Destruction of Society (chpt 6 -19)

Palahniuk really begins to dismantle society and put a spot light on the “art for art’s sake” attitude of the elitist class.  At the beginning of the novel one might think that Tyler’s whole objective is chaos and the destruction of societies morals.   However, by the end of chapter 18 I realized that his destruction has a purpose, a goal.  Tyler wants to destroy history, which in my mind was the museum that they were about to blow up in chapter 1, but really I feel that he wants to destroy the history that does not include him.

It is this that I see both the narrator and Tyler having in common, a fear and loathing of rejection.  And feel this all comes out in Chapter 18, with the introduction of God.  Through out the novel so far there have been references to what it means to be a man in today’s society, which leads me to believe that a central goal to Tyler’s destruction of today’s society is to re-implement a society that includes him, that recognizes him and his values even if that means becoming infamous first in the eyes of God; “…Tyler saw it was that getting God’s attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all.”  Apparently the whole idea of hitting rock bottom is so that one could then rise because one could fall not longer the only thing left to do would be to pull yourself up by the boot straps.

So what does this have to do with purposeful destruction and “art for art’s sake”.  I realized that Tyler recognizes and agrees that “A criminal is a criminal.” and that degrees or criminality are fictitious,  however he values his form of destruction over other forms of self destruction.  For instance the narrator makes a point to point out the fact that they stayed with in the speed limit the whole time while the conformist of society (other people in traffic) where eager to go outside of the speed limit and for what?  There was no enlightenment in breaking such a trivial law, what self actualization comes of that.  So from what I understand of this correlation Tyler wants to destroy history that does nothing for people.  He wants to then reinforce a history, his story that will empower and force society to realize that it must be saved and that he is the one to do it.  In a way he has seen modern societies, history, art as just a product and motive for consumerism which voids things or icons of any true meaning.  How Jameson of him!