Phil Kolas
05-09-22
Philosophy 5009: Existentialism
Final Paper
Final Draft
Performing Perpetual Protuberances
Camus' Rebellion, Fight Club's
Revolution, & Ellison's Humanity
ABSTRACT
This essay is in regard to a
particular – and, I believe, underexplored – aspect of existentialism; the fact
that every act a Being can engage in will automatically yield some sort of
antagonism or static from another human being. I believe this has, what one
might call, personal consequences in regard to several challenging aspects of
personal development and self-definition. Mainly that concerning oneself with
displeasing people is already a failed endeavor, which I believe is can be a
psychologically freeing facticity.
Following up from that, I
continue on to two media examples of oppressive groupthink – an unavoidable
source of this antagonism – which I take to be not only unhealthy, but also
inherently dishonest and worrisome if one intends to live a life of philosophic
clarity.
In conclusion is my belief
that life, by definition, is an act of not just self-definition, and not only
solitary self-definition, but also of inescapable and constant challenge – from
outside forces – to self-definition. And the fact that we are perpetually able
to rise to the occasion of that perpetual challenge, if we only first accept
that the first person who fights for us must always be us, and that it will
always be a fight.
“Life is trouble. Only death is not.”
– Zorba the Greek 1
Every
action will be seen as distasteful to someone. I believe this to be granted
fact.
All
human activity can run up against what one might call static, from somewhere.
It's not merely just the existential fact that, for instance, Sartre's young
man2 needed to decide between either joining the war or helping feed
his mother, and so his choice was, say, "unchosen and awaiting his
decision," There may be a void of Correct Selection, that there is no
"right answer" until the boy chose it, but also the fact that there
is no choice he could have chosen (one, the other, or an unnamed third) that
would not have disappointed someone somewhere else. This is not to say whether
or not we should allow these third parties to have a say in our decisions. That
changes depending on the scenario, the relationship of the third party, etc.,
and it's a far more challenging an off-topic question for this paper (certainly
not that we need to give any credence to the NAZIs the boy would be fighting
against, in Sartre's scenario) but I only intend to declare that I believe that,
in every decision, it is literally impossible to ever make any decision that
will please everyone.
Not
only will each action fill a void that has no "right" action, but
it's also impossible to choose one that will be eternally approved across all
people. Even on writing this, it strikes me as a simplified and obvious platitude,
something that would be explained in early grade school to all children, but
I'm merely using it as an entry point, that this is not merely a canard of
modern society, but has in fact been an inescapable and permanent aspect of the
human condition. What's more, I believe it to be vital part of a human being's
development, existentially speaking.
Trying
to please everyone is not only psychologically unhealthy, I believe it to be
literally impossible. I believe this has serious consequences, that every human
being must be aware of when making their decision. Existentialism lives not
only on the aphorism that "Choosing not to decide, you still have made a
choice"3 but also that "There are not only no answers, but
also that every possible answer one could choose will inevitably give rise to
antagonism somewhere."
To
quote De Beauvoir: "One will always work for certain
men against other." [pg 108, emphasis mine]4. I would also say,
even beyond that, it's entirely possible that there could be decisions that one
could make that sets you up against everyone you know, against all people, and
only for oneself. This is not to suggest solipsism or encourage selfishness,
this is just for setting initial parameters. Both ends of the spectrum now: You
could be working only for yourself. Or your decision could only displease a few
people. But the number will never be less than one.
I
believe every action, decision, breath one can take, etc. to be contrary to
something, somewhere, whether the acts are intentionally rebellious or not.
Based first on the galactic,
genetic, and statistical facts that merely being alive – either as a life form,
a human being, and even yourself specifically – is against such
incomprehensible odds, that even being a creature able to draw breath is such
an active antagonism against How Things Ought To Be, that even deciding to
remain – to not kill oneself – is a declaration of rebuke. This is one of the
many conclusions in Camus' Myth of Sisyphus5.
Mathematically speaking, You (the royal You, anyone in particular) should not
be here. This is contrary to the expected order of things. Life is not a
forgone conclusion, if we measure the known area of the universe that has life,
against the rest of the known universe that doesn't.
Secondly, To clarify my
first premise, I want to refer to Professor Tamara Fakhoury's essay "Eight
Dimensions of Resistance" which is an excerpt from her upcoming book
regarding resistance and activism. Of specific interest is her explanation of
smaller and personal acts of resistance, specifically her opening claim that
"Resistance is commonly associated with activism…but people can resist
oppression without engaging in activism…Normative theories of resistance should
be sensitive to the diversity of ways people can resist oppression."6
She then goes on to explain that resistance can still count as resistance
without requiring what you might call a Big Bad to concentrate on:
You can advance in a male-dominated field to
get your dream job against pressures to settle for a less ambitious career. You
can teach your daughter to be independent because you want her life to go well
against norms that tell you to reward her acquiescence. You can stop obsessing
over your body weight to focus on more important things in spite of the figure
obsessed media. In each of these cases, you resist oppression. And you do so
admirably, even morally so. But you do not work to advance any political or
humanitarian causes, act collectively with others, or make any public
expressions of resistance. You do not engage in any activism. ibid
She then goes on to explain
the eight dimensions of acts of resistance: Individual/Collective,
Private/Public, Local/Global, Loud/Quiet. Her examples include a woman who
keeps her last name after being wed would be Individual, or a mother that
"aims to reduce a specific effect of oppression on her children's private
lives…she may not even care about reducing similar effects on other
children…She might do so by buying them gender neutral toys or encouraging them
when they take an interest in traditionally male dominated activities." ibid
According to Fakhoury, this mother would be engaged in Private and Local
resistance.
I don't wish to go much
further into the other 5/8 dimensions, merely as a point to make that rebellion
or resistance or refusal can already easily be distinguished as something
smaller – but no less resolute – than marching, protests, etc. To simplify it
into a quote, from 20th century feminism, "The personal is
political."7 Fakhoury believes, and I agree, that there are
singular things people can do, immediately and right at hand, that can be
defined as resistance.
