The Timeless Message of ‘Fight Club’: A Call to Action for a Better World

Fight Club, the 1999 film directed by David Fincher and based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, has become a cult classic over the years. Beyond its gritty visuals and iconic performances from Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, the film holds timeless lessons about masculinity, consumerism, and the search for identity. These themes, are still relevant today and make Fight Club a must-watch for anyone looking to challenge their understanding of the world around them and themselves.

The World is Fake – No Purpose

We start off the story with the narrator walking us through a world that looks very much like the one we find ourselves in today. The narrator is constantly traveling for work and is working a shallow, meaningless job that most of us can relate to. Everything in the narrator’s life is shallow and has no meaning.

When we look up from our phones in today’s world it can be hard to find meaning. Everyone is chasing something or trying to be the next internet sensation. It’s a world of constant attention-seeking to make ourselves look good for people most of us do not even care about. There is no point in it.

Rejection of the Status Quo

The narrator meets Tyler Durdan on a plane and realizes that he is the complete antithesis of who he is. Tyler is someone that rejects what is normal and has an attitude of completely disregarding what the status quo has for him.

The narrator and Tyler enter the new worldview and decide to take action on the world around them by creating a club centered around violence that would be later known as the fight club. Tyler goes on to say the following to the narrator:

Tyler: I don’t know, I don’t know… never been in a fight, have you?
Narrator: no… but that’s a good thing
Tyler: No it is not, how much can you know about yourself if you have never been in a fight?

Fighting Makes Us Feel Alive

Tyler and the narrator go on the create clubs around the world known as fight clubs. These clubs, which are predominantly male-driven, give the characters that show up meaning and purpose behind their lives. Tyler goes on to explain that the world has made men weak and docile, the fight clubs give them the way out of this line of thinking and allows them to reach their fullest potential.

As humans, we have evolved in a world that was always centered around some type of violence. Our bodies and minds are not built for the modern world that we live in… yet. How can we safely allow people to reach this very primal feeling that they get in the act of violence you ask? Martial arts, weight training, or some kind of rite of passage is what many people on the internet call for these days.

Call to Action for a Better World

Tyler and the narrator take on a more radical approach when it comes to their grand mission. They are aiming to destroy headquarters for credit card companies with the goal in mind of resetting the system right back to zero. While you can argue this is currently happening with systems like Bitcoin entering the public consciousness, what is it that Tyler teaches that we need to change about the world around us?

Searching Masculine Leadership

In today’s world, men are drastically looking for a positive male role model to look at for some form of leadership. The rise of characters like Andrew Tate proves this thesis to be more true than people want to admit. 

This world is ripe for disruption and more men will be called to rise above their circumstances to become a better version of themselves. How they achieve this is through working out, getting better with money, and rejecting the “new norms’ that society throws in their faces. These concepts are heavily portrayed throughout the movie and predicted the times that we currently find ourselves living through.

Should Society Be Torn Down to Build a New World?

How do we rebuild a society that is not meant for us to thrive in? 

What are these next 10 years going to look like from a societal standpoint? Will we put aside differences and allows for real everlasting change to take place? Time will tell.

Tyler Durdan is a fictional character that teaches us that you are only free when you hit rock bottom. We would argue that we are right around the corner from this point if not already in the mix of it all. The movie Fight Club is a classic that stars Brad Pitt who excellently portrays the character Tyler Durdan. This movie, along with the Matrix was way ahead of its time and created a cult around the philosophical ideas that are taught. The timeless lessons in this movie make it a movie that everyone should study.