Fight Club, the fight against consumerism

Fight Club is a work created by Mr. Chuck Palahniuk, which has a novel and a movie with the same name; the plot is about a man who is tired of his job, in addition to his ordinary life giving as a fact the creation of a Fight Club with a soap salesman named Tyler Durden, also being involved in a "loving" relationship with the lady Marla Singer; throughout the novel there are some very clear messages against today's society, its way of acting; thus making a critique of today, being a work of the year' 99 everything is still valid today.

The novel has hundreds of dialogues that if you interpret them well, thinking carefully, you can realize their true intention, making references throughout history to certain philosophical questions that overwhelm our protagonist; I will teach them some phrases with their proper explanation or what they mean:

This is what happens in cases of insomnia. Everything is very far away: the copy of a copy of a copy.

This message is a clear reference to the psychologist Carl G. Jung, who said: "It is unfortunate that the great majority of human beings are born as an original being and die as a copy". The first criticism of consumerism is found here, where it is well known that almost everyone dies or ends the same, lives life in the same way and does nothing to change this "irremediable" event. As we all follow the same trends, following fashions and so on, we become more and more alike and end up being a copy.

If I woke up in a different place, at a different time, would I wake up being someone else?

This refers to the Teseo's Paradox, in which it is asked that if an object were to be replaced all its pieces, it would remain the same. The philosopher Heraclito also made a more metaphysical reference to this: "No man can cross the same river twice, because neither man nor water will be the same". Undoubtedly it is a very fascinating philosophical question that during the years diverse thinkers and philosophers have tried to explain, among all these was Aristotle who tried to explain this with his thought of a set of matter and forms. Matter is what the thing is made of, and it forms the specific qualities of the thing.

Many young people try to impress the world and buy too many things. Many young people don't know what they really want. Young people think they can eat the world. If you don't know what you want,— the porter continued—, you end up having a lot of things you don't need.

Criticism of consumerism in young people, who let themselves be carried away by what they see on television or what they propose in the big brands, a great example of this could be buying an IPhone because of the question that it belongs to a famous and revolutionary brand such as Apple, a company created by Steve Jobs who was able to sell people things they "needed" without really knowing what they needed; was an expert in pleasing the masses, still deceased his company continues to sell like hot bread and at exorbitant prices. All of this applies to other unnecessary things that sell us as necessities, whether they are brands of clothes or appliances.

My father never went to college, so it was really important that I did. When he finished college, I phoned him and asked, "What now?".

My father didn't know what to say.

When I got a job and turned twenty-five heels, I called him back and asked him, "What now?". My father didn't know what to answer; so he said: "Get married.".

I'm 30 years old and I wonder if what I really need is another woman.

Doesn't this ring a bell? Doesn't it look like a lot of people's lives? Well, this is a clear critique of the life that has been instilled in all of us, all the same boring life, over and over again. Is it really worth living by being a copy? The indoctrination imposed on us by society means that the large number of people are plunged into darkness and do not see clearly what is really happening around them, there are several exceptions of people who break this and decide to live as they decide, doing something that is really worthwhile; breaking the cycle.

—For our generation, condoms play the role of glass shoes. You wear it when you meet someone; you dance all night and then throw it away. I mean the condom, not the person.

Haven't you noticed that lately sexualization in society has increased? More and more people are not worried about having a serious relationship and what they prefer is to have sex without reason, just because they can and can't be denied; making all this a fleeting thing. Although there is an age to conceive of such an act, few people today respect it. In addition, a number of groups are gradually being encouraged to aggravate the situation, calling for laws in their favour which, more than anything else, harm society even more. This may be because society is liquid, as Zygmunt Bauman explains in his books on problem solving: "If there is no good solution to a dilemma, if none of the sensible and effective attitudes bring us closer to the solution, people tend to behave irrationally, making the problem more complex and making it less plausible.”

You're not your job. You're not your family, and you're not who you say you are.

Have you often not seen that names or work define people? People being thus judged in a vulgar and meaningless way, making them feel bad or discredited, end up believing what others say to them, creating a kind of depression that makes them impose a limit or barrier that does not really exist, and will never exist; problems like this define today's society, that if you are such a person's family you have to be like that, judging without being or ton. Limitations don't exist, you can be whatever you want, just work for it.

Everything you ever loved will either reject you or die. Everything you ever created will be thrown away. Everything you're proud of will end up being trash.

Nothing is static. Everything is destroyed. An object that is material will sooner or later lose its fictitious "value" given by the biased society. No matter how much you take care of it or try to keep it, little by little it will be consumed. Like feelings, sometimes they last a lifetime, but the physical body will give way in the end, leaving only a corpse; even your great invention over the years will be obsolete and outgrown by new technologies and perhaps some people will consider it rubbish; you do not have to cling to the material, in the end it will be worth nothing.

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Without a doubt this is an interesting work to study in more detail, it could explain each of the most important phrases of her but would lose the grace and the reader may not want to know the story on his own. I highly recommend that you read the book first and then watch the movie.

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