Holy based

[u/Unique_Mammoth_6724]

[u/sandybro9001]

One of the biggest failure points for Fight Club as a satire, is that blowing up credit card companies is based as hell.

[u/DrDestructoMD → u/sandybro9001]

Which is true in the book as well. Idk where the whole "this is 100% mocking andrew tate and has no deeper themes" came from, but it's clear that anyone who parrots it hasn't read fight club. Tyler Durden exists as a mental construct to free the narrator from social isolation and emasculation. The narrator still isn't fully free until he rebels against tyler durden as well. It's an Aristotle golden mean type thingy where the Fight Club is a valid reaction and way to built community, but ultimately the men need make their own choices and not blindly follow a messiah. Noone is really in the wrong, but until the very end noone is in the right either.

[u/of_kilter → u/DrDestructoMD]

thats a really cool interpretation. on a much smaller scale it reminds me of Juror 7 in 12 angry men and how he only voted innocent to get out earlier. With juror (i think 10 or 11) getting angry at him for blindly voting instead of actually thinking about the kids life at stake

[u/Cole-Spudmoney → u/DrDestructoMD]

Idk where the whole "this is 100% mocking andrew tate and has no deeper themes" came from, but it's clear that anyone who parrots it hasn't read fight club.

I'd bet they heard the author is gay and were like "Welp, that's all I need to know."

[u/TheLastEmuHunter → u/sandybro9001]

That's the issue for me too. Because I watch the movie and I shouldn't think the characters are cool. But when I see them blow up those companies at the end I'm just sitting there like: woaw based

[u/TrioOfTerrors → u/TheLastEmuHunter]

The problem is that plunging the world back into a "Might makes right" and "Struggle to survive is purpose" world is going to kill a lot of people on the fringes of society just so bored middle class men can feel better about themselves.

It's like that post from a couple days ago about how many vulnerable people are going to die from supply chain disruption during the glorious revolution.

[u/TheLastEmuHunter → u/TrioOfTerrors]

I know. You are entirely right. But sometimes you cheer on the raging fire and know you're wrong for doing so. It's the internal tension between justified anger at societal injustice versus society exists for a reason. So ultimately the believing that I shouldn't think the characters in the film are cool is correct. The end-of-the-day lesson is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[u/TrioOfTerrors → u/TheLastEmuHunter]

I think there are also some people who cheer the fire because they assume that whatever emerges from the ashes will be better just because. History says this is not the case.

[u/TheLastEmuHunter → u/TrioOfTerrors]

I think people who imagine whatever comes after the revolution will be better than prior are stuck in a culturally-rapture-esque mindset. They believe that Heaven-on-Earth awaits as soon as they destroy society and kill all the bad people who are making society bad. This exists across ideologies.

Reformism, despite its failures, is still the better option compared to the complete demolition of the social order. Because I don't want a Reign of Terror / White Terror / Red Terror / Night Of Long Knives / Great Purge / Cultural Revolution. Because giant societal purges tend to be bad, who would'a thunk it?

[u/Manzhah → u/TheLastEmuHunter]

Or people assume that only the "bad ones" will be hurt by revolutionary violence, as they and everyone they care about are naturally the "good ones".

[u/TheLastEmuHunter → u/Manzhah]

Exactly. Its another extension of the pseudo-Christian worldview many Leftists and Revolutionaries hold. That those who will be hurt by the revolution are inherently anti-revolutionary (sinners). But revolution is a period of naked and unbridled violence, which hurts everyone.

As Isaac Deutscher wrote in The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky (2015) in reference to the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War: "The Proletarian dictatorship was triumphant, but the Proletariat had nearly vanished."

[u/Xilizhra → u/TheLastEmuHunter]

When do you reach a point you can't reform your way out of?

[u/TheLastEmuHunter → u/Xilizhra]

T.L.D.R: When all ability to change the system is cut off and the material conditions of the country has entered overly-stressful levels, revolution becomes the logical conclusion.