To go beyond that, an
approach my larger point however, I want to point to a particular thought of
Fakhoury's which I slightly disagree with:
For a person to be resisting oppression, they
must also have a basic perception of the oppressive force as bad or
unacceptable. The perception must inform her motivation for acting. An agent
cannot be said to be resisting if she has no idea that society discourages or
forbids her behavior. A woman who resolves never to put on make-up, for
example, but is completely unaware of the social forces pressuring women to
wear it and punishing women who don't, could hardly be said to be resisting
oppression by resolving not to put it on. When a person resists oppression, she
pushes back again an oppressive force that she at some level perceives as bad
and that she knows would be risky to defy.6
I disagree somewhat and submit
that for any act to create static against any other particular concept, I do
not believe that in fact either party needs to know about the other party, nor
their intentions. I believe there is an important (and again, inescapable) baseline
point, of every action, where the intentionality (or lack thereof) is
inconsequential. While it may not be strict rebellion (which, I'll agree
with Fakhoury, requires intentionality), I still believe that every act will be
seen as disputable to someone. Even if the actor does not intend
to antagonize anyone, AND even if the other party is ignorant of the
"offensive" act in question, it would still not disprove my point.
Just because something didn't piss you off because it slid under your radar doesn't
mean it wouldn't piss you off if you had known about it. I admit, this
may strike some as a somewhat cynical presumption, so I'll make the point in a
thought experiment:
If you throw an aluminum can
into the recycling, ostensibly you are performing a positive act. You are
saving resources. Recycling is good for the environment. The majority of
society would agree with this course of action. However, recycling that
aluminum can could still be seen as a negative in regards to the worker
at an aluminum factory, affecting the demand for his product, the income to his
industry, etc. It wouldn't even need to be fact that it doesn't affect their
bottom line: It's not hard to imagine that there are hundreds of people –
employees, managers, CEOs, and shareholders – who would merely perceive the act
of recycling as cutting into their bottom line. Without each party (the
recycler and the capitalist) needing to even know each other's faces or
motivations (remember, the recycler is not thinking against the company in this
scenario – it never occurs to them that they could be the villain in anyone's
story) we still have the interaction of what you might call Confrontational Static
between two world-views, two measurements, two differing personal motivations.
Even if neither camp openly declares war (by Fakhoury's point), there is still
a conflict occurring, even while they sleep, one might say. This is equally
true if the customer decides to throw the can in the regular trash – the
reverberations of that act has consequences leading to confrontational
static of certain other world-views. One could say that even the animals
of nature – mother earth, if one wanted to be grandiose about it – would have a
judgment preference (whichever decision leads to less strip-mining, most
likely) as to the specific actions of specific agents in specific decisions.
Regardless of how genteel any act could be – such as recycling, which I'd
obviously agree has had the majority consensus as A Good Deed for quite some
time – it is still, I believe, impossible to imagine that it doesn't get someone
angry somewhere.
To clarify, in this paper, I
have no intention of making particular judgments of certain specific acts. I
admittedly intend to have something to say about group think and fascism later
on, but for right now I do not mean to make a judgement vis-à-vis recycling,
makeup, or reinforcing gender roles in children's toys. I merely wanted to
point out the fact that I think every act, that every human being could
possibly commit, cannot help but rub up against a differing thought,
personal philosophy, subjectivity, etc. etc., whatever one might want to call
it. Every decision made is a flag planted, a space carved for that decision
that was not there previously. Not only is Being Alive an automatic rebellion
against the abyss that would otherwise be the universe without life, I believe
every Act of Living to be a form of inescapable and de facto contrariety, to
someone, somewhere, whether intended or not.
To
borrow again from De Beauvoir,
"He
can slip into one of these voids, but there is never one that is molded exactly
for him. He can become one of these new men for whom others were waiting, but
the new man they awaited was not him. Another would have done just as
well. The place that each one occupies is always a foreign place. The bread
that one eats is always the bread of another." [pg107]4
I
would say something similar is true with every choice we make: some party
somewhere would find umbrage with it, and we will, as I said, find it
impossible to make any choice that could not be disputed by some party,
somewhere.
In
"The Challenge of Cultural Relativism," James Rachels mentions the
following anecdote:
Darius,
a king of ancient Persia, was intrigued by the variety of cultures he
encountered in his travels. He had found, for example, that the Callatians (a
tribe of Indians) customarily ate the bodies of their dead fathers. The Greeks,
of course, did not do that—the Greeks practiced cremation and regarded the
funeral pyre as the natural and fitting way to dispose of the dead. Darius
thought that a sophisticated understanding of the world must include an
appreciation of such differences between cultures. One day, to teach this
lesson, he summoned some Greeks who happened to be present at his court and
asked them what they would take to eat the bodies of their dead fathers. They
were shocked, as Darius knew they would be, and replied that no amount of money
could persuade them to do such a thing. Then Darius called in some Callatians,
and while the Greeks listened asked them what they would take to burn their
dead fathers' bodies. The Callatians were horrified and told Darius not even to
mention such a dreadful thing. 8
This
is my point precisely, as well as gives me a chance to mention a digression
that I think is pertinent to this topic.
The
incredible reach of modern communication via the internet makes people think
that perhaps respective social disapproval between world societies is a new
problem, that things are "worse than ever", and "pluralism is
impossible." I submit that this isn't true, as the above story reveals,
but only that there is a higher level of social clashes between two societies
that previously didn't have to worry about problems like this, only because
they hadn't yet interacted. But, as I said, being oblivious to people
doing things that you find morally repugnant is no assumption of allowance.
I believe it's not a new problem, and as such I'm not even entirely sure that
one would call it a problem, just planetary adjustments to a world that we've
already been living in the whole time anyway. I think it's worth drawing attention
to moments where it turns out certain issues are not new, and we've in fact
survived these old challenges before.
