The title really says it all here. I don't consider this post to be a value judgement, just a factual one.

The recent pair of posts from /u/redpillschool and /u/spermjackalope accusing each other's respective positions of misrepresenting them and not knowing what they themselves are representing, respectively, got me thinking on this topic. in which the former accused the latter (and others) of not knowing/understand their ideas and the latter accused the former of the same.

It seems quite clear to me that 'define the position of the red pill' is an impossible question on several fronts. Firstly, there is a vast amount of written material which TRP considers 'canonical', and to sort through it all to define what TRP is would be a sisyphean task because (secondly) the red pill itself does not agree on the position it represents.

The range of positions amongst redpillers ranges from a mild belief in some of the basic tenets of their view on relationships - taking women off the pedestal, becoming more confident in yourself, acceptance that men and women are different in many ways, and other things - to full on submergence in TRP doctrine and an unshakable belief that the social forces the red pill identifies have shaped history as we know it. The same way Marxist historians look back and try to paint a class struggle on every historical event, so too do the red pill's team of amateur social historians, but their narrative is one of gender struggle instead. The subject of 'redpillerising' history could be a post in itself, but the point is that no two redpillers are defending the same pill.

Imagine an analogous example. If I say I'm a socialist, it does behoove those seeking to criticise me to find out what it is I actually believe first, but it would also be useful if I was actually able to explain it also. That being said, if I was asked to describe socialism in total, I would either have to be either vague or give so many caveats that it becomes pointless. Imagine trying to describe the beliefs of all the strains and strands of Christianity at once - you could say some pretty basic things about believing in the Holy Trinity, surely? Well, apart from Mormons, Jehova's Witnesses, Christian Science, Armstrongism and the other sects that don't, sure.

While the label 'socialist' or 'christian' or 'redpiller' might carry some useful information, it doesn't tell us all that much. Obviously there are core beliefs to which most members of the subreddit subscribe, but take any aspect of redpillosophy and there'll be a number of TRPrs who deviates from the orthodox. We can play 'no true redpiller' all day long but we're never going to achieve anything that way. The fact is that neither side, red or blue, can provide a complete definition which is acceptable to the other.