I’m beginning to focus on a theme here, and I believe that this segment where the narrator is discussing Project Mayhem, may reveal it best:
When Tyler invented Project Mayhem, Tyler said the goal of Project Mayhem had nothing to do with other people. Tyler didn’t care if other people got hurt or not. The goal was to each each man in the project that he had the power to control history. We, each of us, can take control of the world. (pg. 122)
Then, this:
What Tyler says about being the crap and the slaves of history, that’s how I felt. I wanted to destroy everything beautiful I’d never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn’t afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I’d never see.
I wanted the whole world to hit bottom. (pg. 123)
My take on this is that the speaker, like every generation before him and since, feels unjustly saddled with the responsibilities of the earth and the world. To feel the burden of cleaning up what we’re always prone to blame on prior generations when all we want to do is enjoy life is tough if you take it seriously. What Tyler is suggesting is a wake up call that would begin with destroying it all and starting from scratch.
What is interwoven here, and reiterated in prior statements, is that there are those who don’t shoulder their share of the burden but keep taking, enjoying what they have without thinking, perhaps, of the future of mankind and his world. Unfortunately, this is all pinned on the rich instead of looking around at each and every human being and the waste he makes and leaves behind. There is also, as in all finger-pointing, the element of resentment and jealousy that keeps the fires burning and the passion for destruction high.
Instead of simply doing one’s best and being concerned with that. This is a typical reaction and one that endures in mass mentality.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology