WELCOME
TO HOLLYWOOD JESUS ARCHIVES Movies,
Television, Music, Comix, Books
POP
CULTURE FROM A SPIRITUAL POINT OF VIEW |
 |
Thousands
of pages to explore
|
FREE iTUNES
VIDEO HJ REVIEWS Video
iPod Format (m4v aka VodCast)
1. Open iTunes 2. Open “Advanced” on iTunes tool bar 3. Click “Subscribe to Podcast” 4. Copy/paste: http://www.outsidethewalls.com/vodcast/programs.xml
1. Open iTunes 2. Open “Advanced” on iTunes tool bar 3. Click “Subscribe to Podcast” 4. Copy/paste: http://www.outsidethewalls.com/vodcast/programs.xml
Tyle
Fight Club and the Philosophy of William James "I see in fight club
the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived -- an entire generation
pumping gas and waiting tables; or they're slaves with white collars.
Advertisements have them chasing cars and clothes, working jobs they
hate so they can buy shit they don't need. We are the middle children
of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great
depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression
is our lives. We were raised by television to believe that we'd be
millionaires and movie gods and rock stars -- but we won't. And we're
learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed-off." This Tyler Durden
monologue sums up the angst of the young members of fight club; a
generation ruled by capitalism and materialism, searching for spiritual
purpose. 
Jack
(Edward Norton) hates his life. His sense of self is rooted in his
condo, his clothes, and his Ikea furniture-he is the man that Tyler
Durden describes in the previous diatribe; he works a job he hates
so he can buy shit he doesn't need. Jack is miserable, he can't sleep.
His insomnia suggests that his life lacks substance. He says, "With
insomnia, nothing is real. Everything is far away. Everything is a
copy of a copy of a copy." 
Jack
begins frequenting support groups so he can cry along with men plagued
with testicular cancer, and women who are about to die lonely; at
testicular cancer, Jack sobs nestled into the breasts of an enormous
former bodybuilder (singer Meatloaf) who has been pumped full of estrogen.
It is here that he finds freedom; he says, "Losing all hope was freedom."
Jack
is finally able to sleep at night until he notices another "tourist"
at
the various support groups, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter). 
Jack's
life takes a drastic turn when he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt).
Durden's ideologies are antithetical to Jack's, the two are at opposite
ends of the spectrum: while Jack represents the material self, Durden
represents the spiritual self. When Jack returns home from a business
trip and finds out his condo exploded while he was gone, 
Jack
and Durden then develop fight club. Jack says, "You weren't alive
anywhere like you were there." Fight club allows Jack and Durden,
along with dozens of other young men, to abandon the rules of society,
to transcend cultural norms, and become more human. In becoming more
human, Jack moves further from the material self and closer to the
spiritual self. 
When
commenting on the self, William James writes, "Everything added to
the Self is a burden as well as a pride. A certain man who lost every
penny during our civil war went and actually rolled in the dust, saying
he had not felt so free and happy since he was born." James further
quotes Carlyle who says, "Make thy claim of wages a zero, then hast
thou the world under thy feet. Well did the wisest of our time write,
it is only with renunciation that life, properly speaking, can be
said to begin."
Jack's
life properly begins when he renounces everything. It isn't until
he loses everything that he gains something: spiritual fulfillment.
Jack is quite similar to the man in the previous quote, but instead
of rolling in the dust, he rolls in the blood of other young men
seeking the same spiritual gratification, at fight club
iTUNES
VIDEO HJ REVIEWS 