A Fight Club Philosophy
"Fight Club"'s Tyler Durden expresses a violent anti-consumerist ideology in the name of self-esteem
In Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club,” Tyler Durden taught us that “advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy s**t we don’t need.” Even though Durden turned out to be a mental creation, who recruited a private army to blow up a dozen skyscraper credit-card offices, his philosophy remains true to the present. Indeed, researchers have discovered a causal relationship between materialism and low self-esteem: the more you buy, the less happy you will be, contrary to which, the happier you are, the less you buy. But what’s the deal? What do buying Sidekicks, CDs, designer clothes, house plants and better cell phones have to do with how we feel about ourselves?
Part of the answer lies in the research of Lan Nguyen Chaplin of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Deborah Roedder John of the University of Minnesota. They discovered that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreases materialism, providing a way to cope with insecurity. Materialism is used to fix low self-esteem in many different ways, from buying a Corvette in order to overcome a mid-life crisis to buying a nice sweater after having a bad day.
Some people buy skimpy or fashionable clothing to show off their bodies or to attract attention. “By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth,” Chaplin and John noted.
The paradox is that consumerism is good for the economy, but ultimately bad for the soul. For example, the economy prospers when we buy new wardrobes every season, but this also implies that our value is extrinsic, not essential. There are also the financial costs of heavy materialism, not to mention the environmental effects.
Just about all of us want more income so that we can consume more. For some, this is the core reason for attending college, so we can earn the credentials to find a better-paying job in order to afford better stuff. Durden’s philosophy is opposed to the idea of consumerism. But studies show that as societies become richer, they don’t necessarily become happier. The First World (the United States, Japan, Britain and Europe) now exhibits more depression, alcoholism and crime than 50 years ago when people couldn’t find collector’s-edition DVDs or singing, plastic trout on the store shelves. This is not to say that capitalism and consumerism is emotional suicide, but that more is less.
The environment also suffers due to this increased want for material treasures. For example, take bottled water. Do people really need to spend money on a 20-pack of something that they can get for free at home? Studies show that bottled water, which contributes to the exhaustion of resources, usually isn’t any purer than your kitchen faucet.
Mad Magazine says, “The only reason a great many American families don’t own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.” And it’s true. The only reason people want whatever is “hot,” be it iPhones, video games or fashionable clothing, is because they all believe it will contribute to their ultimate happiness and satisfaction with life.
Essentially, they see an ad, and buy whatever was advertised. And the process continues. Living in a house, sleeping in a bed and wearing clothes doesn’t mean you’re terminally depressed, but buying $80 jeans and spending money on a new cell phone, simply because your old one didn’t have a camera will, in most cases, relate to your sense of self-esteem.
By ~Tinct
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I love how the top of this page is riddled with advertisements for s**t I don’t need. Good article though!
But if nothing matters, wouldn’t you become a big a*****e? lets say you accidentally hurt someone, say a girlfriend or boyfriend, wouldn’t it be bad to just not give a s**t?
I find that people who always want the “new thing that everyone craves” get annoying. One of my friends was very materialistic, and that fact annoyed me, even before I turned anti-materialistic. He also told stories that weren’t true just to make himself look cooler. Now I’m not even friends with him.
My point is that my ex-friend’s materialism annoyed many people, especially the poor kids, such as me and another friend, yet the rich kids didn’t mind him. Rich people obviously will have more luxuries than I’ll even have, and they think wanting many things is natural. I don’t think wanting excessive amounts of things is natural. As for saying my ex-friend told stories to make himself look cooler, I said that because I believe he did that to boost him self esteem by making him look better to his peers.
I once talked to a person who said he didn’t get a lot of things as a child, so now as a teenager he spoiled himself by going to the mall every month and buying $80+ clothes. My friend and I reacted by asking him why he would waste so much money when he could buy perfectly good clothes for $10. He didn’t have much of an answer, but just told us, “Hey, I barely know you, so you do your s**t and I do my s**t.”
Materialistic people seem to be terrible companions, as Dedicated Follower Of My Way said. The only people who seem to be good companions to the materialistic ones are other materialistic people.