By
Fakhoury's examples, rebellious action can still be easily declared, regardless
of the relative "size" of the "activism" in question, and
(by Rachels' example) it's not impossible to believe that there would be
someone – in a planetary scale of 8 billion people and counting – that would
declare antagonism against any and all and every one of your choices, whatever
they might be. I believe it's inconsequential whether the other party knows
about your actions, just the fact that they would be against it is
enough for the premise.
“Humanity has advanced, when it has
advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because
it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.” – Tom Robbins
9
So
what's the meaning of all this explication regarding static, contrariety, or
rebellion? I say again that acting in a way that another human being will raise
umbrage or dispute with you and your decision is an inescapable facet of human
existence. Not only are no answers provided for you, but any answer you
might submit will be rebuked by someone. And, again, not that it
"could be" rejected by another party, but either is actively being
rejected (because the disputed party is aware of it) or would have
been (and only the other party's ignorance allows you to express said
choices unmolested).
Every life makes their own
space that was not reserved for them.
And in fact every act of
that life is pushing against something else.
To continue on to the meat
of the matter: if it's granted that any and all acts of human beings create de
facto contrariety – drinking water, eating food a certain way, buying lipstick
or not, recycling, etc. etc. – this massive umbrella of activity would also have
to include all activities of self-improvement, or self-discovery, or
self-preservation, or self-care, or setting personal boundaries. In fact
anything a human being could do, which that human being declares to be for
their own survival or development, would also be seen, by someone somewhere, as
inexcusable. There will always be someone, somewhere, who does not want you to
reach what's best for you.
To be very clear, I want to
make an aside regarding The Stakes of self-definition. A straight white male
"coming out of the closet" as being a fan of something "feminine"
– expressing their emotions, let's say – and thereby expressing themselves more
honestly, does not face the same level of physical risk that someone else would
if their declaration was of a gendered or sexuality type of personal
expression. This is obvious. I merely want to be sure to lay a clear
groundwork, that "making a decision that makes everyone happy" is literally
and philosophically impossible, regardless of how genteel or not any decision
might be.
So, since every
action will disturb someone.
And defining oneself
requires action, by the tenets of Existentialism.
Then every action, of a
character attempting to define themselves, will disturb someone.
Self-definition is
inherently disruptive. It obviously works on different scales, depending on the
given scenario, but the measurement will never be zero.
And rebellion – directed, intentional
rebellion (far being an anomaly, or an imbalance of humors, or an act of
blasphemy against The Universal Order, or something to that effect) is the
work of self-definition. Not necessarily that every rebellion is
self-definition (which we will get to shortly), but that self-definition
automatically (inescapably) entails rebellion. To reflect the first sentence so
that it becomes more clear: self-definition is always a work of rebellion.
"To live is, in itself,
a value judgment," as Camus puts it in The Rebel[pg 8]10.
He paraphrases my above point quite clearly, saying, "Not every value
entails rebellion, but every act of rebellion tacitly invokes a
value."[pg14]ibid Throughout the book, Camus is dealing –
rightfully so – with rebellion regarding enormous questions of human dignity,
about slaves under a master's whip, about rebellions turning into bloody
revolutions, terrorism and executions, things of that nature. But I believe
that the acts of rebellion, the declarations of personal value – in contrariety
to other people who either do dispute or would dispute one's acts
of self-definition – can also share space and receive support from his great
and enormous referents. It's not hard to imagine that creating oneself could be
the longest and most difficult project, something that would tower immensely
over something else, like just leading a war for independence, by comparison.
The dignity of Fakhoury's small acts share relation with these world-wide
century long historical arcs of justice which Camus is investigating.
"What
is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.
He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of
rebellion."[pg13]ibid. For our needs here, I would also add
that a rebel is someone who says yes to themselves, knowing that saying yes
will also always summon a chorus of no-s, from somewhere.
And
this, what I might call the Rejection of Encroachment by those No-s, is
integral to any human being's attempts at self-definition. A Rejection leading
to Self-Preservation. The Yes of Self-Creation always needs bulwarks against
the tide of The No-s of the Others, which may reduce in volume but will never entirely
cease. "[I]t would therefore be impossible to overemphasize the passionate
affirmation that underlies the act of rebellion and distinguishes it from
resentment. Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is
profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be
defended."[pg 19]ibid
So
here we have the human being; their meaning is not defined nor provided, but
through choice and actions. Their choices and actions cannot be performed
without causing a static of some kind, somewhere. One could be forgiven in
thinking it's not an enviable position to exist in. But I submit that the
greater threat lies in attempting to surrender that De Facto Rebellion, to try
to absolve your greater and inescapable responsibilities to a Higher Cause. To act
for a cause (instead of to act for oneself) is not only, I believe,
inadvisable, but also dangerous, unhealthy, uncertain, and inhumane. Or
dehumanizing, to be specific. Being a victim of Groupthink means being a victim
of a particular type of Encroachment of No-s. I don't mean to declare all
groupings to be inherently evil, but there is always an exchange of
humanity occurring, by any act of grouping. To explain, I'll be using an admittedly
over-the-top example in modern media, but only because I believe it presents my
points so starkly, and memorably.
"I love individuals, I hate
groups of people. I hate a group of people with a 'common purpose,' cause
pretty soon they have little hats, and armbands, and fight songs, and a list of
people they're going to visit at 3 am." – George Carlin11
The film Fight Club12
by David Fincher shows, I believe, a very clear and step by step example of a
particular character's act of rebellion transforming into something nefarious
and damaging, by their piecemeal absorption into what eventually becomes a
dehumanizing – what we might call objectifying – existence. The narrator
(played by Edward Norton, who for interests of clarity we'll call Jack, from
the magazine articles regarding Jack's organs in the film) finds himself almost
vacuumed up into A Meaning, one declared by another being (Tyler Durden) who
then uses him and others for his (Tyler's) own goals. It's not so much only the
fact that what one would be joining in Fight Club is deceptive and
unhealthy (it is), but I'm also intending to use Fight Club as a cautionary
road map for what happens when someone joins any group with a Higher
Purpose. There is a peculiar form of dishonesty and manipulation that's
inherent in joining quite nearly anything, which has ramifications for the
discussion of this paper regarding Authentic Human Development.