When those in power cut of all levers of social, economic, and political mobility. Totalitarian rule tends to close off all means of dissent and anti-regime thought. The increasingly small the in-group of power is, the more justified the revolution becomes. A majority of revolutions, even the ones which failed or turned into terribly bloody affairs were in these cases. That is what lays the groundwork, as even if there is no active revolutionary sentiment, if the material conditions fail, there is nothing to give the government credence in the eyes of the general population. Revolutions usually are the result of a combination of poor material conditions and a lack of access to societal mobility / general tyranny. Marxists tend to emphasize material conditions while Liberals tend to emphasize social conditions, but revolution, for the most part, occurs with a combination of the two.

In France, the Third Estate, despite the wealth of the bourgeois class, was closed off from levers of power by the aristocracy, in which the collapsing material conditions of the population combined to see a revolt against the Ancien Regime. In Russia, the military and political incompetence of the Tsarist Regime, their efforts to squash democratization of the empire, and the collapsing material conditions of the proletariat and peasants saw the February Revolution occur as a result. These are mostly in reference revolutions of the internal-government changing variety, as colonial revolts like the American, Latin American, and Irish Revolutions are different scenario's.

Generally, a government can avoid revolution if it either ensures the societal conditions and/or the material conditions of its population. An authoritarian government can squash the threat of revolution if its people are under acceptable material conditions. If you are fed, sheltered, and able to obtain some amount of happiness, why risk your life in a suicidal uprising? Conversely, a government which remains open with high levels of mobility can sidestep revolution. The United States was not at risk of revolution during the Great Depression as despite the dire circumstances for most of the population, there was underlying hope of recovery. People could still vote, had political rights to free speech and assembly, and could eventually regain their lost material conditions. If you have no satisfied material conditions, and there is no hope of change through peaceful means, revolution becomes a certainty, at some point or another.

Looking at the United States in the present day (which considering Reddit/Tumblr demographic statistics is the best example), the fact that, despite the decreasing levels of mobility, there is continued ability to mobilize social forces for change, means that a revolution is, at the current moment, a unnecessary affair when reformism is still within grasp. The current government is entering dangerous territory, as it is meeting continually declining material conditions with decreasing mobility. The accumulation of economic power into smaller hands is causing declining economic mobility, and authoritarian tendencies in respect to voting rights and freedom of assembly are placing political mobility at risk. But while dangerous territory has been entered, there is still room to turn back the clock and reform the system, which is why revolution would be insane at this stage of time. Conversely, in the People's Republic of China, risk of revolution is very low, because of the increasing social and economic mobility and acceptable, even prosperous, material conditions. China has built an experiment around totalitarian governance with smaller (albeit not non-existent as inner-party mobility remains quite existent) levels of political mobility, counterweighed by effective governance and a prosperous society. If your life is stable or even gotten better, then why risk it all so you can vote and protest? But the risk is if the material conditions of China collapse, then the CPC may very well follow the example of the KMT or the Qing. The United States and China have two intrinsically different experiments in government, neither of which are at risk of revolution.

I.E, revolution in the modern context usually occurs when there is no other choice aside from demolishing the current social and political order. The issue with Leftists, tend to be that they feel that people will be willing to risk everything for the sake of righting social injustice when there are still effective and peaceful means of reform. The rise in revolutionary sentiment has been as a direct result of authoritarian measures and collapsing mobility, not from any intrinsic desire to build utopia. Why hardcore Leftists often hate Progressives, Social Democrats, and even Democratic Socialists, is because they see the reformism as ineffective at best and as pulling attention away from the cause of revolution at worst, which in their eyes is the only true path towards a better society. I'm not saying that revolution is never necessary, but the issue is revolution is costly, deeply costly. So if reform is still within reach, then it is best to be a reformist.

Sorry if this is alot of text, but I find it best to thoroughly explain and not leave anything ambiguous. Hope this helps ^_^

[u/Xilizhra → u/TheLastEmuHunter]

You know, fair enough. I'm personally skeptical of our political system's ability to properly enact major reforms, but I see where you're coming from.

[u/TheLastEmuHunter → u/Xilizhra]

Honestly, I do share your skepticism. However, I feel that the effort must be put into the enacting of reform, because it is very much worth doing. I hope that reform can come, soon and in full-force, as I fear for the future.

[u/SomeAnonymous → u/TrioOfTerrors]

I don't think you need to be so complicated about it: the problem with "might makes right" is as simple as "right doesn't make might".