Now on to my own experiences of being less materialistic. As most humans, I buy stuff. I buy cheap shirts because their funny, and even make shirts that are offensive to the deans at my high school. I’ve never bought many things, more than half the stuff that I own is from Christmas (my family just celebrates it, but we’re not Christian) and my birthday. But sometimes I’ll buy something, have the high for a day or two, then I’ll realize I never needed it, and feel sad I wasted the money to buy it. Sometimes I have the feeling that I need to buy something, then I think, ‘Just don’t buy it, in two days you’ll forget about it.’
For only four months I’ve been very anti-materialistic, and I’ve felt much better about myself. I’ve done crazy stuff that make people really like me for my courage, or people who hate me for what I think. But I don’t care what those people think, if I got to know them, I just wouldn’t like them, and why should a person care what an enemy thinks of him?
I don’t know if this has anything to do with my good self esteem, but nine months ago I found out my dad was dying of cancer. He’s still alive, and living much longer than the doctors thought he would live. But maybe now that a family member is dying, I know that I’m not invincible like many people think they are. I know I’ll die, many people buy things to dull the thought that they’ll die. I know I’ll die, but it makes me let go of past experiences faster. Something bad happened, and my dad made me feel better by saying, “If you did do it, just remember, you’ll end up dying, so there’s no reason to mope around about something that won’t matter after you’re dead, its something that won’t even matter in a month!”
Weird way to make your child feel better, tell him stuff doesn’t matter because you’ll die anyway, right?
Well perhaps you misunderstood what i said, to truly go against the grain you will lose out in a society that is completely built upon materialism, you have to be a hermit or leave outside of cities and towns and making a living that way is very difficult and i never said the most materialistic make the best companions .. that is my opinion but in society the socialite and successful and always materialistic.
jacks confusion. You say that those who are the most materialistic make the best companions, are you serious? It’s those who can see beyond materialism that are the far better companions.
Also I have gone against the grain for decades and I am nowhere near being broken, in fact I laugh at people who try to demean me because as I point out to them, they are the ones who spend a 100+ on trainers while I can get trainers that look just as nice for a 10th the price and last just as long. =)
The true “fashion victims” are those who follow it like a religion
OK so all the stuff u said in the article is true, but one cannot live in a materialistic society by going against the grain, simply u wont wont survive, the idea and philosophy of fight club is true, but everyone always associate materialism with confidence and self-esteem.
I ask you? if don’t have good clothes, good hair cut, and a late model cellphone? what are the chances that you will make a good impression when u go somewhere? anywhere. YOU cannot go against the grain of this type of society , if u do you will be shunned and ignored until u are emotionally broken ,which could lead to your death or self destruction which is suicide as a result of depression. it’s kind of a paradox, you need human companion but u don’t like materialism but the only humans who are worthy of companion are the ones the most materialistic?…
Thank you, AJ.
Unfortunately, materialism is so ingrained in our culture and in everyday necessity that it becomes a struggle just to disentangle oneself from its clutches. I am very guilty of such materialism, and am trying to lessen the amount of stuff I buy unless I absolutely need it or desire it on a special level.
Tinct, Excellent post. where I’m from there isn’t a lot of luxuries. Since coming to America I’ve been amazed at all the things I’ve seen. I would list them but that would be a boring read, so let me just say thanks. This was very enlightening to the American culture. I wish there more articles like This on here.
A few years ago I finally decided to get a mobile phone for emergencies, I.E picking the kids up because my wife was running late. I thought that this would be a fairly simple task, how wrong I was, I looked into a few shop windows to get an idea of price but when I came to actually inquiring about one the questions about what I wanted were amazing. Time and again I said I just want a cheap phone, no bells, no whistles, but all I got were blank looks and then it started all over again, ” do you want email, no, do you want bluetooth, no, etc, etc, eventually I had, had enough I picked up the cheapest phone and said that one, next thing it’s do you want contract or pay as you go, who with, etc. Since then I haven’t changed my mobile and yet it still doesn’t end, theprovider(in my case virgin) keeps sending text messages offering phone deals, etc. In summation, if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s usefull in emergencies, I would have drop kicked the damned thing as far away from me as possible.
In regards to credit cards I have to say that I have one for emergencies (thus far over the last 6 years I haven’t as yet had to use it), and as far as i’m concerned that’s all they should be for. Come to think of it, I don’t know if the damn thing is still valid, if not i’ll just sign up for another and stick that away untill it runs out. I am a firm believer in that if you can’t afford it (excluding mortgages I suppose), then don’t buy it, or save up and buy it, i’ll even allow catalogues (as long as you don’t go stupid), as I have to confess that at times I have had to use one myself. Whenever a member of my family moan about wanting the latest console or whatever, I just say sure, give me the money and i’ll go get it for you.