In a quick summary of the
movie: Jack is initially attending several support groups for different extreme
medical conditions (tuberculosis, sickle-cell anemia, brain parasites, melanoma,
etc. – none of which he's actually afflicted with) in order to feel secure and emotionally
supported (almost by a semi-placebo effect, you might say), and in order to cure
his anxiety and insomnia. He lacks a community, to put it mildly – being a
corporate delegate for a major car company, he lives a temporal existence, almost
entirely in airports, airplanes, and hotels – and eventually, after meeting
Tyler Durden, he forms a Fight Club, which is merely a type of violent consensual
sparring with other male strangers as an act of dual-respective emotionally cathartic
therapy. Eventually Fight Club morphs into Project Mayhem, a specifically
Anarchist Philosophy activism group, who go around defacing or blowing up corporate
property, and other signifiers of late-stage capitalism, and eventually
reaching a pinnacle in the successful demolition of several major banking
headquarter locations, wiping the entire nation's credit scores back to zero
across the board for all citizens "creating total chaos." Without
going too deeply into the overall cinematic details, they succeed in all of
this. The buildings explode, the film finishes, and the credits roll.
What's important for our
interests is the slow crawl of something that changes, from a relatively meager
support group of disconnected men, into a nationwide anarchist group. To lift
from Camus' The Rebel speaking of rebellion (but it can easily apply
here): "In studying its actions and its results, we shall have to say,
each time, whether it remains faithful to its first noble promise, or if,
through indolence or folly, it forgets its original purpose and plunges into a
mire of tyranny or servitude."[pg22]10
Throughout the movie, we're
well aware that it's not so much that the minions of Project Mayhem have no
values, but that they have no values of their own. Their values descend
only from Tyler Durden's suggestion, which are specifically nihilistic: "Listen
up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.
You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else." [90'] Tyler
also believes that modern society as a whole is engaged in an inescapable death
knell, that the acts of consumerism lead to an inner void, a lack of
self-worth, that is ultimately a dead end.
- Do you know what a
duvet is?
- A comforter.
- It's a blanket.
Just a blanket. Why do guys like you and I know what a duvet is? Is this
essential to our survival in the hunter-gatherer sense? No. What are we, then?
- I dunno. Consumers?
- Right. We're
consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty.
These things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines,
television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine. Viagra.
Olestra.
- Martha Stewart.
- Fuck Martha
Stewart. She's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down. So fuck
off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns. I say never be
complete. I say stop being perfect. I say let's evolve. Let the chips fall
where they may. [29:45']
I'm not intending to make any judgement on this particular
philosophy – the pros and cons of anarchy per se, that's off the topic of this
paper – but what does interest me, what is important for this paper, is how,
over the course of the film, Tyler succeeds in not merely verbally convincing
other characters of his particular world-view, but of locking them in a
slippery slope into doing his bidding; problematic brainwashing, to be honest. The
act of getting people to exchange their own personal goals in order to be his
puppets, for his goals. The respective comparisons of anarchism, communism,
capitalism, etc. are not what we're investigating, but rather the act of
manipulating people and removing their agency.
As we know that the story ends with the wanton destruction of
several large corporate towers, it's important to go back to the beginning, to
where I believe Tyler first directed them off the path from originally being a
mere support group.
The initial support group form of Fight Club had 8 rules:
1)
Don't Talk About Fight Club
2)
Don't Talk About Fight Club
3)
Someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over
4)
Only two guys to a fight
5)
One fight at a time
6)
No shirts, no shoes
7)
Fights will go on as long as they have to
8)
If this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.
[43']
These,
as far as initial ground rules are concerned, are fairly legitimate, I believe.
Beyond the first rules requiring secrecy, all the rest are well formulated
restrictions, requiring limitation and (most importantly) consent and
directness. This wasn't random fisticuffs between a basement full of dozens of
men simultaneously. This was only two combatants at once, previously mutually
agreed on, who everyone else was watching while they fought. As the narrator
Jack puts it: "Fight club wasn't about winning or losing. It wasn't about
words. The hysterical shouting was in tongues... Like at a Pentecostal church.
When the fight was over, nothing was solved. But nothing mattered. Afterwards,
we all felt saved." [46'] This still strikes me as worthy of being considered
as a support group. When you attend a support group for tuberculosis,
sickle-cell anemia, brain parasites, melanoma, etc., you're obviously not
physically or literally curing particular affliction – you're not "doing
anything" per se – but you are providing a centered community of
likeminded people, regarding one particular goal – in this case, survival – so
you can push on to the next day and keep your personal fight going. Support
groups are obviously not meant to be curative, but I would say certainly
cathartic. But as possibly unnerving as, say, Alcoholics Anonymous might be for
some people, you have to admit there's nothing in their charter that you could
accuse them of having plans of either anarchic world domination or incendiary
economic terrorism. I believe the same could be said of this initial fight
club. Somewhat cultish at most, but still clear and consensual for all parties
involved, with clear emotional goals.
The
corner is turned, however, at the 74' mark in the movie, when Tyler Durden
gives the men in Fight Club what he calls homework assignments. They are to
"go out, you're going to start a fight with a total stranger. You're going
to start a fight, and you're going to lose." The movie then serves us an
entertaining montage of the men picking fights with bike couriers, car
salesmen, and a priest, among others, and losing intentionally.
