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The Philosophy of "Fight Club"

by James Barringer  
2/20/2010 / Christian Apologetics

"Fight Club" consistently ranks high on the list of top guy movies of all time, so I'm not entirely sure how it's taken me over a decade to see it for the first time. (Actually, I do know; my attention span is so short that it's taken me five minutes to write the previous two lines.) The movie has gotten a lot of critical acclaim, mainly because of a plot centering around guys beating the tar out of each other, which automatically endears it to 90% of men who see it.

But it's not primarily an action movie; it's primarily a philosophical work. The first 20 minutes of the movie establish the fact that the unnamed narrator - the script calls him Jack - is unhappy with his life. That's the catalyst for everything that happens afterward. Specifically, he's unhappy because he's struggling to find value in life. He has a mediocre corporate job, spending most of his time on tasks that aren't important to life or even to his company, like an endless stream of reports to his boss. He goes home to an apartment immaculately furnished by IKEA, drinking Starbucks and wearing Calvin Klein, not because he has put a lot of thought into things and decided those companies were the way to go, but merely because the corporate advertising complex has force-fed him ideas about what his life should be like. The effect on him is depression and insomnia, stemming from feeling like his life has no meaning.

How many millions of Americans would identify with Jack? How many of us are frustrated by the sheer volume of advertising noise we encounter in a day, companies that part with trillions of dollars a year in the attempt to shape our lives around their products? That should infuriate us. How many of us are also frustrated by having jobs where we feel like we're not accomplishing anything other than earning a paycheck, living only for 5:00 and then for the weekend? How else do we explain the fact that, in every survey of how happy people are, the United States is one of the most miserable first-world nations on the planet?

Up to this point, Christians should be nodding our heads vigorously. In fact, we should be embarrassed that a secular movie has articulated the philosophy better and more meaningfully than we ever do. We know that a person's value does not come from material things or a lifestyle, but we've been woefully inadequate at projecting this message, mainly because a lot of church people are secret adherents to the material philosophy. I know a lot of Christians with BMWs, for instance, but none who thought about buying a BMW and then decided to buy a Honda and donate the other $20,000 to charity. Deep down, we really seem to believe that a nicer car or a bigger house is going to make us happier than living modestly and giving God the difference - or living modestly and simply working less, to spend more time on the things in life that are really important.

The rest of the movie could be interpreted as the logical consequences of someone who realizes the emptiness of material things, but has no guidance regarding the true and proper remedy, which is faith in God. Jack feels an instinctive need for fellowship, but in the absence of a church, turns first to support groups, pretending to have various diseases so he can go to group therapy and be accepted. After that, he seeks solace in fight clubs. Again, what is a person supposed to do, who knows in his heart that he was made for relationships but has never heard the gospel of Christ?

By the end, Jack has realized how uncomfortable the material philosophy has made his life, so he reaches a conclusion: he's going to start another group, called Project Mayhem, designed to poke the eye of capitalist America by destroying franchise coffee chains, credit card companies, and other icons of materialism. But a funny thing happens. This still doesn't bring Jack meaning or happiness.

He's discovered a fundamental truth of life: you can't ever find out who you are if all you ever know is who you're not. Negativity cannot bring you meaning. I've seen several people turn away from God, out of anger at various things that happened to them, but they later discover - or go through life pretending not to notice - that rejecting God has not answered any of their questions about value or meaning in life. They still have an empty spot in their heart, and mindlessly repeating "God is not real" has not gotten them any closer to explaining what truly is real, and why their lives means anything in the big picture of things.

Ironically, this is one of the major reasons that secular people today are so disenfranchised by the church; we've only established our moral positions, most of the time, as things that we're against, like premarital sex and homosexuality and abortion. We've struggled mightily to explain the significance of our faith in an affirmative way, to establish to people why it's the sort of thing you can't live without. Like Jack, we're finding out the hard way that simply being against something doesn't necessarily mean anything.

And so Jack ends the movie without ever finding meaning in life. He is aware of his existential problem, that he has floated through life without ever really engaging life, but he has not during the movie ever managed that kind of engagement. He has found some superficial fellowship with other men courtesy of beating the tar out of each other, but this has not given him a new philosophy to replace the failed material philosophy he came out of. In trying to build a new philosophy, to find meaning for himself, he merely falls back on destruction, and finds that he still has no answers to what makes a life valuable or meaningful.

Once again, we as Christians should be nodding, understanding implicitly that this crisis of meaning exists in every person's life. We know it and we feel it without having to be taught. If we don't find true meaning, something will rush in to fill the gap. Corporations rely on this, advertising that their product will answer all our unanswered questions, make us appealing to the opposite sex, and bring contentment and joy. But products never do that, do they, or we would reach the point of being appealing and content and joyful and not need to buy anymore; the material philosophy fails, but that doesn't stop us from practicing it with our dollars, giving ninety-plus percent of our income to businesses and griping at God when he asks for ten percent.

There are millions of people in America and billions in the world living Jack's life right now, asking questions about what is supposed to bring them meaning, wondering why nothing they've tried has helped them at all. The answer is not in fight clubs, not in destroying capitalism, because those things are part of life and as such can never be bigger than life. If there is meaning, it must come from something larger than life, namely the God who invented the very idea of life and then brought it into being. That's why we should never be ashamed of the gospel; it is the answer to the question every man and woman's heart is asking. Our message is that hope and meaning exist; you are valuable because God loves you, and you can know peace and happiness in life if you're living life his way, the way it was meant to be experienced. Your life is worthwhile. God has a plan for you. You don't have to struggle in a vacuum to find your own meaning, and you don't have to let it be dictated to you by advertising dollars or the approval of the people around you. Meaning is out there, just waiting for you to reach out and take hold of it.

Watch "Fight Club" again - maybe on TV, so the worst of the content gets snipped out - with this in mind, and watch how empty Jack's life is as he struggles to find answers that any Christian could have stepped in and given him easily. See the lengths to which he goes to find belonging and happiness, whoring himself out to support groups and deluding himself into thinking that being punched in the face makes him more of a man. He spends the whole movie crying out for relationships and meaning. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer for people like Jack, and it's as relevant as it's ever been.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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