American Psycho and the Slave Revolt in Morals

Patrick Bateman is one of the great fictional figures within contemporary culture, even though the question of his identity remains ambiguous and his reliability as a narrator suspect. Stylish,  charming, and with a dandy's eye for detail, he's a postmodern Dorian Gray living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.      

However, it's clear that the author of American Psycho doesn't wish for his readers to admire Patrick Bateman. On the contrary, Bateman is someone we should repudiate; a man trapped in a world that lacks depth, meaning, and reality and his story serves as a warning about the dangers of surrendering one's soul to Mammon. This is why Ellis opens the novel with a line from Dante - 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here' - an allusion to the hell that awaits those who choose to lead a life lacking in firm moral foundation and worry more about looking good than being good. 

Thus, for all the protests from various concerned quarters that greeted publication of the book, American Psycho is above all else a moral fable and not a celebration of schizo-psychosis, or a nihilistic advocacy of murder and mayhem. Its central teaching is one subscribed to by all good Christians: love of money is the root of all evil. Ellis even goes so far as to imply there might be a causal connection between serial consumption and serial killing. 

And this is why as much as I admire the work as a piece of writing, I despise it for reinforcing the great conceit of the poor and badly dressed: namely, that whilst the rich and powerful might have money and lead superficially fabulous lives, they are all unhappy and corrupt and heading towards eternal damnation. This resentment-ridden philosophy of secret envy and hatred is what underlies slave moralities everywhere and it ends not merely with contempt for material well-being and good fortune, but with an apocalyptic desire for worldly destruction. For as Lawrence writes:

"It is very nice, if you are poor and not humble - and the poor may be obsequious, but they are almost never truly humble, in the Christian sense - to bring your enemies down to utter destruction ... while you yourself rise up to grandeur." 

- Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, (CUP, 1980), p. 63.

American Psycho is meant to scare us back onto the straight and narrow path that leads to heaven. We are asked to accept that salvation belongs exclusively to those who are honest and hard-working; i.e. those who think their meekness and self-restraint is a voluntary achievement or accomplishment, rather than simply a sign that they lack the power to act.

Sadly, not only do lies turn impotence into virtue, but they make us suspect and despise those things which the heart needs even more than love: splendour, pride, good shoes, and expensive-looking business cards.