These
instructions violate at least 5 rules – all rules #3 through #7 – of Fight
Club. We have several strangers begging them to stop picking a fight ("Now
this is not as easy as it sounds," says Jack. "Most people, normal
people, would do just about anything to avoid a fight.") This violates the
consent and limitation aspects of both rules 3 & 7; as well as the men
engaging in attempting to pick fights with multiple people simultaneously, a
violation of rule 4; the montage edits between multiple fights interchangeably,
violating rule 5; and each fight is unprepared and sudden against each victim,
making it also a violation of rule 6 (since obviously neither party had a
chance to remove any articles of clothing). These are not fights, these are
attacks. The entire sequence also goes against Jack's earlier declaration that
"Fight Club wasn't about winning or losing," because here we have
orders from on high to intentionally take a dive in a fight. This scene is what
we might call Tyler's First Request of Dishonesty: He has dismissed almost all
the ground rules that made Fight Club a fight club. And immediately it doesn't
seem, to the movie characters at least, if anything's changed. They continue
basement meetings and fights.
Shortly
thereafter, however, he begins a culling process, holding tryouts on his front
porch, for applicants of some sort (Jack doesn't know why, but we learn later
that it's to join Project Mayhem). Tyler elucidates his acceptance process:
- If the applicant is young, tell him he's too
young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat.
- Applicant?
- If the applicant
waits three days without food, shelter, or encouragement, he may then enter and
begin his training.
- Training for what?
[87']
This is
no longer a support group, functioning on good faith, to accept and lend
encouragement to whoever may be searching for it. This is the beginning of an
abusive relationship, lead off by a form of gas-lighting and insulting demeanor,
known as negging13. This is not therapeutic anymore; this has
entered into manipulation.
Again,
this is a rather stark Hollywood example of joining a group with a Common
Purpose, but I believe it makes a point that's still pertinent to our
discussion: at this point (in joining any group) You will have seceded at least
some agency as far as qualitative judgments are concerned. Who is right to
join, and What goals are acceptable to pursue, has become part and parcel of
your allegiance in a new group. This applies to any new group, not just
anarchist, communist, capitalist, revolutionary, or etc. Joining a group means
there is now another extra source of possible contrariety if one suddenly
decided to pursue one's own self-image or self-goals, or self-boundaries, etc. Metaphorically
speaking, the cliché that "There's never a good time for you to take your
PTO, according to your boss," applies also to goal oriented groups like
these; they will take as much of your time as you are willing to volunteer. They
have an explicit preference. They'll obviously be the last ones to tell you if
you're spending too much time at the office, if your life begins to become
unbalanced, as long as it's to their benefit.
This
leads to the next noteworthy scene in the movie, while Tyler and Jack are
arguing while driving in the rain, with two Project Mayhem minions in the back
seat. Of first note is Jack's demand to know more about Project Mayhem's goals,
which leads to the sycophants in the back seat shouting him down that "THE
FIRST RULE OF PROJECT MAYHEM IS YOU DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS" which is already
an incredibly worrisome fascist declaration just on its own. But also worth
noting is that at one point Tyler asks the men in the back seat "What do
you wish you'd done before you died?" and the answers are to paint a
self-portrait, and to build a house.[97'] With all the gardening, anarchy
pranks, painting, cleaning, and general busy-work that Tyler has been
subjecting them to up to this point (since their applications were accepted),
we now have clear evidence that Tyler does not have these men's best interests
– their personal goals and development – as his priority. It's clear that he
has been using them for his own ends, and their personal goals
are inconsequential. To quote Tyler directly, at the end of the movie when Jack
is trying to stop him:
- I beg you, please
don't do this.
- I'm not doing this. We
are doing this. This is what we want.
- No. I don't want this.
- Right. Except 'You' is
meaningless now. We have to forget about you." [130:30']
It's a
stark example, but worth remembering: your own projects are your own projects,
and anytime you can squeeze in your life for those personal projects is
counter-productive to your job, your boss, your co-workers, your fellow group
members, etc. If these men decided to quit Project Mayhem and pursue their
personal goals, they – and their quest for personal dignity – would be in
rebellion against Project Mayhem, even if they didn't directly intend to
actually destroy or stop Project Mayhem by leaving it. Their cross-purpose-ness
would be unavoidable. It would be de facto.
Also
worth mentioning is group resentment, used by Tyler Durden, which facilitates
the other men in Fight Club into first becoming his minions. This key speech
almost immediately precedes Tyler's First Dishonesty with the homework
assignments we mentioned earlier.
"I see all this potential, and I see it
squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables -
slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working
jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of
history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression.
Our great war is a spiritual war... Our great depression is our lives. We've
all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires,
and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact.
And we're very, very pissed off." [70', emphasis mine]
This is
almost directly comparable in Camus' The Rebel, wherein, attempting to
define the positivity of rebellion, he contrasts it with the negativity of
resentment, as defined by Scheler.
Rebellion is, in fact,
much more than pursuant of a claim, in the strongest sense of the word.