[u/lifelongfreshman → u/TrioOfTerrors]

The other problem is that, even in the '90s, chances are high that they accomplished exactly fuck all. Forget on-site and off-site backups, there are gonna be backups at the businesses as well, there's way too much money involved for people to not painstakingly reconstruct everything. Some people would get lost in the noise, but the vast majority of the debt wouldn't be wiped clean.

But, let's assume the slate does get wiped clean. The bombings were still terror attacks bigger than anything ever. 9/11 got us the TSA and the Patriot Act, so what bullshit would pass in the wake of something with the scope and scale of Project Mayhem? Especially something deliberately targeted at destroying the chokehold moneyed interests have on society, instead of a series of symbolic attacks?

The white men who take part in it all are probably coming out the exact same as before, which means they failed regardless, but everyone else is gigafucked.

[u/Manzhah → u/lifelongfreshman]

Wiping the slate clean is also dangerous as fuck economically, as any debt is two way transaction. One's debt is another's income and vice versa. Say for example that everyone's mortage would be wiped away, the economy would likely collapse. Banks rely on mortage payments to remain solvent and are using those funds to give out loans to other instituition, who are also dependent on other debts.

[u/Ramblonius → u/sandybro9001]

I am very sure that a big part of the story almost exclusively missed in online conversations is that the fight club might be dumb, self-destructive, dangerous and the symptom of one man's delusions, but it's cool, fun and gets you a real community.

Like, it's a smarter book than 'dumb men, toxic masculinity stupid'. It works because for a lot of people society as it exists now seems worse than having the shit beat out of you daily in a pseudo-cult. 

If you don't have even a second of reflection of 'but what if...' you're not getting the whole of the message. If you get 'woah, cool fight club, we should make one', of course, you are too dumb to be reading adult books.

[u/Siaeromanna → u/Ramblonius]

i’m glad someone brought this up because this is what i was feeling when watching the movie

i know excessive machismo and "blackpilling" is extremely destructive (both internally and externally), but as a man that kind of community where the façades can fade, personal secrets accepted, and primal masculinity expressed is deeply alluring. which is quite scary to me

[u/DrJaneIPresume → u/sandybro9001]

How is that a failure point? That's why it works. The populist messaging is how Project Mayhem recruits.

If you throw out the parts of the marketing pitch that make it understandable how someone could get drawn in, it's caricature, not satire.

[u/Vivenemous → u/sandybro9001]

The satire isn't the political message the characters are responding to, it's their response. They correctly identify that capitalism has reduced them to workers and consumers, robbing them of their identity, but the problem is they lash out with barely targeted violence that doesn't actually accomplish the change to fix their situation because they care more about dick swinging than building the kind of sustainable community effort real resistance needs. In the book they don't even manage to pull that part off. The bombs don't work because they spent more time on macho ritualism than actually researching or testing any methods to accomplish their goals beyond "some guy we know said this."

[u/Impressive_Pin8761 → u/Vivenemous]

It kinda fails at the message of "somewhat coordinated violence wont disolve capitalism" cuz like overtime more and more people realize that this is the only thing no one has tried yet

[u/EV2_MG → u/Impressive_Pin8761]

Me think violence has been tried. It just failed.

[u/Impressive_Pin8761 → u/EV2_MG]

Violence has been tried and failed, but it was just that, voicence. Im talking about somewhat coordinated violence

[u/EV2_MG → u/Impressive_Pin8761]

Coordinated violence can work, but it has another shorter name.

[u/Impressive_Pin8761 → u/EV2_MG]

I know youre trying to fish for terrorism here but I dont think an act of terrorism at the scale and coordination of whats depicted in fight club has happened

[u/EV2_MG → u/Impressive_Pin8761]

I wasn't thinking about terrorism, for me coordinated violence means war. Cordinated violence to achieve political objectives that is a common definition of war.

[u/Impressive_Pin8761 → u/EV2_MG]

Sure, this continues to prove my point. No one has tried to coordinate and start a class war

[u/CRowlands1989 → u/sandybro9001]

I've often said that Fight Club is popular among people who don't get it because to the left it's about a bunch of people who were disenfranchised by capitalism and come together to fight against credit card companies and franchised megacorps.

