Fight Club and Resiliency

Resiliency
As Webster and Rivers (2018) point out, the notion of resilience has been promoted in a variety of fields and essentially research on it has focused on the need for individuals to “toughen up”—particularly in what has been called a “snowflake” culture, a term popularized by the 1996 Chuck Palahniuk novel Fight Club. As Palahniuk said later when the book was made into a cult hit film, “Every generation gets offended by different things but my friends who teach in high school tell me that their students are very easily offended…The modern Left is always reacting to things. Once they get their show on the road culturally they will stop being so offended” (Londoner, 2017). While there is a lot to unpack in that statement (offense and culture are implicitly linked to resiliency and the ability to cope with conflict), the essence of the point made by Palahniuk is that people in the modern world do not have much of an ability to take a hit, to absorb a blow to their mental acuity. In response to a popular need for everyone to be politically correct, society has developed a “cancel culture” where anyone who offends or crosses an imaginary line of political correctness is written off, blacklisted, maligned on social media, and turned into an object of scorn, derision and hate. There is no ability to weather differences of opinions or cope with the stress that living in a world where conflict arises naturally brings. Palahniuk’s novel was about a man dealing with his own lack of resilience and through a clever but twisted plot the hero (at least in the film adaptation) reaches a higher level of resiliency by overcoming adversity and taking responsibility. He is surrounded, too, by a support system—a telling point. As Domhardt, Munzer, Fegert and Goldbeck (2015) have shown, even one of the most awful experiences imaginable—child sexual abuse and its attendant trauma—can be overcome if there is adequate social support for the child. What Domhardt et al. (2015) and Palahniuk both appear to suggest is this: resilience is needed in the modern world to cope with stress, anxiety, trauma, and conflict—but it is not something one can do on one’s own—which is the point Webster and Rivers (2018) make in their criticism of recent literature on the subject of resilience. This paper will show how the cult hit film Fight Club can be used as a guide for thinking about resiliency today with a focus, in particularly, on how the building up of resilience requires support from others.
People are Social Beings
The idea behind resilience is that individuals have to be able to bounce back from adversity and weather the storms of life, whether they are physical, mental, social, or cultural. Students must be resilient in order to face and overcome the challenges of the academic and social worlds they navigate. Adults must be resilient to face and overcome challenges in the professional world. Conflict and adversity are to be expected, and those who cannot cope will either perish and sink into a negative state, characterized by depression, anxiety, trauma, or anger (Domhardt et al., 2015), or they will turn authoritarian and dictate laws that target anyone who dares to “trigger” them. As Koerner (2017) writing for the Foundation for Economic Education notes, “When we can't control ourselves, we tend to control others.” The current snowflake culture derided by Palahniuk is what happens when an entire society exists, full of individuals who find it unbearable to control themselves: they set up and take part in a draconian system where they seek instead to control the actions and thoughts of everyone else so that no one ever crosses a line or upsets or rocks the boat in any way. Palahniuk’s unnamed hero in Fight Club is an example of what happens when one realizes that, rather than being empowered he has been rendered powerless by a lifetime of submission to a culture of innocuous platitudes ultimately designed to make everyone into a mindless, soulless consumer. The unnamed hero (he is christened Jack at one point) finds that in spite of society’s attempt to regulate everything, including his own inner workings, he still suffers: he cannot sleep, he has no purpose in life, and the only relief he gets is from going to Men with Cancer healing sessions where he is socially permitted to weep in front of others (even though he does not have cancer—he is there for catharsis).
Jack shows through his own situation (and thus it could be said that he serves as an excellent subject for case study) that protective, politically correct world of his is insufficient to prevent depression, insomnia, or despair—all of which Jack suffers before beginning his development of his own resilience (thanks to the help of a friend he makes named Tyler Durden). Jack complains to his seat companions on planes when traveling for work (really the only opportunity he has to actually socialize with other human beings—which says something about the state of the artificial society in which he lives, as there is no human interaction among people: they are just bumping along or into one another and making the appropriate politically correct comment and scurrying on their way to their own private, isolated cubicle). After investigating a grisly car crash in which a family died, Jack caustically explains what he does as an agent for a major car manufacturer in the compliance and liability department: “Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply it by the probable rate of failure, B, then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C—equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one” (Fincher, 1999). The blatant disregard for the value of human life by his corporate overlords further depresses him and he prays for a plane crash just so that he could be put out of his misery. Through his support groups he is able to hang on—but a new challenge arises when his female double appears at the groups: she is there for the free coffee, snacks, and entertainment (it is not cathartic for her—just a way to pass the time). With another poser in the groups reflecting his own lie, Jack finds that he cannot cry like he used to and thus the catharsis he obtained from faking his way into support groups and using them as his own personal emotional crutch suddenly vanishes. He finds he can no longer sleep at night, he is attacked by the same old anxieties, and he finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into a negative state with no one to talk to about it.
