Human beings have escaped from the age of ignorance, from the realm of necessity into some kind of realm of freedom (this is Marx's expression), or, according to Fukuyama, history itself has come to an end. So for the first time in the millions of years of human history, ordinary people can no longer struggle to survive, but can gain some kind of freedom higher than survival. The whole of modernity is based on this freedom and individualism.
But another cornerstone of modernity based on individualism and freedom is the unprecedentedly tight social structure and ubiquitous "system" (or machine, "company", the whole structure of punk is "individual against system"), This systemic and individualistic conflict is everywhere. In the ignorant period, in order to survive, the vast majority of people have to do their best. They have no leisure time to think about the meaning of life or the value of freedom, because there is no freedom in the first place, so there is no value of freedom. Animals on the savannah never think about the value of survival, they think about how to survive until tomorrow. The same goes for people; it wasn't until the modern age that humans could look up from their existential crisis for the first time, and they began to think about the meaning of life and the value of life.
The conclusion of consideration is that there is no meaning and value in life. For the first time in history, ordinary people are given personal freedom and feel the least free; they are not given freedom because of the ubiquitous "system." The social structure and mass media squeeze this human space all the time, and this squeeze can be said to have nowhere to escape. Here, reason itself fails, because reason cannot solve the problem, so everyone wants to go back to the age of ignorance.
So Fight Club is the Exodus of our generation.
"I see the strongest and brightest here, I see your potential, but it's all wasted. Heck, an entire generation has turned into white-collar workers who cheer for others, or serve food, or wear ties to work. Slaves.
Advertising tempts us to chase cars, clothes, so we do the jobs we hate and buy junk we don't need.
We are a generation forgotten by history, with no purpose and no status. No world wars, no Great Depression. Our big battles are just battles of the heart, and our crisis is our life. We grew up watching TV, believing that one day we would become millionaires, movie stars or rock stars. However, we will not. We gradually faced this reality, so we were very, very angry. "
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