Tuesday, July 06, 2010

When Lao Tzu met Tyler Durden

One of our recent weekly movie nights was Fight Club (now 11 years old!), which reminded me of an e-mail I wrote a while ago, explaining Tyler Durden in terms of Lao Tzu (father of Taoism), and in particular this passage from his great work, the Tao Te Ching (from the Stephen Mitchell translation):

If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.

The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

I wrote: Fight Club has many facets, which is one of the reasons I like it so much: it's a rich cocktail.  The most important theme, in my opinion, is the notion of letting go of your attachments (a mainstay of much Eastern religion/philosophy).  Special attention is given to disentangling oneself from today's corporate consumer culture.

"Jack" (the unnamed narrator) is a good consumer drone, trying to decide, "What kind of couch best defines me as a person," but ultimately leading an empty life.  Tyler comes along, destroys his property and realigns his perceptions.  "You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything."

He helps people lose everything
they know, everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

Tyler initiates Jack's journey of self discovery, but like all teachers he can only show the path.  The same volatile nature that made him the perfect catalyst ultimately leads to his downfall.  Finally Jack realizes he must reject even his liberator's dogma. He must let go of Tyler and take responsibility for his own actions in order to complete his journey of self-actualization. After all:

If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.

As they say in Zen, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

What I find particularly brilliant about the movie is that it teaches its lessons in the language of today's pop culture, which is in many ways the product of the same corporate consumer culture it rejects.  In this way it reaches out to the audience that most needs to hear its message.  The violence of the fight clubs appeals to our reptilian brain, the very same place targeted by the advertising industry. 

When Tyler says, "Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!" - he's saying:

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

. . . not in such a way that a Taoist would recognize it, but in such a way that my generation gets it loud and clear. 

It's interesting [my e-mail correspondent] mentioned reconciling my generational shadow side with my life history.  In fact, this is another key point the movie makes: we're upset, but we don't really have a clear reason to be.  We're "the middle children of history", as Tyler puts it. We've lead comfortable lives, but the forces of darkness gather around us.  We're the frog in the kettle with the heat (corporate control, environmental damage, etc.) slowly rising.  With so much anesthetic (television, the mall, etc.) in the world, we need someone like Tyler to remind us there are things to be upset about and that it's OK to do something about it.  

Are we meant to literally beat each other and blow up office buildings? No, no more than a Zen Buddhist is meant to literally kill the Buddha on the road.  It's a parable, but a modern one, filled with all the sound and fury our storytelling technology can muster.

Ultimately does Fight Club point to a positive way forward? Only the first step: tear down your attachments to the mainstream corporate dogma and get in touch with your own self. After that, it's up to you.

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