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Fight Club…A Conversation With My Son

After a weird dinner at a remote roadside Vietnamese/Thai/Chinese restaurant a few miles outside Oaxaca City the other day, I received a black (black?) fortune cookie with the fortune written in Spanish. “You always know your heart through your words.” Well, I’ll see what writing my words here reveal to me about my heart.

I recently had a very long skype discussion with my oldest son, a 47 year old single serial monogamist (as I describe it), about the book and movie Fight Club. The book was written by Chuck Palahniuk, a Portland Oregon native. Interesting discussions can be found on THE CULT…the official fan site.

The book even though written 15 years ago, is significant because it has found an ear among thousands of younger men that is often referred to as the “millennials.”

Fight Club isn’t just about the fight but a metaphor for contemporary notions of masculinity, my son says. [At least Contemporary American notions. It would be interesting to do a cross-cultural comparison.]

The movie is about “emasculated” men “raised mainly by women” who grew up to fear violence…who were taught that violence was never right, (yikes!) my son says. Often women teach their sons to cower in the face of bullies. [“Turn the other cheek, the biblical christians say.”] When you teach a kid to never stand up for himself he becomes forever an internalized victim, my son says. Bullies think: Ok I’ve got you in my pocket now.

Tyler (Brad Pitt), the little voice (alter ego) of the protagonist Edward Norton, starts the Fight Club and is sick of being a victim. ” I’d rather lose a tooth,: he says.

At the premiere of Fight Club in Las Vegas: Pitt said the movie is about a generation of men who were taught to fear conflict. If you get into a situation take care of it. Whether it is conflict with physical threat or psychological.

At this point I start to wonder about the implications of this for a couple generations of young men who have grown up uncomfortable with conflict but then go off unprepared emotionally to fight unspeakable wars. And the military which then tries to undo it and force men to be men overnight. And the suicide rate of returning service men with PTSD and failed marriages and broken families.

But back to the movie. It is not about male machismo…that’s not what the author is saying, my son says. It’s not just about becoming a victim physically but in other ways too. “My mom says I’m special but out in the world I’m not automatically considered special.”

Then we talked about my middle son who beat the crap out of a neighbor’s son one day long ago because the neighbor’s son had bullied my son for years…with the neighbor son’s father watching. The father hadn’t controlled his kid’s bullying because he felt it was up to my son to learn to defend himself. (That was also my children’s father’s thought about controlling the fights between our 3 kids). But I usually interceded…perhaps a mistake). I was, after all, a child of the peace and love 60’s.

In lieu of starting a Fight Club 😉 and with more noble intentions, then my son talked about Tim Larkin, founder and creator of Target Focus Training…a personal protection training program that teaches regular citizens how to survive unavoidable violent attack.

What makes Target Focus Training so different? It’s the only program in existence, Larkin says, that covers the entire self-protection spectrum, from awareness/avoidance to instinctively responding to unexpected life-or-death violence… including knowing how to kill your attacker if that’s what it takes to save your own life. First, it’s not self-defense, martial arts or some type of combat sport.

And it’s not about punching and kicking… or learning how to fight. Which is why it’s got nothing to do with your athleticism, size, speed or strength. Because none of this guarantees you’ll survive the first 5 seconds of unexpected violence.

Instead, it’s built from the ground up to utilize the most important weapon you possess – your BRAIN. Because surviving a violent encounter requires the knowledge of what to do, and the will to do it. Both are controlled by the brain. Both are empowering in many ways.

Anyway, more to the point, Larkin makes the distinction between social and asocial violence and what each is communicating. Larkin says social violence (bullying) is men thumping on their breasts. Bumping into each other at a bar which escalates into a fight. Most people think all violence will escalate. But what that is, is just a manifestation of communication to establish a hierarchy. In that case, Larkin says he will just disengage…because he knows what is going on. And at the same time, if they are psychopaths, he says, he has the confidence in knowing that he could defend himself and commit violence if he had to…to survive.

Asocial violence is the psychopath pumping gas and looking normal. You cannot communicate with someone who is not reasonable. Psychopaths really think there is no other alternative. True violence goes from no communication to lethal violence. So Larkin teaches really violent self-defence, my son says. Guy says nothing…walks up and stabs you in the kidney. Or rapes a woman. You just have to injure them before they injure you. You only use it to keep yourself from being 6 feet under. When you can’t get away and you can’t reason. The alternative is to cower.

Shakespeare is ever thus my son says. The veneer of civilization is one half inch thick…man still thinks with club and prick.

I have to think about this some more. Not sure yet what all this is revealing about my heart.

Among other memes, the movie comments on societal expectations…that objects will make you happy and make you a man. “You don’t need that shit.” Fight Club is talking to men about consumerism. And it is ok to be imperfect in the eyes of society. Edward Norton is the alter ego of Tyler (Brad Pitt). Tyler is continually critiquing his other softer rational side (Norton) who really would like the fast car, hip clothes and upscale condo.

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need,” Tyler says. “We’re the all-seeing all-dancing crap of the world,” Tyler tells Norton. “It is ok to not be beautiful, not have a million dollars and a nice apartment.”

Then my son talked about Pitt’s take on women. They marry these guys and then want to domesticate them. They got what they thought they wanted. They want the “manly” tattooed guy on the motorcycle. But he’s a jerk. As soon as they domesticate their man they are not that interested in him anymore.

Or they marry the guy with the fast car and all the right clothes. He thinks this is what he needs to attract her. But then is he not attracting the wrong kind of woman if he is looking for someone to partner with?