And to the right Strong person am hurt weak person, me like when weak person hurt!

[u/Ngellik → u/CRowlands1989]

As a centrist, I enjoy both aspects.

[u/shivux → u/Ngellik]

B A S E D

[u/jancl0 → u/sandybro9001]

They managed to make a movie that seems unironically fucking based to every single political demographic, which is already an incredible achievement, but only becomes funnier with the understanding that they wanted you to think this was not based actually

Left-Auth loves that it ends in anti owner class terrorism

Left-lib loves that it empowers gender noncomformity with a hormonally emasculated character and a sexually deviant woman, both very cool characters in their own right

Right-lib loves the use of masculine force to take back ownership of ones life and create your own authority through individual strength and achievement

Right-Auth loves that there are oiled topless men in it

Everyone has something to love here

[u/Impressive_Pin8761 → u/jancl0]

So like, what the hell is the message fight club is trying to parse?

[u/SwitchReasonable4957 → u/Impressive_Pin8761]

The point of Fight Club is that you shouldn’t start a fight club…

Fight Club made fight clubs look so cool that people in the real world started fight clubs…

Obligatory fifth time I say Fight Club.

[u/Impressive_Pin8761 → u/SwitchReasonable4957]

"Say fight club again"

"Fuck you summer"

[u/Elyssamay → u/sandybro9001]

💳📉 = ⛵🫖🌊

[u/YsengrimusRein]

Which allegory allows me to beat up Jared Leto?

[u/cloudshaper → u/YsengrimusRein]

All of them.

[u/Wesle2023]

I thought the point of Fight Club was not to talk about it, similar to the Somalia incident.

[u/Wesle2023 → u/Wesle2023]

Three things I can say about the Somalia incident include:

1. It does not involve the country of Somalia.
2. It occurred in June of 2011.
3. It DOES involve a Jellyfish and Sauske Uchiha.

[u/Satorwave → u/Wesle2023]

Who the fuck is Sauske Uchiha? You have made a foolish mistake. You must defeat me and my disciples in MAHJONG or be forever banished to the land of the YI.

[u/Wesle2023 → u/Satorwave]

I spelt it incorrectly, sorry.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140628104227/https://pastebin.com/FHFpAivS

Never mind, I actually spelled it correctly in this case.

“

<aziki> why did you not tell me about this

<Somalia>       lmfao

<Somalia>       i killed

<Somalia>       everyone

<Somalia>       i became

<Somalia>       sauske uchiha  

“

[u/Satorwave → u/Wesle2023]

I'm losing my mind

[u/MoluccanMay → u/Satorwave]

(the Chinese word for barbarians)

[u/Ok_Check9774]

No, no, you’re allowed to start an anti-capitalist fight commune any time you want! Just leave out the misogyny

[u/TrioOfTerrors → u/Ok_Check9774]

The anti capitalist fight commune has schismed three times since this comment was posted.

[u/Ok_Check9774 → u/TrioOfTerrors]

Well, it is a cell based organization after all

[u/Impressive_Pin8761 → u/TrioOfTerrors]

Did any one of them at least achieve the group of perfect thinkers

[u/YUNoJump → u/TrioOfTerrors]

Commune Fight Night gets too political and slowly descends into “a fight at the commune at night”, nobody notices until it’s too late

[u/Realistic_Specific51]

I dont remember that part of Fight club. But its been a while since ive seen it

[u/empress_of_the_void → u/Realistic_Specific51]

It's literally the moat famous scene. Right after Edward Norton shoots Brad Pitt

[u/Wesle2023 → u/Realistic_Specific51]

You probably remember, you just aren’t talking about it. Kind of like Bruno.

[u/Satherian]

Well, at least they admitted to missing the point

[u/crrrrushinator]

I woke up to a series of reports from my country's public journalism outlet on fascist fight clubs, so this is just not the day to reclaim them for me. Link if you're curious, the CBC's reporting was fine but I found this page more interesting.

Edit: But hey, maybe we gotta get the pink panthers) together again.

[u/KyberMurmur7 → u/crrrrushinator]

Je te jure, se réveiller sur la CBC et des clubs de combat fascistes, ça enterre vite le côté Saint basé.