I liken consumerism to a drug addiction. The buyers are the addicts(they’ve got it, I want it as well), the advertising companies are the dealers(try it, you know you want to) and the manufacturers (I.E. N***, S***, M*******, etc) are the growers, chemists, etc(make it shiny, make it pretty). Sorry if that seems a bit harsh or over the top, but seriously next time you go out see how many human billboards are out there, maybe even the person reading this should look in the mirror or wardrobe and just count how many of their clothes, etc, advertise who made the thing. I buy good cheap t-shirts, etc and I still look good, clean, etc, and even better they last just as long as expensive brands. Expensive and branded doesn’t mean good quality
Exactly, NumbrNine. What should be luxuries are now crucial in order to keep up with today’s fast-paced world and live up to strangers’ expectations.
TV-Free: I think I’d start watching TV again only if MTV replaced its mind-numbing reality shows with music, as its name implies…
The convenience you demanded is now mandatory.
Amen Tinct. I wish I had read this prior to posting replies to “American Taxpayers Should Get Ready For Rape Of The Century“.
I haven’t watched TV for 4 years, and this article pretty much sums up the reasons for that. Funny how not watching TV makes you happy with yourself and content with life, while watching TV slowly poisons your brain into thinking you’re inferior and generally leaves you felling unfulfilled. Some channels are worse offenders than others, of course. MTV comes to mind…
Actually, I think if I started watching TV again, I’d just start rolling on the floor with incessant and uncontrollable laugher upon remembering how messed up the world truly is. Meh, I think I’ll pass…
If you are speaking to me, johnny, thank you.
NR-
I apologize for taking so long to respond.
No, I understand. What you are saying makes a lot of sense, and it seems an important question here is, What is necessary? What’s the defining factor between luxury and necessity? In today’s fast-paced society, what once was viewed as a luxury is now quite technically a necessity. For example, students are now expected to write 10 or 20 page essays for many classes. There is absolutely no way this can be done by hand in the amount of time given, considering how many revisions, corrections, and additions one needs to make to essays. Having a computer makes this daunting task a hundred times easier on the mind and the hand. Whether a computer is a luxury or a necessity in today’s world is arguable.
Personally, I have a lot of old-world views. I like to stick to the basics (the basics defined by today’s society, mind you) and rarely indulge in the realm of luxury. As far as I know. To my fellow Californians, I appear as just another college student, perhaps a little more tightfisted with money than others, therefore leaning toward necessity. But I still have a laptop, cell phone, books, tasty food, etc. Rarely do I go out and spend a large amount of money on something that can only be used for entertainment or leisure purposes. But to people in, say, Sudan, I probably live like royalty. So the matter of context also needs to be taken into account.
When I’m having a rough day, I will treat myself to something nice, usually a tasty snack or a nice meal. In that sense, I am making my value extrinsic because I am using external, material objects in order to brighten my mood. But of course, one could argue that food (or clothing) is a necessity in order to stay healthy. So, once again, I believe there is a blurring between necessity and luxury, but there is also a point where things become flat out superfluous, like $300 Prada bags or cell phones with diamonds on them. People who buy such obscenely expensive things are clearly using them in order to make themselves feel better (because if they had to settle for anything less, they would not be used to it and therefore feel worse), thereby making their sense of self-worth extrinsic.
I don’t think this is a matter of black-and-white. As you made clear in your cell phone example, a cell phone certainly has a lot of luxurious features, but in order to stay social, connected, and up-to-date (as we are social creatures), a cell phone’s basic function is pretty much a necessity these days.
It is interesting to note that in ‘Fight Club’, Tyler Durden dresses in a hell of a lot of spiffy (and in the context of the movie’s ideology, superfluous) designer clothes. I always thought that clashed with the movie’s theme, but as Tyler explains to “Cornelius”, as a mental projection, Durden “dresses like [Cornelius] wants to dress, talks like he wants to talk, fucks like he wants to f**k…” So the fact that Durden is a hallucination could arguably invalidate this contradiction of fancy clothes vs. lifestyle of bare necessities, though I’d be inclined to say it doesn’t.