Resentment is very well defined by Scheler as an autointoxication—the evil
secretion, in a sealed vessel, of prolonged impotence. Rebellion, on the
contrary, breaks the seal and allows the whole being to come into play…Scheler
is also right in saying that resentment is always highly colored by envy. But
one envies what one does not have, while the rebel's aim is to defend what
he is…According to Scheler, resentment always turns into either unscrupulous
ambition or bitterness…But in both cases it is a question of wanting to be
something other than what one is…The rebel, on the contrary, from his very
first step, refuses to allow anyone to touch what he is. He is fighting for
the integrity of one part of his being."[pg 17-18, emphasis mine]10
As
we've established, Tyler has no interest in helping the Project Mayhem
applicants to "allow their whole being to come into play" by letting
them paint their self-portraits or build their houses, they're merely tools for
attaining his unscrupulous anarchist ambitions: "But at this extremity
nothing else is possible but death or resurrection…all the nihilist rebels rush
to the outmost limits, drunk with destruction."[pg 65]ibid
To
return to the particular flavor of nihilism that's inherent in Project Mayhem
specifically – and their abandonment of each Applicant's personal projects of
personal development – the definition comes most succinctly from Friedrich
Nietzsche, quoted by Camus in The Rebel: "'My enemies,' says
Nietzsche, 'are those who want to destroy without creating their own
selves.'"[pg9]ibid The men Tyler finds to do his bidding are
clearly each disaffected from something personal, whatever emotional lack lead
them to use Fight Club as a palliative. But after rejecting whatever
disappointing place in society they formerly had (a motivation that we may in
fact sympathize with), they immediately shave their head, remove all
identifying features, dress entirely in black, and sign themselves up to be a
"Space Monkey! Ready to be shot into space. Ready to sacrifice himself for
the greater good." [90]
Here we
are dealing with what Simone De Beauvoir called Serious Men:
"He loses himself
in the object in order to annihilate his subjectivity…He suppresses himself to
the advantage of the Thing, which, sanctified by respect, appears in the form
of a Cause, science, philosophy, revolution, etc…The serious man gets rid of
his freedom by claiming to subordinate it to values which would be
unconditioned. He imagines that the accession of these values likewise
permanently confers values on himself…The thing that matters to the serious man
is not so much the nature of the object which he prefers to himself, but rather
the fact of being able to lose himself in it."14
Handing
oneself over to A Greater Good is by definition a reduction, a depletion of a
human being's personal development, for the development of something else. Again,
this is not necessarily to besmirch every communal activity project (obviously
most will be hopefully far less damaging that the one eventually portrayed in Fight
Club), only to note that self-definition is automatically a
contrariety to any group that attempts to provide definition for
its members.
Also in
De Beauvoir is the definition of the Adventurer, which will somewhat help us in
defining Tyler Durden. By De Beauvoir, the Adventurer "likes action for
its own sake," but:
"it should be
noticed that the adventurer's attitude is not always pure. Behind the
appearance of caprice, there are many men who pursue a secret goal of utter
seriousness; for example, fortune or glory. They proclaim their skepticism in
regard to recognized values [remember the "consumerism" speech
earlier in the movie -PK].ibid
It's
also worth noting that the Adventurer is not without hope, as long as he continues
upwards, and extends his goals to allow others their own form of freedom
and self-development.
"He can become
conscious of the real requirements of his own freedom, which can will itself
only by destining itself to an open future, by seeking to extend itself by
means of the freedom of others. Therefore, in any case, the freedom of other
men must be respected and they must be helped to free themselves…But the man
who acts in this way, whose end is the liberation of himself and others, who
forces himself to respect this end through the means which he uses to attain
it, no longer deserves the name of adventurer. One would not dream for example,
of applying it to a Lawrence, who was so concerned about the lives of his
companions and the freedom of others, so tormented by the human problems which
all action raises. One is then in the presence of a genuinely free man. The man we call an adventurer, on the
contrary, is one who remains indifferent to the content, that is, to the human
meaning of his action, who thinks he can assert his own existence without
taking into account that of others…Thus, nothing prevents him from sacrificing
these insignificant beings to his own will to power. He will treat them like
instruments; he will destroy them if they get in his way [Emphasis mine] …he
cannot win the game without making himself a tyrant or a hangman...Favorable
circumstances are enough to transform the adventurer into a dictator. He
carries the seed of one within him ["YOU DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS"],
since he regards mankind as an indifferent matter destined to support the game
of his existence. ["'You' is meaningless now."]ibid
As I
said at the beginning of this section, Fight Club as a whole is
obviously an exaggerated example of the nefariously slow absorption that
Greater Good Causes can have in regards to their member's individual goals of
self-definition and self-actualization. But it's meant as a symbolic
place-holder for the final point I intended: Every act is definitely an act of
contrariety against something or someone. In the event joining a Serious
Cause, the only thing that would become clear would be exactly what one would
be up against if one decided later to attempt pursuing one's own personal goals.
Not all
groupings are inherently evil, but all groupings do involve an automatic,
inescapable exchange between Self-Definition being traded for Assisting in
Another's Definition. Hopefully shared, but it obviously will always
hold the risk of becoming "problematic", to say the least,
when it reaches a particular size, or begins pursuing particular goals. Without
knowing (or being able to define) the exact numerical membership size,
or a compendium of specifically worrisome goals, it is all still always
something to be cautiously aware of. It's never something to relax about.
To defy the laws of tradition is a
crusade only of the brave. – Primus15
As an
artistic counter-argument – a How To, if you will, in comparison to Fight
Club's list of What Not To Do – we have the novel Invisible Man, by
Ralph Ellison. Worth immediate mention is the similarities between Project
Mayhem in Fight Club, and the symbolic (or literal) stand-in for the
communist party, The Brotherhood, in Invisible Man.
"The
committee makes your decisions, and it is not its practice to give undue
importance to the mistaken notions of the people...Such crowds are only our raw
materials, one of the raw materials to be shaped by our program….We do
not shape our policies to the mistaken and infantile notions of the man in the
street. Our job is not to ask them what they think but to tell
them."
"You've
said that," I said, "and that's one thing you can tell them yourself.
Who are you, anyway, the great white father?"
"Not
their father, their leader. And your leader. And don't forget it."
"My
leader sure, but what's your exact relationship to them?"
His
red head bristled. "The leader. As leader of the Brotherhood I am their
leader."