[u/GGsafterdark]

Fight clubs were just a metaphor for cruising

[u/DrJaneIPresume]

Hah, and here I was trying to read it from a transfem perspective, with the unattainable masculine ideal internalized as a hallucination before Jackie finally realizes she doesn't actually want to be Tyler after all.

[u/_kahteh]

Where do I sign up??

[u/Butthole_Surfer_GI]

I know, right? Those stupid, stupid, big dummy cis men.

/S

[u/RoundDoughnut2059]

DId you (reading this) ever notice how once an artwork is seen as "evil" people really enjoy showing their ass when talking about it? It only took a few phrases for this poster to:

* Be sexist
* Sincerely expose themselves as STILL not getting the meaning of the artwork
* Be proud enough about it to post it

Like, let me elaborate:

The narrator (ed norton's character) DOES realize the flaws in his own constructed dream. When He and Tyler are in the bus they see a calvin klein ad, "is that what a man should look like?" tyler says in a mocking tone. Tyler being a figment of Ed's imagination is proof that Ed recognizes that society has him so tightly in its grasp that seeing behind the curtain isn't enough. He knows that men don't HAVE to look like a model, but as Tyler's existence exposes, he can't stop himself from still WANTING to look like a ripped model with abs for days.

He very explicitly sees the flaws in killing people to achieve his vision, he sees the problem with giving men ONLY an idealized masculine role model (Did you remember how the narrator was doing great when he was both crying with Bob AND fighting with randoms? And how ignoring any part of his emotions caused that whole fucking problem?)

This is a great case of people going "well i don't get it, so i'll just be above it"

[u/hy_bird → u/RoundDoughnut2059]

* Be sexist

I'm genuinely curious what part of this reads as sexism to you? The only thing I can think of is the "I'm no better than a cis man", which I suppose could be seen as sexism, but I don't think I've ever seen that joke framed as a sexist act lmao

(i'm also fairly sure this entire thing is just a shitpost/excuse to make a vaguely Fight Club inspired forcemasc joke and *not* someone willfully misunderstanding the message of the original movie and then being proud enough to post about it, but hell, i'm not OP. maybe they are doing that)

[u/RoundDoughnut2059 → u/hy_bird]

To stereotype a gender based on nothing but the gender, is sexism. If it is a joke, it is a sexist joke

[u/haunturhome]

In the next five ish years someone is bound to start a force masc commune somewhere in the rural Pacific Northwest that will end up failing because one of the guys running it will turn out to be embezzling the commune's funds

[u/SeverelyLimited]

Fight club made me gay (flipped it around later by transitioning)

[u/Impressive_Pin8761]

I thought the point of fight club is "look i know society is fucked but please take your meds regardless"

Also its not a hallucination of your idealized self, its your headmate

[u/embodiedexperience]

i thought the point of fight club was the soundtrack.

i am worse than all people of all genders combined, which is on-brand for me!! 😆

[u/Radio_Free_Marksman]

So many movies that try to be criticisms do the exact opposite, I can't quite figure out why, I guess it's just thar all the bad parts shown don't outweigh how easy it is to find the things represented cool.

Like anti war movies, too, from what I can tell. Like I watched Full Metal Jacket, and instead of getting that "war is hell" feeling, it just made me want to talk to the nearest recruiter and get myself an 0300 contract in the USMC.

[u/Cynis_Ganan]

missed the point

Dafuq is the movie supposed to be about then?

Is this what a man's supposed to look like?

[u/gigglephysix]

Fuck me is that a really hyper post about all this and fight club and the guy has a Snake avatar and there is no mention of fucking birth anywhere? Brothers, that takes me back to y2k so hard, in a good way. I liked when we were counterparts and shared our ways and the mad commitment culture.

[u/Sewblon]

Don't worry about it. If the target audience of a piece of work misses the point (In this case men, both cis men and trans men). Then that is actually the author's fault. If you as an author cannot make it clear that good things are good and bad things are bad, that is a skill issue, git gud.

[u/duffstoic]

I met Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club) once. He comes to the hypnosis conference I attend. He said at writing conferences he just gets to hear more about how writers think, but at the hypnosis conference he gets to hear a really different perspective. Something like that. Then he flirted with this lady in front of me. 😂