Posts Tagged ‘fight club’

Meaninglessness, Nihilism, and The Landmark Forum

Friday, March 25th, 2011

Frequent Beyond Growth commenter Jack of the 32,000 Days blog recently wrote a blog entry entitled “Landmark forum – cult, scam, or path to enlightenment” based on his experiences of the popular personal growth workshop. His review was mostly favorable but also accurate, telling of the aggressive techniques used and the reasoning behind the workshop, but also noting some important points counter to critics of The Forum like that nobody was forced to stay in the room (unlike the original est training). I am still highly critical of The Forum and Landmark Education in general and do not recommend this workshop, but it was interesting to hear about Jack’s experience nonetheless.

I posted a long comment in response that I thought Beyond Growth readers might enjoy. My comment includes some ideas I’ve been working on around the philosophy of personal growth which is also critical of some of the presuppositions of The Forum. For context, you may want to read Jack’s post first. (more…)

The Simulacrum of Self in the Quest for Authenticity

Monday, August 24th, 2009

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When I was looking up clips of Fight Club for my first blog post, I found an interesting related video on YouTube. In the clip below, the pick-up artist and personal development guru “Tyler Durden” is giving a speech about the importance of having an authentic identity.

“Tyler” starts off by talking about the liberation he has experienced ever since he decided to entirely stop caring about other human beings and unleash his inner asshole (he doesn’t put it in quite those terms, of course). He implies how this was a wonderful step forward towards becoming more authentic, and now teaches men to be authentic assholes just like him, for the purpose of having meaningless sexual conquests with HB’s (pickup lingo for “hot babes”). You too can become an authentic asshole by attending one of his “bootcamps”…yours now for only $2000! (more…)

Why We Must Talk About Fight Club

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Have you seen the movie Fight Club? The unnamed protagonist lives a modern life of quiet desperation. Working as an auditor for a major automobile corporation, he flies around the country investigating deadly car accidents, to calculate a cold-hearted cost-benefit analysis for whether the company should recall the dangerous cars they manufacture. In response to his meaningless and unethical work, he becomes a hyperconsumer–purchasing his liberation in the form of cute Ikea furniture and a Yin-Yang carpet. He learns to cope with his insomnia (presumably fueled by his inner torment) by consuming cathartic experience; joining self-help groups under false pretense, he finds liberation when he surrenders to his sadness. (more…)