Remember the popular 1999 science fiction film ‘The Matrix’? (Of course you do!)
If you’re over the age of ten, you’re probably quite familiar with it — and may have even seen it several times. ‘The Matrix’ became an influential, far-reaching cultural phenomenon, in part because of its oft-quoted sequences involving ‘taking the blue pill’ vs. ‘taking the red pill.’
Famously, ‘The Matrix’ posited that we are all enmeshed or trapped in an illusory, manufactured reality, which is so perfectly convincing that we usually never question its reality.
People who totally believe in and support the reality they see around them are said to have ‘taken the blue pill,’ while others who choose to ‘wake up’ and see through all the illusions — and fight against them if necessary — have ‘taken the red pill.’
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So far, so good. This is pretty basic metaphysical imagery, and can even be viewed as a potent impetus for seeking knowledge or enlightenment. After all, what could be wrong with seeking the truth and ‘waking up’?
Sure, sometimes the truth is painful, and possibly even hard to endure (a famous 70s poster put it this way: “The truth will set you free… but first it will make you miserable!”). But despite this, somewhere deep inside we all want and seek the truth.
Or at least, that’s the intended, actual message of the film. Or rather — that WAS one of the primary messages of the film… until it got totally twisted and turned upside-down by various factions of the far right.
A potent doorway to hate and paranoia
Scarily, over the past 15 years or so far-right hate groups, misogynists, and ‘men’s rights’ groups have appropriated the idea of the ‘red pill’ — and perverted it beyond all recognition.
For them, ‘taking the red pill’ now means waking up to the (supposed) awful ways White men are oppressed, held back, and restricted — while women, gays, Blacks, and illegal immigrants ‘steal’ their power and their way of life.
According to these ultra-paranoid far-right groups, our liberal democracy is just a dangerous illusion, constructed to take White men’s free will away, and instead give more freedom to women, gays, Blacks, and immigrants.
For the far right, it’s very much a zero-sum game: if all these (inferior) ‘others’ gain freedom and power — then (superior) White men automatically lose these precious items.
A highly destructive ‘philosophy’
With a paranoid ‘philosophy’ like this — well, no wonder these far-right, deluded White dudes are all so friggin’ angry!
It’s a very nasty, non-inclusive, violence-prone, and heavily blaming viewpoint — yet it has great appeal for certain types of young men, especially.
Incels, for example, are drawn to this ‘philosophy’ like moths to a flame — for it justifies and even amplifies their rageful, bitter complaints about women and relationships.
As the Encyclopedia Britannica explains about the right-wing ‘red pill’ phenomenon:
“Ironically, the red pill has been seized by alt-right groups as a metaphor for freeing oneself from so-called liberal viewpoints. Curtis Yarvin, an anti-democracy blogger, was the first to popularize the term red pill in this way, during the late 2000s. Writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, Yarvin argued in 2007 that democracy is, like the Matrix, a simulation that Americans blindly believe. He gives examples of “blue pills” (what he calls the orthodox democratic narrative) and “red pills” (his radical, anti-democracy takes).
Use of the term red pill continued to evolve after Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump loyalists, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and others recast red pill as a verb. To redpill, in this parlance, is to initiate others into a shared set of beliefs that contradict the fact-based reality accepted by society at large.”
Get that? ‘Red-pilling,’ for the far right, means indoctrinating unsuspecting truth-seekers into “a shared set of beliefs that contradict the fact-based reality accepted by society at large” — facts, truth, and reality be damned!
‘Love thy neighbor’ vs. the far right’s toxic ‘red pill’
Exactly how does this new version of ‘taking the red pill’ affect those who swallow this… toxic swill?
Perhaps the best way to grasp its effects is to contrast them with the ideals of the ‘liberal democracy’ it condemns and hates, as well as some of our most beloved religious scriptures.
According to both ‘liberal democracy’ and these powerful scriptures, inclusiveness and acceptance are key to living a good life — or forming a decent, civilized society.
To ‘love thy neighbor’ and also ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ are basic precepts not only of religion, but also of any advanced society or civilization.
To that end, most of our laws and social mores have to do with (hopefully) creating a level playing field and equalizing peoples’ rights and power as much as possible. (And yes, I know that the U.S. has often failed miserably at this basic task — but at least we’ve been trying to some degree, unlike more dictatorial or repressive regimes.)
A cadre of seditious social terrorists
But here’s the thing — the truly disgusting, horrifying thing: these folks on the far right don’t want a fair, equitable society that works for everyone. They just aren’t interested, at all, in a level playing field that includes women, minorities, Muslims, Jews, and LGBTQ+ folks.
And this fact, in turn, means that the far right does NOT support the basic, underlying ideas and ideals behind ‘liberal democracy,’ does not want an inclusive, equitable society… and is working hard to undermine and destroy everything that derives in any way from ‘liberal democracy.’
Thus, the far-right elements of our society are in effect seditious social terrorists. They have no compunctions at all about limiting, oppressing, hurting, or possibly killing anyone they deem ‘inferior’ to them — namely, anyone not White and male — which of course includes huge masses of human beings and a vast number of their ‘fellow Americans.’
It’s not a stretch to say that the far right has been intensively grooming Americans to become social and political terrorists. And their nefarious plan has been working, all too well.
Overall, their way of thinking and relating to our society is SO backward, hateful, and poisonous that it truly is ‘deplorable.’
Deplorable and terrifying— but also very popular
However, its ‘deplorableness’ hasn’t stopped it from becoming very popular and influential. Hell, there’s even a so-called ‘Red Pill University’ and its offspring, the ‘Red Pill Expo’ — I kid you not — aiming, I guess, to make all this hateful craziness and misogyny ‘respectable.’
By now, the far right has been disseminating its own warped version of ‘taking the red pill’ for many years. And its growing influence and widespread popularity is no laughing matter — indeed, it’s deeply disturbing, even terrifying.
Why? As noted earlier in this article, this insidious, spreading ‘philosophy’ is totally twisting the idea of ‘truth’ and turning our understanding of our society and our nation upside-down (and I’ve written about this exact theme several times already.)
The ‘upside-down’ of the far right is dedicated to the complete destruction of our modern, inclusive way of life, and favors the forceful imposition of oppressive White male rule — even oppressive theocratic White male rule, along the lines of the Taliban.
If that isn’t both horrifying and disgusting, I don’t know what is.
Opening ourselves to greater awareness, compassion, and love
In truth, the idea of the ‘red pill’ should be dedicated to enlightenment, awareness, and greater freedom for all — as the directors of ‘The Matrix’, the Wachowskis, intended.
But instead, these days, it’s been intentionally manipulated to extol and support the exact opposite: fear, judgment, paranoia, White supremacy, and hate.
And that’s both a damn shame, and a very dangerous turn of events. It way past time, already, to liberate the idea of the ‘red pill’ from its abusers and from far-right aggressors and haters — and return it to its original, rightful, and righteous meaning.
So whatever you do, gentle reader, please don’t fall for the current hateful BS that’s being presented as the ‘red pill’ that will reveal the REAL TRUTH about our society.
Instead, by all means ‘take the genuine red pill’ (metaphorically speaking) — and consciously open your mind and heart to greater awareness, insight, compassion, and love.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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