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Fight Club... Fact or Fiction
Watching Fight Club earlier... i had a strange thought. what if fight club is really a depiction of an elaborate fantasy going on in the mind of a patient in a psych ward, or a coma.
Every character that the narrator interacts with can be seen as a projection of how he really sees himself if he continues on the path he's currently going.
His boss is the image of a self-obsessed prick who feels great about his totally meaningless life. He decides that to continue on that path is unthinkable. His inner angst causes him to seek medical help because he hasn't slept in six months.
His doctor is an image of the narrator's attempt to solve his inner angst with drugs... i.e. lipstick red secanols red and blue tuonols. The doctor fails him by not giving him the drugs he seeks. This causes him (in the image of the doctor) to recommend trying to attend self-help groups instead. He specifically recommends a group that addresses men who have been castrated, causing them to behave like desperate women.
At the castrated men meeting, the narrator meets Bob. Bob is the narrator's image of who he will soon become if he continues to solve his inner turmoil by attending meetings... a big moosey, eyes shrinkrapped in tears. It is also at the castrated men's meeting where his new savior, Marla, comes to rescue him from becoming a "Bob" ...a common nobody with no balls.
Marla, really has no business being a "self-help groupie." She shows up in the most unlikely place (a testicular cancer meeting) in order to show the narrator how futile was his behavior. Marla's "trying to hit bottom" lifestyle is slightly more attractive than the castrated big moosey represented by Bob. She is "hard left" character who advances the story to the narrator's ultimate solution to his horrible life... Tyler Durden. Marla represents the narrators desire to transform... from a castrated man/weak woman to a rebellious strong woman. Marla represents a life of pure indulgence. She doesn't care about living, dying, or even surviving. She is willing to attempt suicide and gracefully "vacuate her soul," but Tyler goes to save her AND invite her into the narrator's nice "safe" life.
Tyler represents everything that the narrator is not. That fact is made obvious during the great reveal.
The Darwin Law... Insensitive or Honest???
When I think about the darwin law, I think about all the unfortunate people who passed before their time... usually by doing something "stupid."
The darwin law, in cvommon usage, seems to be a way of saying, "Oh, that person did the world (and our species) a favor by dying early." At first this seems to be quite disrepectful to the person who passed.
On the other hand, do ALL genes deserve an equal "right" to survive? Do all people deserve to "keep living" so to speak... even when they choose to put themselves in situations that might kill them? Can you really save a person from themselves? I don't know... I dont think you can. I mean how would do it... and be fair... and honest... How do you draw the line where a person has the "right" to choose to live a dangerous life?
I was really thinking about this as it might relate to the current covid-19 anti-vax argument. I'm not sure how I would even begin that discussion. On what grounds do we choose to discuss the issue. I read an article about how there are concerns about president biden putting a mandate on certain workers that would be required to, "...do this or ELSE."
I'm not really comfortable talking about anything that involves a "common good." I cant readily think of any way to answer those "common good" type questions... Those, "...would you kill one person in order for (some large number) of people would live?" I've never felt comfortable answering those questions because they always seemed to vague. I'm thinking... who gets to decide who that ONE person is? how do we determine that that person, does in-fact, deserve to die in order to save XXX lives? do we vote? cast lots? who is going to volunteer to tell that one person's mother, or child, why THAT person's life HAD to end in order tosave SOME number of people? Can we honestly decide on the worthiness of a person's life as it compares to ANY number of OTHER lives? To me that sounds like the grounds for a horrific game of "let's kill XX amount of these people in order to save XXX amount of those people. I guess I just never felt comfortable having my finger on THAT particular "button." I mean WHO, really, has the right, authority, and ability to make that decision in a fair and just way? How do we determine who fit into the "these people" or "those people" category?
The more I reflect it seems that the rules for these people and those people, have changed over the generations. I mean just in the history of this great nation we can look at... the colonies vs the natives; the slaves vs the owners; the whites vs the blacks; the whites vs the irish; the whites vs. the italians; the whites vs the browns; the rich vs the poor; the owners vs the workers; the house negroes vs the field negroes; ...to name a few.
It seems that any particular group can attempt to create an "us" vs "them" alliance. I mean that's what any organism would do to survive, right? Anyway, I feel like i got off course somewhere... I think we were talking about the anti-vax arguments and such... Personally, I feel that you absolutely can't "save an idiot from themselves..." I mean, honestly... to what extent can any "thing" devote an unreasonable amount of energy trying to save something that doesnt want to be saved... or at least... an organism that refuses to do the thing that will reasonably prolong their survival?
I saw an article where someone was calling for a crackdown on amazon for not doing a good job of regulating the "false information and corresponding products" related to covid-19 items. I guess i have a bit of an issue with any agument that would involve any type of moral/ethical grounds for censorship of what gets posted on a site like amazon. Some products may fit into a category we might call "inherently wrong or illegal" and we might decide that NO retailer should sell them (ie child nudity, etc). Other than that, how much should WE THE PEOPLE get to dicide what's best for THOSE peple? In a way it sounds like a similar agument to the other... the main difference being that the other argued that certain lives were proportionally "less valuable" than others... does this argument say that some lives are "more valuable" than others? Are these lives so valuable that it is worth the resources to save them... from themselves???
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