"But
are you sure you aren't their great white father?...Wouldn't it be better if
they called you Marse Jack?" [pg 461-462]16
The
Protagonist of Invisible Man (who remains unnamed, similar to Jack in Fight
Club, coincidentally) is attempting to lodge a complaint with the
Brotherhood, that they have abandoned the well-being of the black citizens of
Harlem, for some reason he does not (yet) understand. Brother Jack (the head of
the Brotherhood, who the Protagonist is speaking with), refers constantly to
both members and the people being "the raw materials shaped by our
program." All people are only to be used as tools for the Brotherhood's
greater good, "And do you know what discipline is, Brother?…It's
sacrifice, sacrifice, SACRIFICE."[pg 464]ibid
The
Protagonist is attempting to rebel against the oppression of the communist
Brotherhood, where they planned on using not just him but the entire race of
black people as pawns in their greater political goals. In fact, this was a
known issue at the time this book was being written, as explained by Aime
Cesaire (a French black poet) in his resignation letter to the communist party:
I have become convinced
that our paths and the paths of communism as it has been put into practice are
not purely and simply indistinguishable…In any case, it is clear that our
struggle — the struggle of colonial peoples against colonialism, the struggle
of peoples of color against racism—is more complex, or better yet, of a
completely different nature than the fight of the French worker against French
capitalism, and it cannot in any way be considered a part, a fragment, of that
struggle…For my part, I believe that black peoples are rich with energy and
passion, that they lack neither vigor nor imagination, but that these strengths
can only wilt in organizations that are not their own: made for them, made by
them, and adapted to ends that they alone can determine…Under these
conditions, it will be understood that we cannot delegate anyone else to think
for us, or to make our discoveries for us; that, henceforth, we cannot allow
anyone else, even if they are the best of our friends, to vouch for us…What I
want is that Marxism and communism be placed in the service of black peoples, and
not black peoples in the service of Marxism and communism. That the doctrine
and the movement would be made to fit men, not men to fit the doctrine or the
movement. And, to be clear, this is valid not only for communists. If I
were Christian or Muslim, I would say the same thing. I would say that no
doctrine is worthwhile unless rethought by us, rethought for us, converted to
us…so ingrained in Europe (from the extreme right to the extreme left) is
the habit of doing for us, arranging for us, thinking for us — in short, the
habit of challenging our possession of this right to initiative of which
I have just spoken, which is, at the end of the day, the right to
personality…the French Communist Party conceives of its duties toward
colonized peoples in terms of a position of authority to fill…we no longer want
to remain content with being present while others do politics…that the French
Communist Party has never bothered itself to offer even that; that it has never
thought of us in any way other than in relation to a world strategy.[Emphasis
mine]17
This
letter, and the last 1/4 of Invisible Man, is certainly concerned with
the nigh-inescapable eventual fact of a human being be subsumed to a Greater
Cause if they are not perpetually vigilant. Any group one joins is a group
worth maintaining at least a ground level of suspicion, in all interactions.
This
manipulation is spelled out directly, shortly after The Protagonist's argument
with Brother Jack, when the Invisible Man goes to the local chapter's
intellectual professor in charge of social education:
"[T]here's
nothing to be done about it that wouldn't upset the larger plan. It's
unfortunate, Brother, but your members will have to be sacrificed…the interests
of one group of brothers must be sacrificed to that of the whole…"
"But
shouldn't sacrifice be made willingly by those who know what they are doing? My
people don't understand why they're being sacrificed. They don't even know
they're being sacrificed."
"…All
of us must sacrifice for the good of the whole. Change is achieved through
sacrifice. We follow the laws of reality, so we make sacrifices."
"But
the community is demanding equality of sacrifice," I said. "We've
never asked for special treatment.
"It
isn't that simple, Brother," he said…"It's inevitable that some must
make greater sacrifices than others…"
"That
'some' being my people…"
"In
this instance, yes."
"So
the weak must sacrifice for the strong? Is that it, Brother?"
"No,
a part of the whole is sacrifice—and will continue to be until a new society is
formed."[pg 490-491]16
Hambro
laughed, "I thought you had learned about that, Brother."
I
looked at him quickly. "Learned what?"
"That
it's impossible not to take advantage of the people…"
"…Cynicism,"
I said.
"Not
cynicism—realism. The trick is to take advantage of them in their own best
interests…"
"Look
at me! Look at me!" I said. Everywhere I've turned somebody has
wanted to sacrifice me for my good—only they were the ones who benefitted. And
now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop?
Is this the new true definition, is Brotherhood a matter of sacrificing the
weak? If so, at what point do we stop?"[pg 493-494]ibid
All of
this culminating in a riot in Harlem in Chapter 25, which he deduces was
allowed to happen by the Brotherhood, in order to further their goals. ibid
“Everyone's
got the right to make an ass out of themselves." – Maude18
In
conclusion, to retrace our steps back to a smaller and more personal arena, we
will end again with the perpetual challenge of the Singular Human, and their
attempt to design themselves by their own designs, and the inevitable and
inescapable antagonism that every single one of those decisions will engender
(to quote the Invisible Man, "Some folks call me a traitor because I've
been working downtown; some would call me a traitor if I was in Civil Service
and others if I simply sat in my corner and kept quiet."[pg 456]16),
we are at the final conclusion, and only solutions available – if one would
even deign to call them solutions; since these are problems with no cessation,
it may be better to refer to them as survival techniques.
To
paraphrase Sartre again, "There is this in
common between art and morality, that in both we have to do with creation and
invention." Life, "has always to be invented."2
There's not much to be said about the project of making oneself that doesn't
seem challenging. And to be honest, this paper is not so much about finding
ways to make life easier. But only to accentuate the fact that it's impossible
to invent yourself into anything without making someone disappointed.
Even dismissing the extremisms of Project Mayhem or The Brotherhood, any
cause is by definition an Other Cause compared to one's Personal Cause.
Anything you choose that appeals to you, or any time you take to yourself, to
set your boundaries, to declare your self-worth – anything of any personal
pursuit or development – will be disputed by someone somewhere. With
membership in a formulated group, you could very possibly just be only giving a
name and face to whatever will try to stop you later.
And what is it to make oneself? What
does the shape take? Where do the blueprints come from? As the Invisible Man
has shown us, only from oneself. After the saga of the book – since the actual
chapters are all taking place before the "current" time, the Prologue
and Epilogue, in which we and the protagonist are looking back at what we've
just recently read and he's just recently lived – the Protagonist looks back at
all the dishonesties and manipulations and involuntary sacrifices that he had
been put through, which make up the entire plots and revolving scenarios of
this great book.
