Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Only after disaster can we be resurrected. - Tyler Durden
Selfish baby boomers invented the hedonism of the 1960’s, the “Me” generation of the 1970’s as well as the “go go 80’s.” All of it was fueled by debt service bequeathed to younger generations, so that boomers could comfortably retire today.
As we saddle more and more indebtedness on the backs of the yet born, it becomes easier to envision the rise one day of Tyler Durden.
If you don’t know the movie Fight Club, you should. Since the movie is a dozen years old, I won’t concern myself with spoiler alerts.
Tyler Durden turns out to be the other side of the protagonist’s split personality, though that isn’t revealed until the end. You might not notice even after a couple of viewings that the protagonist, played by Edward Norton, never has his name mentioned. Very likely, he is intended to be all of us. For ease of reference, I will call him Cornelius (wink to those who know the movie).
Through a series of literary devices, the point eventually driven home is that Cornelius is society’s perfect picture of the reasonable and mild man. He works, consumes and capitalizes primarily through a home mortgage. He is compliant.
Yet civilization has enslaved him spiritually. He does not do what he wants to do, buy what he wants to buy or say what he wants to say. The only excitement slated for his life is inevitable death. He ponders death so much he revels in the company of those who are dying.
Enter Tyler Durden. Played by Brad Pitt, he is the wild thing lurking in every white collared, civilized gentleman. Tyler explains to Cornelius why his brain invented Tyler:
“All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I - - - - like you wanna - - - -, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.”
Tyler is more than a nutty buddy. He is freedom on steroids. You can’t say he is an anarchist, because Tyler would reject any “ist” designation. He seeks ultimate freedom - including the freedom of judgment of himself by everyone else.
The plan he develops is “Project Mayhem” and it is an ultra-populist fantasy – he blows up the headquarters of every credit company in America. All debt is wiped out. We are all back to zero. We are all even. He envisions real freedom coming from the ensuing chaos.
Tyler has an interesting life philosophy. He wonders where in the world societal strictures come from, and why in the world must each of us follow them? Social contract? Tyler never signed it. To be born into a contract is not to be born free. Tyler notes well the magic elixirs served by society to keep our interest in trivialities that should not interest us at all:
Tyler: We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Cornelius: Martha Stewart.
Tyler: [Expletive] Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So [expletive] off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns.
In short, Tyler hates the world he was born into, as it enslaves him to trivialities and things he never asked for.
The new world Tyler wishes for looks much like an older world. Even as he ominously describes it, a case can be made that perhaps the people in it are more free than we are today:
In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.
Now as a good capitalist myself, I wouldn’t want to blow up credit companies. We encountered the debt voluntarily.
I love America for the America I was born into – rights endowed by my Creator, free will and equality. I didn’t even have a war to fight, because my fighting days were governed by good diplomats like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
But I have to wonder about the yet born. What a different world even my children are born into. So far our Peace Prize winning President solves every foreign policy problem with bombs.
Every child born in America today owes $46,000 for money we spent on ourselves. A birth debt. The indebtedness each child is born with currently exceeds the median income of the individual American. Where is the free will? Where is the equality between their generation who owes their money, and our generation, who spent their money on us?
Do we really suppose that future generations will be complaint? Do we expect no backlash from a generation born into economic servitude of our making? Can we rely on them to be Cornelius - work their job, pay their tax, live in a human filing cabinet (condo high rise) and die without chirping a protest about what we’ve done to them?
Everyone has a breaking point. People know a raw deal when they see it. How large do we think we can grow our national debt? At some point, I fear there will be born a charismatic figure of protest. We will say to him, “Tyler, you owe this money, a debt you inherited.” Tyler will say to us, “No. I don’t.”
I worry that we may be close. When I was a lad, the number “billion” was almost funny. Today, we put the number “trillion” into the language of single laws.
To convince Cornelius that he is the real person and Tyler is the figment, Tyler tells him, “Hey, you created me. I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility!”
Indeed. Should some charismatic youngster one day step up and say, “I’m not paying this $14 trillion,” we must all remember to take some responsibility. We will have created him.