Society and families don’t teach young males what real men are. Ancient initiations into manhood don’t exist anymore. In the human supposedly evolved brain, society doesn’t know what a man is. Society has bought into the mask…the external. Into advertising. So men feel pressured to “play the game.”

The Mom…and the Woman:

I’m writing and rewriting. And rewriting again. I think I need to talk to some more men.

I think there is confusion in the minds of women about what they want. Because they don’t understand what makes a man a man. And it IS a man they want. If they have the insight to want one. And to know one if they see one. And if they understand who they are as women. When they are also operating out of the prefrontal cortex and not just responding to testosterone. If she is lucky she may just be intuitive.

To my mind, the man on the inside is a man who has doubts, questions himself, makes mistakes and is fully human like everyone. He can also take command of a situation when needed, provide leadership, protect, is honest, has integrity, defend his boundaries, is visible in the world. At his best, he is self aware and in touch with his emotions, is aware of others (ie. doesn’t have his head up his butt,) but also strong and resolute. He recognizes bullshit when he sees it. The mojo is icing on the cake.

But society (and women who have bought into the manly myth) demands that men have it “up” all the time and not only has to appeal to women but to appeal to the men around him at the same time lest he be considered “pussy whipped.” Society says he must be confident at all times. He has an incredible burden.

On top of all that, a woman demands that this man be capable of intimacy. That he be in touch with his emotions and willing to express them. And has a soft heart without his feeling it is a weakness. A real man, to her, (or at least to me) has the courage to reveal vulnerability and the authentic self. Which is the door to connection between a man and a woman. He has to be willing to reveal his feelings to enable her to connect with him. Otherwise he is inaccessible to her. If he trusts her to make it safe for him.

A tall order. Sigh.

No matter how he presents himself on the outside, this inside man will reveal itself in his relationship to others. This definitely puts a guy in a bind. Because his DNA coding is to dominate, cover over the vulnerability because he had to be ready, in the cave, to protect and kill if necessary. This gives her an advantage…to focus on the relationship.

Now what are the implications for the guy in the Fight Club when he has learned to stand up when he faces conflict? What happens when he and she are in conflict and neither wants to be a victim? When neither wants to be bullied by the other? When she is asking for emotion and other men are demanding a stiff upper lip?

Does he feel cornered…in a bind…does he then feel like an impostor…does he develop all kinds of compensatory behavior like bravado and other nonsense like passive-aggressiveness? Or outright anger? Or even worse…close down emotionally and defend against revealing his vulnerabilities in fear that others will discover he is only an impostor…the mask? Which of course isn’t true. Nearly everyone has an authentic feeling self barring those who are pathologically impeded.

So for the rest of us, what are the lies we tell ourselves about who we are? Men and women. What are the lies we tell others about who we are? Given how much our minds mislead us, what if we don’t realize when we’re pretending — who are we then? How do we deal with that cognitive dissonance when we are faced with interpersonal conflict? The strongest survival instinct is self deception. What we “believe” about ourselves does not necessarily reflect who we are. So we find ourselves in a quandary when we are forced by conflict to become aware of ourselves.

Woe is the woman who doesn’t help a man feel safe to reveal himself. Or doesn’t reflect back to him his best self in his own eyes. But then this depends on her confidence. Her assumptions. Her compensatory mechanisms. Whether she resorts to using what we euphemistically call her “feminine wiles.” Her need to compete or not. Or whether she is able to just be kindly honest. And has the confidence to give him what he needs without feeling she is compromising herself. And whether she has the skills to enable her to call him on his bullshit in a way that does not destroy his best image of himself.

The guy has to try to sort all this out without trying to dominate…to win. He has to respect her. Because if he doesn’t he will lose. He is at a disadvantage. The rules for men are so narrow and even so contradictory as to be nearly unattainable.

What has the “Fight Club” really taught our young men?

Wait. Back up. We are no longer in the cave and the brain knows it. We are on a continuum. DNA changes. For a man AND a woman.

At the end of the movie Pitt reconciles with his alter ego Norton. I have to watch it again to see what I think about it.

Perhaps in the end a real man is the one who knows himself and just says fuck the expectations of society and everyone else. A man is someone who doesn’t need that shit in his life. And a woman doesn’t need it either…for him or for herself. And that includes all the bullshit about feminism. Feminism just means equal opportunity. She can choose to be whatever she wants for herself. And choose a partner she is willing to support. A partner who is willing to support her in turn. So maybe the definition of a man OR a woman is really just the definition of a human being.

I think a good question that a man can ask a person he is pursuing is what she thinks makes a man a man. And what she thinks makes a woman a woman. And vise versa. The answers will be revealing. If they are honest. If they are not that will be be revealed too.

I’m still thinking what I think about this movie. And what my son has said about it. I have learned a lot from my three. And the world through the eyes of their generation. I am after all the original Earth Mother. I trust they do what they need to do for themselves with their best intentions.

The men in my life are helping me understand my own relationship with them. And helping me to know how best to support them. And partner. Or let go. *FLASH*

I will let Adrienne Rich speak my heart, up to this point in my life anyway.

An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

This takes tremendous courage. It takes a manly man…and a womanly woman.

Recently, a bright young Mexican university graduate and I have been talking about a book the Czech philosopher, Slavoj Zizek wrote, called “Courtly Love” and how the patriarchal model is no different now than it was in the middle ages. Just different words. Zizek is the current rock star philosopher, my friend says. He is referred to as the “Elvis of cultural theory.” Watch out Chomsky! Zizek maintains that radical feminism is it’s own worst enemy because it still supports the patriarchal fascist state.

OMG. Now I’m probably going to have to write this blog post all over again.



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