8tRcdy Thanks for good post
Thanks for the welcome and such a prompt reply. And for the clarification, as it makes more sense now.
At the same time, however, and not for sake of argument as I know several of your points already null what I’m about to state; necessity and convenience these days are becoming quite interlaced with one another. I have a basic cellphone in which the only luxury it has is the fact that it’s quite slim and portable. There are a few things on it such as a datebook and a calculator, but I don’t use these. A phone is a necessity for convenience, or a convenient necessity. Humans are social creatures by nature, thus requiring interaction as a necessity. The phone allows such a necessity in a convenient fashion. But I digress; my point that I’m making is that it was more convenient for me to obtain a cell phone than it would be for me to get a landline, as in the last year I’ve had three places of residence, all of which I had my cell phone throughout.
What I’m saying is that to install a land line at each of these three locations, one of which it was disallowed as I was staying in on-campus residence at my university, would have been a hassle, however I needed it to contact the likes of my family, whom supplied me with the money to which I used to obtain the base necessities. Thus the cellphone, an indirect necessity, has the luxury of mobility which then becomes a necessity for someone such as myself.
If that made any sense, forgive my syntax and whatnot, as it’s not a very decent hour of the night for me.
First, let me welcome you to CollegeTimes. I’m glad you found my article to be such a great interest.
What comprises the “essentials”and “convenience” is a sticky area when following this philosophy, which deals mainly with luxuries and extravagances. The essentials are things we cannot live without- food, water, a form of clothing and shelter. Conveniences are things we buy to make our lives easier, and it’s arguable those can fall into the category of luxury. I think we can agree that my article refers to items of luxury as what people buy to boost their self-esteem. I’ll give you an example:
In “Fight Club”, the main character (let’s call him “Cornelius”) lives in a crappy, falling-apart house; he takes showers in rusty brown water; he eats cereal out of Tupperware containers and he sleeps on an old mattress on the floor. These are all what people can argue as “the essentials”, but on the basest level; the house provides Cornelius with the bare minimum (by modern society’s standards) to survive; he doesn’t have the luxury of clean water or the luxury of an actual bed.
The theme here is that Cornelius buys the absolute bare minimum he can find that his surrounding society will allow him in order to survive. He buys food (necessity), but he also has a phone (convenience) in his house (the one on which he listens to Marla “die”).
The research mentioned in the article is a little more lenient. It certainly allows for necessity, *some* convenience, but no luxury. The convenience it allows for is on the Fight Club level; the bare minimum. Cell phones are fine, but they should just be phones if that’s what you need them for. Everything else that cell phones come with these days- camera, built-in iPods, internet surfing, etc.- would be considered extravagant and unnecessary. In that vein, I’d like to point you to a quote in the article:
“The First World… now exhibits more depression, alcoholism and crime than 50 years ago when people couldn’t find collector’s-edition DVDs or singing, plastic trout on the store shelves. This is not to say that capitalism and consumerism is emotional suicide, but that more is less.”
The examples I provided allude to silly, extravagant products, but I should have clarified that it is not just these specific types of products which lead to feelings of extrinsic self-worth. 50 years ago, they also didn’t have cell phones, laptops, or the internet.
Necessity and convenience, by themselves, shouldn’t instill a lacking sense of self-worth. However, with our society, luxury has been injected into even these two categories. There is luxury food (lobster, all-you-can-eat buffets) and luxury conveniences (phones that serve as music players, cameras, and computers, fancy cars). This “Fight Club” philosophy the article talks about follows the school of thought that “more is less”. It will allow for necessities and conveniences, but once you start fancying-up those necessities and conveniences is when they begin to mix with the area of luxury.
Wow. This is my first ever visit to this website, CollegeTimes, and yours was the first article I’ve read and I have to say it’s quite informing. I never looked at these things in such a way, even after watching Fight Club, but when I read over the article I felt enlightened. And that’s quite a bit, as I will be the first to admit I can be quite skeptical at times. Wonderful article, very interesting and inspiring!
I do have one opposing thought, though. It’s not always more outcome means more low self-esteem. I mean, what about the essentials? Groceries, shelter and such things as conveniences. I have a cellphone not because it’s a hip thing, hot, or boosting my self-esteem, but because it makes contact with my family and friends much more convenient. How does such an idea fit into this philosophy?