Here is my favorite clip from Tyler Durden, and he speaks to this kind of mounting revolution [Ed.'s Note: Please be advised that the clip contains some vulgar language that does not conform to the Ricochet Code of Conduct]
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Dec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
It could probably be argued that we are all bound in some way whether it is the debt of consumerism or the hard fought life of mere subsistence. Debt may kill the soul, but it's much easier on the body than legging out deer and scratching tubers from the soil.
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
True. But how much debt can we give to the next generation before chasing elk seems the better life?
Dec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Tommy De Seno
True. But how much debt can we give to the next generation before chasing elk seems the better life? · Jul 14 at 5:13pm
You have a plausible theory, but I doubt it's likelihood. Look around the western world at the mobs of outraged youth, fighting bitterly to be tucked back into the veil of ignorance. They are fighting to keep the machinery of their enslavement alive and well.
You can say the situation is different in the States, but I don't see many charismatic young men among those loosing the battle cry for freedom.
Edited on Jul 14, 2011 at 5:21pmDec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
I was at a draft horse show several years back and the idea of working the land with rudimentary machinery and strong animals had an almost magnetic pull. TJ may have been wrong about the French, but his dreams of a purely agrarian society remain tempting.
Dec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
I whole heartedly agree. I often feel like I was born a hundred years too late, and that I would be far more suited to a simpler less restrictnig society. Though I doubt I would ever truly appreciate it havnig not known my current existence.
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Beasley
Tommy De Seno
You have a plausible theory, but I doubt it's likelihood. Look around the western world at the mobs of outraged youth, fighting bitterly to be tucked back into the veil of ignorance. They are fighting to keep the machinery of their enslavement alive and well.
You can say the situation is different in the States, but I don't see many charismatic young men among those loosing the battle cry for freedom. · Jul 14 at 5:20pm
Edited on Jul 14 at 05:21 pm
True Beasley, but all takes for the blind to see is a leader with vision. It can happen quickly.
Few youngsters know they owe $46,000 that we spent on ourselves. As the number grows, I fear the day they find out.
Edited on Jul 14, 2011 at 5:28pmDec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
We live longer, easier, and emptier lives. Would you trade either longevity or ease for fulfillment?
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Yes.
Dec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Yes. Both if I had to. It may, be partially due to the fact that I don't have kids but longevity seems arbitrary, especially without a fulfilling life. I am also a few less degrees removed from the land than a guy in a cubicle. It sounds like a good deal to me.
May '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
If you haven't yet read River's great post, it relates to this.
Tommy De Seno:
The plan he develops is “Project Mayhem” and it is an ultra-populist fantasy – he blows up the headquarters of every credit company in America. All debt is wiped out. We are all back to zero. We are all even. He envisions real freedom coming from the ensuing chaos.
....
Do we really suppose that future generations will be compliant?
It's funny you posted this, Tommy. I have been thinking of that film's final scene these past few months.
We have already witnessed hundreds or thousands of American citizens refusing to pay their mortgages upon discovery of a legal loophole or because politicians are protecting them from responsibility. There might come a point at which thousands of Americans refuse to pay their credit card debts because they expect a financial crash or creditors for some other reason cannot pursue customers who stop paying.
We're all familiar with the question: "If you knew the world ended tomorrow, what would you do?" Well, I know what you wouldn't do. You wouldn't worry about bills.
Despair is socially dangerous.
Dec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Tommy De Seno: Few youngsters know they owe $46,000 that we spent on ourselves. As the number grows, I fear the day they find out. · Jul 14 at 5:28pm
Edited on Jul 14 at 05:28 pm
They owe that money theoretically, but as long as they are part of the one half of the population that pays no income tax that point will fall on deaf ears.
May '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Beasley
Yes. Both if I had to. It may, be partially due to the fact that I don't have kids but longevity seems arbitrary...
Nor do I, and that's another relevant issue here. People with kids have a powerful investment in the future and daily reminders of social responsibilities.
It's increasingly common for young adults to not have children or to not even be married. Such individuals are generally more susceptible to despair, more likely to be impulsive or throw caution into the wind, and less interested in long term plans.
Again, it's not a good recipe for social order.
