Capstone Project

The podcast discusses how films like American Psycho and Fight Club criticize modern society, suggesting that traditional values have been abandoned and leading to a loss of societal values. However, the host argues that modern society has actually become more progressive, inclusive, and equitable. The discussion also references Friedrich Nietzsche's warnings about the abandonment of traditional values and the belief in nihilism. The argument is made that the perception of moral decline is unfounded and that new institutions and values, such as equity and inclusion, have emerged. Examples like Harvard's admissions policies and increased financial aid budget are given to support this viewpoint. Overall, the podcast encourages reflection on the progress made in society and the importance of identifying and protecting valuable institutions and values. Have you noticed a great number of dystopian films today? Those are dystopian genres that always existed. Films like American Psycho and Fight Club have resurfaced into popularity. These films not only portray dystopias, but they criticize our modern society. I'm your host, Travis Fong, and you're listening to Storyteller's Message of Today. The podcast where we look at all types of storytelling to explore their themes and ideas. And in today's episode, we'll discuss American Psycho and Fight Club and address the question of whether values that contribute to a good society have disappeared in our modern age. On one hand, many films and individuals say that we have abandoned traditional values that used to give us purpose, which has led to the destruction of our societal values overall. However, in the end, I would propose that modern society has not eroded our values. Instead, the opposite has occurred as we have become an increasingly progressive, inclusive, and equitable society. I live in the American Gardens building on West 8th Avenue. My name is Patrick Bateman. American Psycho was first described by Patrick Bateman, a rich Wall Street worker. According to the scholarly article, Consumerism and Madness in Mayor Hanson, American Psycho, Bateman is, quote, a looser entity. Through Bateman's extreme violence and absurd behavior, the viewer is, quote, confronted with multiple levels of meaning. According to the scholarly article, We're Not Through Yet, the Patrick Bateman debate. Bateman is a symbol of the potential damage that a modern, trans consumer culture can bring on an individual's values. Similarly, Psycho also depicts a pessimistic warning on modernity. Psycho follows the story of Edward Norton, your typical American corporate worker whose life is overtaken by consumer culture. He initially leads a lonely, depressed life, but then breaks this purposelessness through violence. In the film, Norton's alter ego, Tyler Durden, states the following. The middle children of history, man. No purpose, no place. Both films present the idea that modern times has led to a collapse of traditional values, like family relationships and community, that lead to human flourishing. Therefore, the modern man leads a purposeless life. Both Psycho and American Psycho criticize our modern society, which brings up the central question. Has our modern times led to a loss of societal values that contribute to a good society? That is the main topic we'll address today. To answer this question about modernity's relation to values, we should first turn to Friedrich Nietzsche, a late 19th century philosopher. Nietzsche during his time forecasted similar warnings to these films. During Nietzsche's time, Europe was going through a scientific enlightenment, and Europe as a whole was becoming much more advanced in society. Yet, Nietzsche in his works noted a scary trend among its citizens. In one of Nietzsche's most famous works, The Gay Science, Nietzsche wrote that God is dead. In a scholarly article titled Nietzsche and the Melancholy of Modernity, the author summarizes how Nietzsche said this would lead to a high-culture mood of anxiety about the rapid, disorienting loss of collective, civilizational ideals. Now, what does this mean? Well, Nietzsche noticed that during his time, people were increasingly looking to science and enlightenment ideas to guide their lives. At the same time, Nietzsche noticed that people were abandoning traditional values rooted in Christianity. With this shift in values, he predicted that this would lead to nihilism, the belief that there's no purpose to life. He believed that sadness and suffering would spread across society and destroy society's morals. Nietzsche's relevance to a discussion needs to be explained to consequences of abandoning traditional values, and similarly today, films like American Psycho and Fight Club argue that we also see this collective loss of traditional values as a groundless. This idea that we have lost our values in the modern age is not rare, and in a recent Gallup poll, it was reported that a record-high 50% of Americans rate the overall state of moral values in the US as poor, with 78% believing it's even worse. People with a variety of reasons for such erosion of values with the films Fight Club and American Psycho tackle intentional culture, similar to Nietzsche, many also cite the abandonment of religion as a major factor. Here's Matt Walsh, a famous conservative speaker, speaking about