I wanted to compile some ideas that have helped make most RedPill/BluePill discussions seem irrelevant to me. Shamelessly lifted from Lacan, Irigaray, Deleuze, Guntrip and others. Can recommend further reading.

Scroll to the bottom for the less theoretical stuff

To start: Our experience as a Subject is precisely a split. A split between a false sense of self, and the automatic functioning of language (The monolithic pre-existing signifying chain that we awaken to in childhood, which constitutes the discourse of the Other).

We are fundamentally alienated within language. The subconscious works without our awareness, within language, without a care for our sense of self.

As we realize that the mOther is also a desiring (and therefore lacking and alienated) subject to language, we explore the boundaries of her lack, and seek to fill it with our self. The child latches onto the "why" of what is said, not out of curiosity, but out of concern to secure a place as an object of desire. In this way our being is built on coming to grips with the desire of the Other.

Nietzsche said we would continue to believe in God as long as we believed in grammar. As men analyze the world, we resist upsetting the immutable foundations of discourse. It's intended as a tool for breaking ground and cultivating the world, but becomes an intangible and sacred horizon. The technical machine of discourse (everyday and scientific) threatens man in reality, in his fantasies, and in the nightmare of the devouring mother. (The child is most anxious when there is no possibility of lack)

Men build a linguistic home which substitutes for dwelling in their own body. In this way we are "castrated": Our advent as speaking beings creates a loss. We must give up some of the Other's desire, since the Other demands that we speak. Only the Autist foils this. We're left with a pittance of pleasure.

Men's pleasure is fully determined by the symbolic function. The world of symbols is an endpoint for men but an open door for women.

The man interprets his sexual life in terms of erection, ecstasy (going out of himself), and ejaculation (into the other). Self-love for men takes the form of nostalgia for mother-womb entity, quest for God through the father, or love of one part of the self. To gain autonomy from this all-powerful other is to find something inherent in the female that is NOT maternal. He can no longer relegate the female to reproduction, to being a doll for lovemaking, an incarnation of his fantasies, or guardian of the dead / keeper of the hearth.

Woman is the living symbol of sexual difference, but unable to achieve or use symbolism herself. She serves as a currency of exchange among men, as a construction material, living her life as a threshold ensuring passage between the inward and outward. The fundamental loss created by the incest taboo ensures the ongoing circulation of women.

Self-love for the woman can only be established through the mother-daughter relationship which she re-plays for herself. In advance of any procreation she learns to respect her maternal creative function and her own childhood self.

The tradition of the God-father tells us that the maternal function mediates the generation of the son, setting up no divine genealogy among women.

The oneness of love creates an enslaving complementarity: built on a division of labor, of goods, of discourse. incarnated only in the child. Dissociation of love and eroticism reduces love to technocratic sexuality; always hunting for techniques and targets, bored and with no hope for happiness in this world.

Finally here's a small typology of male viewpoints I see on Reddit.

  • Normies/Niceguys/Redpills. More analysis than action. Low confidence, shyness. Excessive self-scrutiny, poring over messages. Here lies stable monogamy as well as the most ingrained patriarchal patterns.
  • Incels: Absorbed in bitterness at their genetic fate, and the incomprehensible social drama that must be enacted to get sex. Resent the agency women have to create/destroy life-meaning.
  • Chads: Do not bother to theorize over gender dynamics and sexual economy. They see something they like, and try to get it. The positive feedback loop leads to increasing confidence and success, which in turn brings a selective attitude that women find irresistible.
  • Nofaps/MGTOW: Seek a magic bullet. Obsessional self-mastery compensates for a fundamentally weak ego.

Almost all of these discussions are surface indicators of more alarming fears, a flight from life at deep mental levels induced by failure of ego formation, and an inadequacy (felt or factual) in coping with life. Libidinal and anti-libidinal drives react differently in the face of an uncaring and scary outside world, and the central ego forms as an adversarial reaction between opposing drives.

No-one can avoid it, so personalities are rife with rationalized self-assertiveness, subtle exhibitionism, disguised boasting, competitiveness/avoidance of competition, need of praise/reassurance/approval, and safety-first security seeking. The true goal is to make room for a real person among the "collection of reactions to impingements".