THE RED PILL IS FOR LOSERS

     The term 'Red Pill' as it is commonly understood refers to an online movement---which has taken on many aspects of a cult---which began earlier this century among self-styled 'Pick-up Artists' in the Manosphere and which spread quickly into sociopolitics. The term originated from a very overrated 1990s film, The Matrix, and is based heavily in Evolutionary Psychology and mass-marketing techniques. Much of it centers on a system called 'Game' which was based on the discredited theories of Transactional Analysis from early 1970s pop culture. 

    The Red Pill is unique as a cultish movement, because it is an ideology with no central leader; instead is a system with numerous promoters and followers who agree upon its central tenets. It is based primarily in a counterfeit masculinity which is more stereotypical than genuine. According to the theory, the best men, enlightened by the Red Pill, aspire to be 'Alpha' which sets them apart from the herd of 'Beta' males. The Alpha essentially is the Super-Male, who embodies material and sexual success, power in all its forms (physical, intellectual, and spiritual), hyper-egotism, and marked contempt for the feminine, and civilized behaviors in general which they consider weakness. 

    As the United States drifted into a system of Inverted Totalitarianism throughout the 21st Century, it is not difficult to see why the Red Pill gained such a following on the sociopolitical Right. The two concepts have striking similarities: the domination of an Elite who rules by force and fear; the application of mass-marketing techniques to control the 'narrative.' and contempt for the common man. We see this inversion manifested in several American churches, where the actual teachings of Christ on things like mercy, compassion, and the Brotherhood of Man are disparaged as weakness; with the image of God as a loving Father replaced by that of God as an Inquisitorial Judge. In the Conservative movement, traditional values of debate and diplomacy likewise are seen as weakness, replaced by militarism and the ruthless and amoral application of raw power.

    Ultimately, such an orientation is neither Christian nor Conservative. Despite the swaggering and bravado of its proponents, the Alpha is not a strong man. 

    I had occasion recently to read a commentary by a Dead White Male who served as Canon of Oxford University and grappled with a similar movement in his own day. In those days, one didn't take pills of a certain color but wore shirts of certain colors to show one's ideology. His remarks from 1927 have an applicability today which is so apt, we will quote it extensively:

    "To them, Christ is the supreme corrupter of mankind, the all-too-successful prophet of a 'slave morality.' But in fact, it is their morality which should be called the slave's. They have given the world the classical expression of the slave's ideal: the ideal, I mean, by which the crushed and cringing servitor would like to live if only he were strong and free. The power to get or do the things that he wants to do or get is every man's desire; but sheer Power---hard, empty, hectoring Power---is the daydream of the downtrodden. To such, the real meaning of Liberty is veiled; they neither understand nor want that equal fellowship of mutual consideration, courtesy, and self-respect which among themselves the free-born take for granted. What the slave longs for is to be, still more to feel himself to be, the kind of man that he thinks that his master is...

   "Modern psychology has shown that the Will to Power, where it appears in an exaggerated form, usually has a pathological explanation. It originates not from the strength but from the weakness of the patient. Some personal defect, some exaggerated delinquency in early years, an oppressive parent or teacher, a series of social snubs or reprimands by a superior often produce a permanent sense of inferiority; this is resented and therefore driven out of conscious memory but still exists in the subconscious self. In compensation for this dimly felt inferiority that self puts forward an exaggerated sense of pre-eminence and self-assertion which not infrequently may manifest in harsh ideal or in destructive action. That is why, even among some of free and noble birth, there are always individuals who accept that truly 'slave morality' which idealizes mere strength and violence...

   "The Will to Power is only one of many instincts and any individual in whom, by reason of an abnormal development, the assertive instinct, the love instinct, and the herd instinct have been atrophied is from a purely medical point of view suffering from a stunted development which has resulted in what may be termed a kind of psychological malformation. Their philosophers have given us the supreme expression of the slave's ideal---the neurotic slave dreaming himself a king."

    So it is; the Postmodern Right is not motivated by any desire to restore what our Founders envisioned---a voluntary union of free men in a culture of mutual trust and respect---but are simply driven by envy of what they think that the other side has. They speak with contempt of the White Knights and Social Justice Warriors while idolizing the Bully and the Thug. This sense of envy is strongly seen in the fact that the Postmodern Right continually projects envy and jealousy freely upon the motives of others. It may be so that many on the Left actually are motivated by envy but that doesn't justify it from our side. 

    This is why those of us on the Right---those who believe in the ideals of Liberty and Equality need to recognize the Red Pill for what it is. What we're seeing in those types---whether they call themselves Neoconservative or Alternative Right---are simply the Reactionary Left. They merely want the Power that the Left currently has with the same disregard for how it used as the Left employs it. Nothing fundamentally will change simply by changing Parties because both are working to the same ends.