Fight Club vs. Efficiency

Twenty-six years and an Internet revolution later, I finally grasped the full meaning of Fight Club. The rise of AI, automation, and the pervasive pursuit of efficiency has led to a world where productivity is prioritised over everything, making it easier to understand the film’s critique of modern society. In many ways, David Fincher’s 1999 movie was ahead of its time. Though it initially flopped in theaters, its resurgence as a cult classic in the now-extinct DVD era has made it even more relevant today. The last quarter-century of social and technological change has only sharpened its themes—particularly the alienation inherent in modernity and its effect on our collective sense of purpose.

Throughout history, philosophers have warned about the alienating effects of modernity. From Jean-Jacques Rousseau´s Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1755), where he argues that primitive societies were more harmonious, equal, and free than the modern ones, characterised by competition, artificial hierarchies, and materialism leading to the fragmentation of social bonds, to Martin Heidegger‘s essay The Question Concerning Technology (1954), which critiques technology’s role in shaping a mechanized world. These ideas are reflected in countless Hollywood films—from The Matrix, where the lonely hacker fights against a system that turns humanity into mere data, to Blade Runner, where robots questioning their own authenticity carry out the search for humanity. Even Wall-E, with its robots in a decayed world, highlights the consequences of consumerism and the loss of genuine human connection. But it was not until I watched a YouTube clip of an office meeting scene from Fight Club that I realised just how much it perfectly addresses the issues of modern life.

In a world where technology and automation dominate, Fight Club becomes the ultimate critique of modern society. Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, the film follows an unnamed narrator, who has insomnia and a pervasive sense of emptiness.

The movie’s approach to modernity and its discontents parallels the early work of French philosopher Georges Bataille, whose ideas on the rediscovery of an authentic existence resonate with the film’s themes. Bataille, who rejected the modern emphasis on utility and efficiency, argued that the key to a meaningful life lies in embracing what he called “expenditure”—waste, destruction, and loss. This idea is powerfully reflected in the above-mentioned moment of the film, when the narrator’s boss tells him, “Efficiency is priority number one, people, because waste is a thief.” In contrast to the boss’s belief in efficiency and productivity, Bataille would argue that waste, far from being a thief, is essential to reclaiming authenticity in a world dominated by rationality.

Bataille’s philosophy critiques the notion that a life lived solely for efficiency and productivity is worth living. This reflects the AI-driven society we are building, where humans risk being considered redundant because machines are more efficient, a society where artistic and cultural masterpieces—such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Shakespeare’s plays, and humanity’s poetry, writings, songs, and movies—can be viewed as forms of “luxurious expenditure” or “waste.”

Once, I read the interview with the Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne in the now extinct Prague Pill. When the interviewer asked if it was “morally” right to charge such high prices for the band’s upcoming concert, Wayne answered without missing a beat that the Flaming Lips concert was like cigarettes—it came extra. You don’t need the concert to survive. It just makes your life more bearable. Everything meaningful in life that comes extra, is waste. Now that we are delivering the efficiency of our rational society to machines, waste is disappearing at an astounding rate.

In the end, Fight Club is not just a cautionary tale about radicalism, but also a satire of our inability to address the deeper spiritual and existential void created by modernity. Ultimately, the film serves as both a warning and a critique of the way radical ideas and technologies can promise us freedom, only to turn into another form of control. It highlights the dangers of placing faith in charismatic leaders and the cycle of disillusionment and radicalism that keeps repeating itself. The movie’s bleakness, its refusal to offer a clear resolution, speaks to the fundamental problem of modern life—the search for meaning in a world that has lost its connection to the things that make life worth living.