We Are All Psychotic Americans

There is something psychopathic about our current predicament. Maybe it's the chemicals in the food and water, or maybe it's the media saturation. Maybe socially isolating has been the last straw.

It's enough to send one loopy.

What is it about 2020 that has instilled such madness around the world? I think the underlying factor is that we are all Americans now. Globalism won, has won ever since Woodrow Wilson put his finger in the pie. As a result, we're all American, all infused with that mentality.

This all came to the fore for me when I re-watched American Psycho one Sunday evening during lockdown. It struck me then - quite powerfully I might add - how much of a loser Patrick Bateman is in the film, and how, because he's a loser who thinks he's a winner he personifies us.

Ostensibly he is a physically potent, clean cut and successful man and yet he's struggling to keep his life together and no one seems to remember who he is. This prompted me to pick up the novel which has been sitting on my e-reader for a while.

The first thing that struck me is how closely the film cleaves to the source material, whole reams of dialogue and all the best scenes faithfully brought to realization by the director and Christian Bale.

The book and the film is a far more clever exploration of consumer identity than Fight Club, and a better dive into the ennui of 90s culture and the nature of reality than The Matrix. It contains the sort of heady nihilism that largely disappeared after 9/11.

More than anything produced post-80s it is a precursor to the 21st century, something that in a sense foretold the coming travails. Patrick Bateman is a cipher, even though Bret Easton Ellis was inspired by the Wall Street types he frequently hung out with.

Bateman is the Alpha and Omega.

The Ubermensch and the Last Man.

He could be anyone of us and yet is all of us.

That quote is from MacIntyre's 'After Virtue', and check out this other quote which outlines the idea of Bateman as an Ubermensch. He lies, he bends others to his will, he uses women as playthings for his darkest desires.

To a leftist he is the embodiment of white male privilege, someone who can keep getting away with it and never receive punishment.

To a rightist he is a virtue signaler, someone who presents as empathetic but on the inside he abuses those around him (male feminists).

The white male bit is easy to see, but the virtue signaler is clear from this passage. But take note of the resentment in that last sentence...

For me, personally, I see him as the Incel Who Fucks, which could be any of us. He is addicted to weightlifting, obsessed with the latest technology and autistic over pop media. He is bitter towards woman who don't want him, and the women he does fuck are lured by money or drugs.

Bateman wears a mask at all times, but it is in constant danger of slipping and unleashing the virus of violence. He is the kali yuga, pandora's box, everything evil that is waiting to spill out into the world. The mask works though because no one even recognizes him.

If he wears a mask, it is also to hide from himself. Many of the characters in the book are reflections of Patrick. Kimball, the detective, is a man like Bateman in every way except with purpose and good will.

Louis, the husband of the woman Patrick is having an affair with, turns out to be in love with Patrick. When he discovers this Patrick rejects and reviles him. In fact there is a lot of hatred towards the Gay, deliciously ironic given Ellis' own predilections.

What these characters show is that Bateman is scared of himself. Like the incel, he both wants to die to himself and be rid of those around him. He is frustrated by everything in his life but all he wants to do is fit in.

It's a story of mostly violence, but sex too, and as Evola notes in Eros and the Mysteries of Love, the two are often intertwined. The incel is one who combines sex with violence in his mind.

Modernity is overrun by death and sex and sometimes it feels like that's all there is. It gives a feeling that these are terrible times. In 2020 we suffer a real pandemic and another of a cultural nature. We are ready to breakdown, particularly because so few of us can even cook.

This poses a conundrum. Is it better to escape or to inflict our pain on others? Cancel culture is a good example of mass hysteria, of wanting to hurt others so that we will feel better. This book is remarkably prescient for the disgust and loathing we see today.

And if the book upsets you, if you can't bear to read its pages, well, maybe you see a little too much of yourself in Bateman. We're all American psychos now, and isn't it a nightmare.