, p.46.
[13] Palahniuk, p.52.
[14] Palahniuk, p.110.
[15] Palahniuk, p.70.
[16] Palahniuk, pp.151-152
[17] Palahniuk, pp.140-142
[18] Palahniuk, p.205