Speaking of that time, in reflection while
in the after time:
"All my life I had been looking for something, and
everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their
answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory,
I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself
questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much
painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else
appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself [pg 15]…I try
belatedly to study the lessons of my own life…Well, now I've been trying to
look through myself, and there's a risk in it. I was never more hated than when
I tried to be honest…I've tried to give my friends the incorrect, absurd
answers they wished to hear…But here was the rub: Too often, in order to
justify them, I had to take myself by the throat and choke myself until
my eyes bulged and my tongue hung out and wagged like the door of an empty
house in a high wind. Oh yes, it made them happy and it made me sick. So I
became ill of affirmation, of saying "yes" against the nay-saying of
my stomach—not to mention my brain…I was pulled this way and that for longer
than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's
way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one
really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt
the opinions of others I finally rebelled.[pg 559-560]16
It's worth noting that Ellison used
"rebelled" instead of "stood up for myself," or some
likewise genteel verb, since I believe (and I think Camus would agree) that
those are both equally synonymous. All "standing up" entails
rebellion. Always. And we know for certain that Ellison had considerable
interaction with and appreciation for Camus & the existentialists, years
before beginning to write this story.19 These themes – the Constant Challenges
to Declaring Your Personhood – were serious issues for every major writer at
this time. And just like Camus in The Rebel – "I rebel, therefore
we exist" [pg 22]10 – Ellison knows that the conclusions he's
reaching have much farther and greater ramifications than just whether one man
has decided to accept himself.
"Whence all this passion toward conformity
anyway?—diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no
tyrant states…think of what the world should lose if that should happen.
America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain…Life
is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in
face of certain defeat. Our fate is to become one, and yet many—This is not
prophecy, but description." [pg 563-564]16
And Ellison's final sentence – that
"on the lower frequencies, I speak for you" ibid – recalls
this final unity with all other men who are going through similar challenges,
and through perpetual (and, again, unending) struggles in order to define
themselves. This is when he ascends to De Beauvoir's Free Man, the one she
compares to T.E. Lawrence, who uses his freedom in order to concern himself
with helping other's freedom.14 To "not be a master of others
or their slave."[pg 45]20
And the singular person's quest to
define themselves, to "slip into one of these voids" as De
Beauvoir puts it, "but there is never one that is molded exactly for
him,"4 entails shouldering and elbowing open a space that was
not automatically granted or awaiting you. In the prologue, the Protagonist is
living in a clean and warm sewer hole (obviously not originally intended for
living in, but carved out by our hero, nonetheless), supplied with electricity
he's been stealing from a utility company, making an elegant closing metaphor
for our themes of carving out one's space, and accepting, guiltlessly, the
inescapable static of personhood, that someone would try to stop you,
even if they might not yet know about your existence:
"For instance, I have been carrying on a fight with
Monopolated Light and Power for some time now. I use their service and pay them
nothing at all, and they don't know it. Oh, they suspect that power is being
drained off, but they don't know where. All they know is that according to the
master meter…a hell of a lot of free current is disappearing somewhere in the
jungle of Harlem…My hole is warm and full of light. Yes, full of light.
I doubt there is a brighter spot in all of New York than this hole of
mine…Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form…That is why I fight my
battle with Monopolated Light & Power. The deeper reason, I mean: it allows
me to feel my vital aliveness…In my hole in the basement there are exactly
1,369 lights…an act of sabotage, you know."[pg 5-7, emphasis mine]16
All the lessons and failures our
character has gone through, and he learns this vital trick – this
Self-Sufficiency through Sabotage, you might call it – from all those failures.
From only those failures. From only himself. No one person in his travels
taught him this. If anything, they were banking and hoping and trying to teach
him every lesson except that one. But he has learned it just the same,
from no other source but himself. His stolen outer light a symbol for his
self-provided inner light, despite quite literally hundreds of people and well
over 500 pages of experiences trying to make him believe otherwise. A living
example of what Camus spoke of when he said, “In the midst of winter, I found
there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it
says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s
something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”21
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Zorba
the Greek; Director: Michael Cacoyannis; 1964
2. "Existentialism
is a Humanism"; Jean-Paul Sartre; 1946
3. Rush
– "Freewill"; Album: Permanent Waves; 1980
4. Pyrrhus
and Cineas; Simone De Beauvoir; 1944
5. The
Myth of Sisyphus; Albert Camus; 1942
6. "Eight
Dimensions of Resistance"; Tamara Fakhoury; 2019
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_personal_is_political
8. The
Challenge of Cultural Relativism; "How
Different Cultures Have Different Moral Codes"; James Rachels; 1999
9. Still
Life With Woodpecker; Tom Robbins; 1980
10. The
Rebel; Albert Camus; 1951
11. "Jon
Stewart interviews George Carlin"; 1997; YouTube
12. Fight
Club; Director: David Fincher; 1999
13. Negging:
Definition - an act of emotional manipulation whereby a person makes a
deliberate backhanded compliment or otherwise flirtatious remark to another
person to undermine their confidence and increase their need of the
manipulator's approval; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negging
14. The
Ethics of Ambiguity; Chapter 2: Personal
Freedom and Others; Simone De Beauvoir; 1947
15. Primus
– "To Defy The Laws of Tradition"; Album: Frizzle Fry; 1990
16. Invisible
Man; Ralph Ellison; 1952
17. "Letter
to Maurice Thorez"; Aime Cesaire; 1956
18. Harold
& Maude; Director: Hal Ashby; 1971
19. "The
Absurd in the Briar Patch: Ellison's Invisible Man and Existentialism;
Eliot John Wilcox; 2010
20. Ulysses;
James Joyce; 1922
21. "Wedding
in Tipasa"; Albert Camus; 1938