To Toughen Up, One Needs a Helping Hand
Toughening up is often thought of as an exercise that one does on one’s own. In Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa trains on his own in preparation for fighting the Russian who killed his friend Apollo Creed. Rocky has no trainer to help him, no friends to support him. He is going it alone, out in the rugged wilderness. It is a popular myth—that one must become a loner, independent, and self-sufficient in order to become truly powerful and resilient. The reality is that professional fighters have very extensive support and training groups that help them prepare for each and every fight, each and every opponent, each and every time. No one gets ready for a fight by himself. The reason is this: to toughen up, one needs a helping hand.
The myth of the hard-boiled loner, the tough guy image is what Webster and Rivers (2018) lament in their discussion of the topic of self-efficacy and resilience. They resist the notion that every “snowflake” out there is really in need of a Rocky Balboa loner training session—that all kids (or adults) really need is to be left alone in the woods for a week to fend for themselves and learn to survive. They reject the macho ideology and mythos underlining this approach to resiliency and self-efficacy—and they reject it with good reason: it is unrealistic.
To achieve resiliency, guidance and support are needed. This is the case for both children and adults, no matter what the trauma or challenge. Domhardt et al. (2015) show that the literature on resilience among child survivors of sexual abuse shows that the greater the social support the child receives, the more likely the child is to have a healthy, functioning adult life. In Palahniuk’s Fight Club, Jack seeks out the support of Tyler Durden—a “single-serving” friend he meets on a flight (“single-serving” because like everything in his life up to that point friends too are disposable, meant to provide brief conversation fodder for a few hours on a trip never to be seen or heard from again upon landing). However, Jack reaches out to Tyler after finding that while away on business his condo unit was torched. Homeless and without any of the IKEA items he used as emotional crutches, Jack calls Tyler and Tyler quickly assesses Jack’s character and offers his assistance to help get Jack back on his feet. Tyler is the exact opposite of Jack: truly self-sufficient and self-made. He is his own boss, makes his own merchandise (soap), and lives an unconventional life in an old dilapidated Victorian mansion that has seemingly been forgotten by time and the world, as it exists like an abandoned conch shell in the industrial section of town. It is that Jack goes to live and learn how to be resilient under the tutelage of Tyler Durden.
The first lesson that Tyler teaches Jack is the value of fighting. “How much can you really know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?” Tyler asks Jack. It is essentially the same question that Tough (2013) asks in his book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, which looks at the value of students developing grit and resilience in order to overcome academic challenges. Tough (2013) argues that the biggest obstacle to learning is not a lack of knowledge or technique; rather, it is the capacity for self-control: students without self-control will never gain the mastery of themselves they need to succeed in school. Tough (2013) notes, “When kindergarten teachers are surveyed about their students, they say that the biggest problem they face is not children who don’t know their letters and numbers; it is kids who don’t know how to manage their tempers or calm themselves down after a provocation” (p. 17). The same lesson applies for adults as well: “Grit predicts success over and beyond talent. When you consider individuals of equal talent, the grittier ones do better” (Perkins-Gough, 2013, p. 16). Tyler Durden is the grittiest person Jack has ever met—and that is why he appeals to Jack and why Jack is willing to give up his former life, his former ways and his former shell of a self to follow and learn from Tyler. He sees in Tyler what it means to truly be a man, to be self-efficacious, to be authentic, and to overcome all the emotional challenges that come with trying to shoehorn one’s self into the cookie cutter culture and politically correct role that corporate America demands one embrace in order to live and work. Tyler refuses to accept that role as meaningful because it is more about being controlled by the authoritarian at the top than being in control of one’s own self. Jack has tried to live according to the authoritarian principles and it has led only to isolation, loneliness, an inability to form friendships and an inability to deal with the variety of mental and emotional issues plaguing him. Tyler is a liberator who simply tells Jack that he has to fight if he wants to ever reach his potential. It is a concept hat Jack has never thought of before. Fight? He has always been told to submit and be dependent. Tyler tells him not to submit, to push himself, to go where it hurts and tackle the pain and embrace it. Jack does so and he begins to grow as a person. Others soon join them and the fight club is born. Why? Because in the snowflake culture of the modern world, as Palahniuk puts it, there are many individuals who feel trapped by their own weakness and dependency. They want to be liberated from their weakness and dependency, and the way to liberation is through the development of resiliency.
