Chapter 2: Youth, the Self, and Violence: A Hegelian Analysis of Fight Club

In the epigraph above, Phillip Wegner (2009) describes an animating feature of what Tom Moylan (2000) has dubbed “critical dystopia” (Diken & Laustsen, 2002). In this subgenre, dystopian narratives do not necessarily abandon certain versions of modern notions of hope and transformation, rather, they seek to infuse the social and cultural status quo with critiques that unveil the ways in which utopian impulses have bankrupted political economies. This critical dystopia subgenre that grew out of a backlash against Reagan/Thatcher era politics in the 1980s has continued into the 21st century alongside the advancement of neoliberal ideologies in the West and in the United States in particular. Critical dystopian literature has, among other things in the past few decades, attempted to explore the dire consequences of the continuing concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands and subsequent reduction in agency for most people.