Self-Love, Consumerism, and Happiness-Rousseau and Fight Club
“Everyone begins to survey the rest and wishes to be surveyed himself; and public esteem acquires a value. He who sings or dances best, the handsomest, the strongest, the most dexterous, the most eloquent, comes to be the most respected: this was the first step towards inequality, and at the same time towards vice”
-Jean Jacques Rousseau, On the Origins of Inequality, p.32
Rousseau wrote this passage in 1754. That is 268 years ago. He wrote it about people living during the transition from the state of nature to society, 12,000 years ago. And yet it seems be more relevant today than ever. Rousseau’s philosophy can be narrowed down to his two conceptions of self-love: Amour de soi and Amour propre. Amour de soi is healthy self-love, nothing more than the desire to live and to keep on living. This, Rousseau argues, is a phenomenon common to all animals. All are driven by the basic desire to stay alive and live a life that is, generally, pain free. This self-love is not only benign; it is useful. Amour propre on the other hand is unique to humans living in a society. And it is anything but benign. Amour propre is more akin to ego. It is the never-ending thirst for estime publique (social clout). In the state of nature our conception of ourselves is truly internal. In society our conception of ourselves is a mirror of what other people think of us. In the state of nature our self-love comes from that internal conception, it comes from ourselves. In society, it comes from others.
Amour de soi can be quenched quite easily. While it brings on demands each day they are finite. We need a finite amount of food, water, and sleep each day. These needs are absolute.
Amour propre is a relative self-conception and thus can never be quenched. As soon as we have more than one person we want more than the next. Even if we reach the top in one particular category we will not be satisfied. We will want to be the best in another.
Fight Club
Fight Club is one of my favourite films. It terms of themes and subtext it may be my favourite. I believe at the core of fight club is this Rousseauian critique of late-stage capitalist society. A society that has perfectly in almost every way taken amour propre and corrupted it to ensure that none of us are ever happy. We will always want something more. And so there will always be demand. The narrator in Fight Club, who I will call Jack, is an every-man through which we experience this critique. Almost every scene has something amazing in it but I want to look at two in particular that I believe best demonstrate these points I am making.
The first time we get a look at Jack’s apartment we see him sitting on the toilet, reading an IKEA catalogue while on the phone. We are constantly ‘multitasking’ these days, overstimulated. We walk while listening to a podcast; eat while watching the TV; check tik-tok while on dates.
We get a voice over from Jack, “like so many others I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct”. So much is packed into that one passing sentence. Said in a sarcastic tone we know Jack understands his actions as anything but natural. IKEA have tapped into what may well be a real instinct and exploited it to turn us into mindless consumers. And slaves we are. Most people have no control over their buying, just doing what they are told by advertisers and marketers.
“If I saw something cool like a little coffee table in the shape of a Ying-Yang I had to have it.” Jack doesn’t buy things for their functionality but for their aesthetic. We are alienated from the things we buy. We value them not in themselves but because they serve an aesthetic function. The table is valuable because it looks cool. Jack doesn’t care about the table itself and what it offers-it is replaceable with anything which serves the same function-anything that would appear to be just as cool. I’m sure if you have a think about this there are countless items in the room you’re in right now that are like this: serving no other functions but to ‘look cool’. Have a look around. Be honest with yourself. What was the primary reason you bought that T-shirt: because you really loved it or because you thought other people would love it? A neglected third option, which is probably the most accurate is that you love is because other people love it. Because it grants you estime publique.
We then see a beautiful montage of Jacks apartment filling up with IKEA items, coupled with catalogue like overlays. I find it amazingly well thought out to have these Swedish names and serial codes pop up alongside the items. We do not even know what they mean (except for Swedish thinkers) only emphasising the alienation we have from these products. And it doesn’t end there. Our homes are just like catalogues, advertisements for anyone who may visit. Every item is meticulously placed so that any guests may be impressed by our style. This fantasy is, literally, blown wide open when everyone gets to see Jack’s apartment later on, flung all over the streets-reduced to nothing but filthy condiments.
“I had it all” Jack finishes. And yet he still orders more. Furthermore, he is an insomniac who hopes for his death each time he gets on an aeroplane. Is that the life of someone who ‘has it all’? The final thing we see in Jack’s apartment is a fridge empty of food but full of condiments. I like to read this as a metaphor for Jack, and people in general. We are buying sides when we don’t even have the main. We have all these things to dress up and supplement ourselves but there is no real substance to us at all.
And as Rousseau writes, “to be and to appear became two very different things”. When we judge our own worth through the eyes of others, everything becomes about appearances. Jack’s home is an advertisement to others.
But as we have said, amour propre is a beast with a bottomless stomach.
“I had it all. I had a stereo that was very decent, a wardrobe that was getting very respectable. I was close to being complete.” Jack opens up to Tyler Durden, a character who embodies everything Jack is not, in a bar after his apartment is blown up. This line is beautifully telling about the psychology of someone driven mad by amour propre. We are constantly telling ourselves just one more. And, as we are all aware deep down, it is never just one more. As consumers we are like Tantalus in his prison, always so close but never getting there. It is also telling that Jack does not say “it was close to being complete” but instead “I was close to being complete.” He is defined by what he owns. When his wardrobe is complete, he will be too.
And then we get Tyler’s philosophy: “Never be complete. I say stop being perfect. I say let’s evolve, let the chips fall where they may.” In a way this is a very Buddhist way of looking at things. Relinquish the need to control everything, the constant chase of pleasure. But we can look at it through the lens of Rousseau. Perfection, completion-these are illusions of amour propre-dangerous illusions at that. With amour de soi there is no idea of perfectionism only survival. Only evolution.
Then he hits us with the best line of the film. “The things you own end up owning you.” This line has been alluded to by Jack already when he acknowledged he was a slave to IKEA and when he defined his own completeness as a function of the completeness of his wardrobe.
“What are we?” Tyler asks. “Consumers”. Jack admits. And why do we consume? We are not driven by amour de soi in our pursuit of more and more material goods. It must be that pesky amour propre at it again.
Rousseau says the roots were sown a long time ago. At the moment “it appeared an advantage for one man to possess the quantity of provisions requisite for two, all equality vanished; property started up; labour became necessary; and boundless forests became smiling fields, which it was found necessary to water with human sweat, and in which slavery and misery were soon seen to sprout out and grow with the fruits of the earth.”
I don’t only include this quote because of its beautiful poetry. In historical terms it answers the question of why humanity transitioned from hunter gathers to society founders during the agricultural revolution-and why we were destined to become mindless consumers some 12,000 years later. This same question is asked by historian Yuval Noah Harari in his 2011 book Sapiens (which if you haven’t read I would thoroughly recommend as a modern and historically accurate version of Rousseau’s own writings). Harari asks what possessed “homo sapiens to exchange a good life for a more miserable existence.” What convinced Pandora to open the box? What convinced Eve to eat the apple? What convinced us to leave Eden in exchange for the pain of the fields, each day until we return to the dirt?
Amour propre. Because of our ego and our desire to be wanted by others. The relativity of amour propre meant, as Rousseau puts it, that it became “an advantage for one man to possess the quantity of provisions requisite for two”. It is not an advantage, as Tyler puts it, “in the hunter gatherer sense of the word”. It does not assist our amour de soi. But it is advantageous for the beast of amour propre. A man does not need a hut with two rooms. But as soon as the group start to look on him favourably because of his two rooms, every other man will want two rooms. And then three. And so on until we get to where we are now. And yet our level of amour propre is the same as if we all had huts with one room.
John and Hank are neighbours. They both have beat up Honda Civics’ that cost them £1000 each. One day Hank comes home with an old but well-kept Toyota Prius that cost him £3000. John’s wife comments on the neighbour’s nice new car. The next week, John comes home with a new Mini Cooper Countryman. Hank’s children gawk at the beautiful new car that the neighbours have. The next month Hank comes home with a new Range Rover. Everyone on the street is talking about it. Little do they know that Hank has almost no money left to pay the bills. And so, the next month John goes to a car dealership to buy a brand-new Tesla. Only he doesn’t have enough money. He will have to settle on a brand-new Range Rover.
Both Hank and John were trying to compete for the best car. It doesn’t matter how much it cost, merely that it cost more. It isn’t an absolute thing that they were seeking but a relative one. And yet both men are in exactly the same place that they started with. They both have the same car as one another. Only both of them are now thousands of pounds poorer. Their amour propre has driven them (pardon the pun) to one up each other but has actually remained static the entire time. This is the pattern Rousseau captured- a pattern that catalysed the creation of society and has led to the unhappiness of man ever since.
It is a cycle that harms everyone who participates, and yet we cannot afford to not participate. There will be some who reject it completely, but we do not hear from them. What about the minimalists you may ask? Have you ever watched a video by a self-titled minimalist? They are driven by amour propre just as much as any materialist, except they have flipped the coin over. They are aesthetic minimalists. Their rejection of material goods comes from the same source-amour propre. They make beautifully shot videos in perfectly lit houses that are meticulously set up with the 15 items they own. Their houses are advertisements just as much as Jacks IKEA filled apartment.
And is any of this a secret? Of course not. We all know it. And most importantly advertisers know it.
What’s the solution? I haven’t figured that one out yet. I have no doubt that radical societal change is likely required. But I also have no doubt that we can start making change as individuals. Calling for societal change is sexy. Giving personal advice is a lot less so. But there are things you can try. Go around your room and look at every item you own. Ask yourself why you own it. Don’t bash yourself if you discover a large proportion of what you own is owned for the same reason as Jack.
I do believe most of us will find this with at least a few items. Maybe you can set yourself a challenge for the next month. Every time you’re going to buy something ask yourself the same question you did when looking around your room. Why do I want to buy it? Do I want it for its inherent value or for its function as an aesthetic item? Similarly, every now and then check in and ask why you’re doing something. Let me give you a personal example. I really like movies. But at the start of this year, I would watch a different movie almost every night. I think I watched about 50 in two months. And why? So, I could tell people I’d watched these movies. So, I could look cool by giving my complex analysis of the shots and cinematography. This wasn’t all bad, I did watch some amazing movies. But make sure you’re doing things for the right reasons. To make yourself or others happy. Not to make yourself look cool.
And as I’ve said, some of these things are not possible to break out of. We do sometimes have to impress other people. When meeting new people or interviewing for a job. However, the direct purpose is not to look better than others. There is a meaningful purpose-to make new friends, to get a new job. This is the primary driving force. So don’t be absolute. Don’t stop showering, getting haircuts, or making funny jokes. After all, we are social animals, even in our most natural states. But have Rousseau in the back of your mind-are you being driven by amour de soi, or its evil twin amour propre?