Resiliency and Positive Psychology
This is basically the same idea that the U.S. Army has hit upon with its Master Resiliency Training (MRT) program, which is based upon Seligman’s approach to positive psychology (Reivich, Seligman & McBride, 2011). The Army trains its leaders to use positive psychology to identify their own strengths and work on improving those areas of self-knowledge and leadership where they are weakest. The goal of the program is to get leaders to a point where they can be a positive and helpful influence on soldiers in their units who are struggling with emotional problems, depression or despair. The leader uses the lessons learned from MRT to give the soldier a helping hand in overcoming adversity and guiding the soldier to a more positive place, mentally and emotionally speaking.
Tyler serves the same role for Jack and the others who join the club. His approach, however, is not “warm and fuzzy” but bracing and honest: he tells his followers that they are not unique, beautiful snowflakes but rather that they are nothing special, that they must work for a higher purpose, a higher calling. Their work must not be self-centered but dedicated to a higher good, a higher moral principle—liberation from the authoritarian, consumer culture of the politically correct land of the dead. Tyler is offering them life through awareness. Each week he gives them challenges that are meant to test their resolve and grow the capacity to suffer that which the world throws at them and overcome it.
In the process of learning from Tyler, Jack comes to understand more fully his own place in the world. The trick of the novel and the film is that Tyler is actually Jack’s alter-ego—a projection of Jack’s internal need for a leader and guide. Jack realizes that he is actually the one running the show and that even as the fight club spirals into its own morally questionable activities, he has to take ownership of it, take responsibility, and assume control of that through which he has been sleepwalking—life. At the end of the film, Jack sends Tyler away and steps into the role of leader of the fight club as the world that he has served up till then collapses into a dystopian landscape. He stands ready to accept the new challenges, having learned how to be resilient under Tyler’s tutelage.
Conclusion
Thanks to the support that Jack receives from Tyler, the hero of Fight Club is able to acquire resiliency and face and overcome the challenges of his life. Though story is helpful in showing that resiliency is not something one can obtain on one’s own. It shows that the macho myth of going off into the words, ala Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV, is an unrealistic approach to resiliency development. Palahniuk shows, rather, that to develop resiliency, one needs support. This idea is seconded by researchers like Domhardt et al. (2015) and Reivich et al. (2011). It is the idea of Webster and Rivers (2018), too, that resiliency is all-too often thought of as this kind of “snowflakes need to toughen up” approach. And while Palahniuk does indeed embrace that approach, he shows that it is only possible if one has an adequate social support system in place. The system that Tyler provides Jack works: it fills a gap in Jack’s own life, which is utterly devoid of real social interaction and real social support. In Tyler’s fight club, Jack finds authentic meaning and legitimate social support. Under Tyler, Jacks learns how to become resilient.
References
Domhardt, M., Münzer, A., Fegert, J. M., & Goldbeck, L. (2015). Resilience in survivors of child sexual abuse: A systematic review of the literature. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 16(4), 476-493.
Fincher, D. (1999). Fight club. Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox.
Koerner, R. (2017). Authoritarians to the Right of Me, Authoritarians to the Left. Retrieved from https://fee.org/articles/authoritarians-to-the-right-of-me-authoritarians-to-the-left/
Londoner. (2017). Londoner's Diary: Fight Club's Chuck Palahniuk: "I coined 'snowflake' and I stand by it". Retrieved from https://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/londoners-diary-chuck-palahniuk-i-coined-snowflake-and-i-stand-by-it-a3448226.html#comments
Perkins-Gough, D. (2013). The significance of grit: A conversation with Angela Lee Duckworth. Educational Leadership, 71(1), 14-20.
Reivich, K. J., Seligman, M. E., & McBride, S. (2011). Master resilience training in the US Army. American Psychologist, 66(1), 25.
Tough, P. (2013). How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Webster, D., & Rivers, N. (2018). Resisting resilience: disrupting discourses of self- efficacy. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 1-13.