this topic. We were once a Christian nation. We are no longer a Christian nation. Soon we won't even be a majority Christian nation. And as our founders knew, this doesn't work. Walsh contends that we as a society have lost the values of religion, family, and community due to this decline in Christianity. Even though American Psycho, Fight Club, and Matt Walsh all look at different modern trends, they all promote the idea that modern society has lost the traditional values that used to give people purpose. They conclude that it has led to a terrible state for our morals like what Nietzsche had predicted. This is the main argument that supports how modern times has led to an overall collapse of good values. So, let's address this idea, and I'll put forth the argument that in our modern age the opposite has occurred, and that values that contribute to a good society have actually improved overall. Firstly, the supposedly traditional values of the past have been over-glamorized. For instance, people often point to the 1960s America as a time that epitomized American values, with the nuclear family and Christianity. However, compared to today, values of equity and equality were horrendous. There existed segregation, racism, sexism, and we lived in a much less inclusive society. In the paper, The Illusion of Moral Decline, it states that in at least 60 nations around the world, people believe that morality is declining. However, this perception of moral decline is unfounded. After a series of anecdotal evidence, the paper proposes two theories that explain the view of moral decline. Firstly, humans seek and attend to negative information about others, as such people may encounter more negative information than positive information about the morality of people in general. Secondly, numerous studies have shown that when people recall positive and negative events from the past, the negative events are more likely to be forgotten. This biased memory effect may help explain why people believe that past morality was relatively high. Therefore, people view current events more negatively, and they view past events more favorably. In addition, though traditional institutions have become less popular, we've also seen the rise of new institutions to replace these valleys. In a recent interview with industry expert Brian Chong, he explores this trend. We've seen an empirical proliferation of the values of equity, equality, and inclusion within culture and academia. New initiatives towards racial sensitivity, historical analysis, and general worldly thinking have probably produced greater forms of compassion among students, and while this progress is likely a backlash, long-term trends remain true. Intuitively, I think this progression makes sense. As society develops and allows everyone to achieve a more survivable living, more individuals are able to think about larger-scale topics of ethicality, fairness, and justice, rather than worry if they'll survive the next day. And this doesn't say that everything is perfect now, and not everyone is able to enjoy the fruits of development, but this development seems to be linked towards the greater pushes for fairness. For some evidence, let's use Harvard as a case study. As time has progressed, Harvard has gone from an institution that only accepts predominantly white males to a university that accepts people of all genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. Moreover, in recent years, Harvard has placed more emphasis on the idea of holistic admissions, which evaluates a candidate in relation to experiences, background, and identity. According to the Harvard Gazette, Harvard College's annual financial aid award budget has increased over 190%, from $80 million in 2005 to $235 million in 2022, which has given opportunities to those of lower socioeconomic status, predominantly minorities. These initiatives have been implemented to tackle equity, inclusion, and diversity, and as Harvard is one of the leaders in higher education, it has set a precedent for educational institutions to cater more towards these values as well. To summarize, the films by Quote American Psycho and Speaker Matt Walsh all conclude that we as a society have lost traditional values, which has led to an overall loss of values. However, while aspects of these arguments are true, firstly, they ignore how the traditional values of the past were over-glamorized and only helped a small portion of the population. Secondly, they ignore how we have collectively developed progressive values that are much more inclusive than those of the past and truly contribute to a flourishing, equitable society for everyone. Therefore, it is not true that modernity has led to an erosion of societal values, rather a beautiful development of such values. At the end of the day, the analysis we did today matters because we need to evaluate the progress that we have made as a society, and we should strive to objectively analyze the past and learn from its positives and negatives. In addition, we must actively identify the institutions that uphold our society and reflect on what institutions and values are worth protecting, maintaining, growing, or adding on. As shown in today's broadcast, modern literature serves as a realm for us to tackle these questions head-on, and I hope you continue to reflect yourself.