Dec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Not paying taxes is a fallacy that bothers me a bit. Everyone who works pays taxes. Many (almost most now) do not pay the individual income tax, but they do pay OASDI and Medicare taxes. All of this money goes into the same overdrawn checking account regardless of how the label it on your pay stub. Because it is supposedly their money that they will receive a return on many do not see it as a tax. Disingenuous does not even begin to describe this scheme.
Edited on Jul 14, 2011 at 6:17pmDec '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
To tie the taxes back into the main topic, those who believe themselves free from taxes are still enslaved to the state in ways only Tyler Durden would see. Worse, it's an indentured servitude that promises light at the end of the tunnel (receipt of SSI and Medicare) that will never actually materialize. I'm only 39 and I know that without serious structural changes in social security that I will never see a dime of the money that has been taken from me for the program. Those ten or fifteen years behind me never even attempted to delude themselves into believing they would receive returns from the program.
Luckily I took up smoking at a young age, so I've traded both longevity and ease for something else, perhaps not fulfillment though. On the bright side, I probably won't live long enough to need SSI or for Medicare to neglect my health to its demise.
Mar '11
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
I think I heard that Tyler Durden speech at a TEA Party get together.
Nov '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Great post. Art may not only imitiate life, but predict it. You are on to something.
But I find myself wishing: if only Tyler Durden could have channelled Ayn Rand rather than Karl Marx.
Durden identifies the enemy as capitalism, not statism. For him, the sin is consumption, not parasitism. He envisions a libertopia of subsistence, not of abundance.
"Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra."
The above is more than merely devil-may-care, bad-boy, rhetoric. It is moral nonsense. Durden is a macho mascot for la-la leftists.
Which is a shame, because in terms of being an avatar for raw liberty, as an antidote to cultural shallowness, Durden is right on the money.
Durden may be the cure; but he applies himself to the wrong disease.
May '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Aodhan:
"Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra."
The above is more than merely devil-may-care, bad-boy, rhetoric. It is moral nonsense. Durden is a macho mascot for la-la leftists.
....
Durden may be the cure; but he applies himself to the wrong disease.
There's a lot of that coming out of Hollywood these days — more libertine than liberty. My liberal friends lap it up.
Occasionally, I try to convince one of them that the individual freedom they claim to want so badly is what the Tea Party movement is all about. Some of that message might be getting through, but it's quickly overwhelmed by mob-think when they return to their liberal circles.
May '10
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
Aodhan: .
But I find myself wishing: if only Tyler Durden could have channelled Ayn Rand rather than Karl Marx.
Durden identifies the enemy as capitalism, not statism. For him, the sin is consumption, not parasitism. He envisions a libertopia of subsistence, not of abundance.
"Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra."
The above is more than merely devil-may-care, bad-boy, rhetoric. It is moral nonsense. Durden is a macho mascot for la-la leftists.
Amen. This Tyler guy is reveling in angst-ridden teen nonsense. His generation has been the most coddled, the most comfortable, the most lacking in challenges in all of human history, and still he indulges in victimhood.
He is a victim, as it happens (for the reasons Tommy points out), but there hasn't yet been any real-world manifestations. Once those come -- and they will -- then he's really gonna be pissed off.
May '11
Re: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
While I love the movie as a great piece of filmmaking, and one of the few films with a "surprise ending" that you don't really see coming, the Tyler character spouts leftist utopian blather, dressed up in a false idea of manliness. The utpoian leftist green movement that longs for a "simpler" time is just hog-wash. Life even a hundred years ago was nasty, brutish and short.Our drive to spend our children and grandchildren's future wealth to make our lives easier is stupid, and may bring revolution, but the world Tylerr envisions isn't the solution to the problem.
Edited on Jul 15, 2011 at 5:32amRe: Rising Debt Ceilings and Creating Tyler Durden
David Knights I agree with you 100%. I don't mean to suggest that a future revolutionary will want Tyler's simpler society, particularly an agrarian one. That takes a strong puritan work ethinc and there is no way to tell if the revolutionary will have it.
It is our currently ingnoring the constant rise in debt ceiling as a reason for revolution that disturbs me. We are being intergenerational bullies.
I wonder how large American debt has to be for a generation to say "I didn't spend it so I'm not paying for it."