As you know I’m a big fan of fiction work. Stories are extremely powerful and a poorly told story often has more power than a wonderful executed fact based case. Stories are what motivate and cause humans to strive. There is a reason that things like The Iliad are still told hundreds of years later or the works of Shakespeare or The Bible. Too often fiction is seen as something juvenile and “below” a man with intelligence, but this is foolish.
Stories are incredibly powerful to both explain messages (much better than facts ever will) as well as motivate or instill beliefs in yourself or others. Again stories have power, tremendous power. Something I want to do is take more time to discuss stories and great works of fiction and how they relate to men. I want to start a series on this and talk about the masculine themes and messages of books.
The book that I wanted to start with is Fight Club. I know for many Fight Club was the first “red pill” book that they ever read or were exposed to. It went against the soul and nut crushing consumerist white collar existence of 90-00’s era and was one of the first “dissonant signals” from the mainstream. Or at least one of the first dissonant signals to make it big time and become a culture wide phenomenon. And I think it’s important that we talk about why.
The Popularity Of Fight Club
I recently reread the book and read an addition chapter written by the author Chuck Palahniuk and thought for a second there may be a case of an artist not understanding the appeal of his art (something more common than you would think). I say this because when talking about the popularity of Fight Club he said it wasn’t about the fighting but rather about the rules. Now granted this was one sentence and he circled back around at the end to talk about the fighting aspect but frankly I don’t think Fight Club would be nearly as popular as it was without fighting or something equally primal.
Most males living in Western society have felt caged and neutered for some time. Though most didn’t really know ways to express this or articulate it fluently the general feeling was there. What Fight Club did was give voice to this in some form. The aspect of fighting represented a primal release for men who felt caged in and neutered by their bosses, wives, governments, and society at whole. Cracking someone’s jaw or even getting your own jaw cracked has a way of releasing this built up tension and helping a man remember what it means to be a man. Something many males have not felt in a very long time. This spoke to something on a primal level in man’s soul.
Primal release if you will. And it’s critique of consumerism/corporate culture (modern capitalism) also spoke to something deep on a man’s soul, again even if they couldn’t quite articulate it themselves. While there are many themes of Fight Club (and the themes will vary depending on who you ask) there is a very obvious one of primal release. Those who say that this was just a psychological thriller are missing out on a whole lot.
Expanding On The Themes
Two big themes that stood out to me going back through it was as I was discussing primal release as well as a critique/satire of corporate/consumerism (two huge threats to masculinity). I have never met a man with healthy testosterone levels (who was not a high level executive) who had anything good to say about working in the modern American (or Western) corporations. Between HR, smarmy bosses, politics, and just general bullshit few men who aren’t at the top don’t want to burn the whole thing to the ground.
And Fight Club allowed them to do this in a way. Bomb the building they worked in, kill their boss, but without all the annoying jail time and such. Most men wish they could be Tyler Durden if only in a dream. No rules, complete freedom, to have real actual meaning in life, to live with a heart beating in your chest and a spirit that was actually alive, even if your body was beaten and bruised and mind a little warped. To trade their safety for freedom. Or at least that’s what I saw and believe is at least part of the appeal.
Primal Ways, Primal Laws, Primal Life
Primal sex, primal fighting, primal life. The more of these things you can get the happier you’ll generally be. Whether that’s nailing a girl you met a coffee sharp harder than she’s been nailed in her life or getting cracked in sparring and getting up and saying “Damn, let’s do that again”. Granted these things are just things to keep from going crazy or having your soul crushed but in our day and age there’s not much else. The sheepdogs will kill you should you try to start a clan or tribe of your own and take space and resources in any meaningful way (land and women especially).
And Fight Club highlights this, at least to some extent. Granted with art there’s generally always different interpretations. Regardless of what you personally took from Fight Club (and if you haven’t read it then give it a read) there are certainly themes of masculinity, meaning, and freedom.
Primal themes that bugmen (I think this word is being overused by it sums the product of modern capitalist democracies perfectly) just aren’t going to be capable of understanding. Sort of like when a limp wristed professor at some college tries to write a biography of a man of greatness and action. He has an inferior soul (the professor) and therefore will never be able to understand or capture the person he is writing about. Pretty much true of anyone who analyzes things with a post-modernist lens or something similar.
Regardless I’d recommend you get a copy of Fight Club even if you’ve seen the movie. Maybe you’ll seem some similarities, maybe you’ll think “What book was Charles reading”, or maybe you’ll find something unique. There are certainly good lessons to be learned in the book as Tyler says “Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing”. A quote to live by.
