Solving a Foundational Problem on This Sub: Enabling Closet Bloops

I have failed this community. I have lost sight of one of the most important and fundamental aspects of biblical red pill praxtheology. Let's take a moment to get back on track.

Tag

I remember playing tag once. I was chasing another kid around the field. No matter how fast I ran, he was faster. I kept chasing and chasing, but he kept evading and evading, always a few steps ahead. Eventually I said, "I give up. Let's go back." He nodded and came over to walk with me.

You'd think my next words would be, "Tag, you're it!" Right? It was all a ruse just to win the game, wasn't it?

No. I actually stopped playing the game. If there was any hint that it was just a ruse, he would have been more on guard. You'd better believe he wouldn't have trusted me next time I wanted to quit, even if I was genuine. This could have destroyed my ability to get him to walk by my side in that context ever again.

The only way to achieve consistent results - getting him to stay within arm's reach of me - was to stop chasing him. I had to stop playing the game. As long as my goal was to tag him - especially if he knew that was my goal - I would have to work really, really hard to stand a chance, and still would rarely ever get him.

The Problem

I haven't been paying as much attention lately to differentiating when a man is blue or red. I have simply been identifying the man's goals and responding with thoughts and questions that may help him achieve those goals. The implicit and mistaken theory behind this conduct is that if a man is setting appropriate goals and achieving them, then he will become red pilled, or will somehow become a more godly man. This is false.

The problem is: most of the time those goals are counter-productive to his ability to achieve them - and they're often misguided goals in the first place.

I know, it's a catch-22. You want to have a "happily ever after" marriage - but this very desire is what precludes you from ever having a "happily ever after" marriage. A goal only has value if progress toward it can be measured in some capacity. That measurement, then, becomes a judge over us. By making a goal of it, we let our sense of identity, validation, and self-worth become tied to the degree of progress we make. When we help others focus on progress in these goals, we enable them to continue allowing the metric established by the goal act as a judge over them.

I have been guilty of this enabling behavior. This forum has, in some respects, departed ways from biblical red pill praxtheology and turned into a "try this trick" advice-help forum. It's still better advice than you're going to get in any other Christian forum, but it is tainted advice. We are ignoring the fact that men here have maintained their blue pill ideologies and merely want to use the red pill as a series of strategies to accomplish their goals. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but this is what I'm seeing all the same.

Manifestation of the Problem

What, exactly, am I talking about here? What is this community doing that's so wrong?

We are divorcing the underlying truth from the byproduct behaviors.

Consider:

1. A man wants to fix all the fighting in his marriage. We tell him he must Agree & Amplify and practice amused mastery, fog, etc.

2. A man wants to go out with a new girl. We give him conversational strategies, tell him to be confident, and send him on his way.

3. A man is trying to get his wife to respect him. We teach him about frame and how to maintain it, then have him adopt a mission and send him on his way.

What we're not recognizing here is:

1. A man wants to fix all the fighting in his marriage.

2. A man wants to go out with a new girl.

3. A man is trying to get his wife to respect him.

See it now? These are blue pill ideological goals. These people have a notion of what "happily ever after" will look like for them - even if it's a mildly realistic notion - and that's what they're really seeking. This is how the problem manifests here.

Before going much further, stop and think for a minute: What does it really mean to be red pilled? Am I really red pilled if these are the things I'm seeking?

Uprooting the Foundation

Are any of these bad things? No. Of course not. Should we keep making an intentional effort to solve these problems? Hmm. That's the question that gets more dicey. Let's start asking the more foundational questions:

1. Why do you want to fix the fighting in your marriage? Because you can't emotionally handle it? Because she might leave you if you keep fighting? Because your idea of "happily ever after" doesn't involve fighting? Because it's hindering you from your mission, the advancement of which is your real ultimate aim in all of this?

2. Why do you want to go out with a new girl? Because you just really want to get married someday so, so bad? Because you can't stop thinking about sex and you're hoping a hot wife - particularly this girl - might curb your craving? Because you've been conditioned by society to just assume you should get married and don't know what else to do with your life? Because someone in your life would be displeased if you don't get married someday? Because God gave you a seemingly impossible task to do alone and you need help and the girls helping you are so hot that you're going to end up sinning if you don't ask out and marry one of them?

3. Why do you want your wife to respect you? Because you can't feel validated in life if she doesn't? Because it embarrasses you to all your friends when she acts disrespectful in front of them? Because it keeps reminding you that you don't have the "happily ever after" you always wanted? Because your wife's respect is like the oil in an engine that keeps your ship running smooth in the direction God pointed you?

With any of these, will getting your short-term goal met actually result in any progress toward your long-term goal of making disciples of all nations? If not, why is it your goal? If so, is your mission part of the reason this is your goal or do you segregate them as separate issues in your mind? Or are you using your mission as a cop-out to "legitimize" these lesser goals as being your present highest priority to get solved?

"I really want to fix my dead bedroom marriage ... you know, but it's not just about the sex ... it's because it'll make more disciples ... and if you give me 5 minutes I'm sure I could find some way to rationalize why that makes sense." Don't be that guy.

If you are using "red pill strategies" (a somewhat oxymoronic phrase) to accomplish blue pill goals, you are blue. Purple, at best. In 5 days it will have been 6 months since I'd written this post, about the Christian purple. Six months from now I hope not to have to write it a third time.

What Does the Bible Say

Paul talks about "unity" a lot. It's a big theme for him. Most of Ephesians is about this concept. 1 Cor. 12, among other places, talks about being a united body made up of many parts. Philippians 2 clarifies that our unity means we are to have "the same love, being one in spirit and in purpose."

• There is only one love: God.

• There is only one spirit: the Holy Spirit.

• There is only one purpose: Jesus' model of making disciples.

Nothing else matters. Let me provoke you: Even married men should not strive to have better marriages. "Let those with wives live as though they had none," Paul says. "Seek first God's Kingdom and all these things will be added to you as well," Jesus says. Let's live like these aren't just pieces of advice, but as if they are commands! Are these passages truly a part of your theological framework?

A Call to a Solution

What's going on here is that we're enabling men to use red pill strategies to gratify blue pill goals. On MRP I occasionally see the phrase in a derogatory context: "Sprinkle some alpha on it." We don't want to sprinkle alpha on our lives and marriages. We want to be alpha. We don't want to add a dash of Jesus in our life. We want to be Jesus - both to ourselves and to the world.

So, I'm calling you all to do three things:

1. After reading this post, (re-)read this post.

2. Make a decision that you're going to adopt a one-track mind about your mission in life, that you're going to develop a VERY clear vision for how it will be accomplished, and then take 1 step toward that goal in the next 3 days.

3. Call out blue pill ideologies when you see them, addressing the ultimate core of each other's problems, rather than giving them a few more alpha techniques to sweep the issue under the rug with.

Let's stop making "better marriages" or "finding a great helper" our goal, stop enabling people who do make these things their goal, and get back down to the foundation of our praxtheology. This cannot happen merely by offering what the red pill has to say. We must identify the blue, call it out when we see it, and eradicate it to make room for the red. While not the same context, Matthew 12:43-45 somehow feels on-point here. Let's not invite Christ into a house inhabited by evil, nor the red into a house inhabited by the blue.