INTRO:

Hey all. I'm a long-time lurker of TRP but I wanted to finally contribute here and share what I always found so fascinating about the Red Pill: The transformational and philosophical elements of it. This post is an exploration on what exactly I think these elements are. I realize this is a lot but please read through the tl;dr at the end to see if the rest of the content is worth slogging through to you.

CONTENT:

To me, the Red Pill is essentially a "Boot-Camp" for "NiceGuys." People come into the Red Pill with this bitter, entitled attitude, upset that women won't have sex with them and disenchanted with the Blue Pill lies that society tells to them. The "anger-phase" of TRP is the beginning point of the journey of the Red Pill. My thesis is that TRP is ultimately a rejection of this mentality, but the most amazing thing about TRP to me is that that incel mentality, while immature and misguided, is accepted by the community. This acceptance allows for instruction about the self-improvement and self-actualizing philosophy which allows people to learn how to stop blaming other people for their problems, end their obsession, and gradually gives them the tools and instruction they need to take charge of their lives and mature.

This is an amazing revolutionary process that is so desperately needed in our culture today. And it's why I am so fascinated by TRP. TRP to me is an attempt to rediscover the philosophical traditions of manhood and self-actualization that we've lost. One of these traditions is Zen Buddhism. (1) The zen acolyte approaches the zen master thinking the conventional worldview he's been taught is true and is frustrated by the master questioning the very framework of his reality (this is the Blue Pill), (2) in the middle of his training he becomes angry because he believes the teachings of his master and he thinks that everything he's every known and has been taught by society is a lie (this is the anger phase). (3) But then, over the course of his training, his master throws him back into reality and forces him to accept it again. I see many Red Pill "masters" here frustrated when their pupils don't take their teachings into practice and stay in the "temple" longer than they ought to when they should be taking the teachings back into the real world and practicing them. This process is drawn from Hermann Hesse's Siddharta and Joseph Campell's Hero's Journey. So what I'm saying is that the Red Pill is another incarnation of these ancient stories and wisdom traditions of how men undergo the "passage" into adulthood.

If I had to again summarize the "Red Pill Path" I would say that it begins with (1) a boy coming into TRP thinking that they're going to learn how to pick up chicks (like a PUA website), (2) in the middle of it they go through a disenchantment because they learn that their goal is a lie and won't provide them any happiness (monk mode initiated), (3) in the end they realize that their monk mode pursuits provide them true happiness and they return to their starting point of picking up chicks but with the knowledge that they're not enslaved to it anymore. They become a man with a "mission." This is the zen principle of Wu-Wei (action through inaction; a return to the beginning) coming to bear. Meaning that not obsessing on the results you want causes those results to come about. So the Incel man learns ultimately that the attention and attraction of women is not and cannot be the end-goal but rather it is a byproduct of living a virtuous life.

A "virtuous" life is virtually foreign in our modern world, where the duties that men traditionally assumed to become men: state citizenship & service, religious identity, and company loyalty have ceased to have any meaning due to the deconstructive work of the postmodernists. The men of today are lost without a governing mission. We are returned to a state of radical freedom where we are faced with the absurdity of not having any purpose at all. Nietzsche predicted what would happen in this directionless, nihilistic society and I believe offered a philosophy for escaping it that (again) I believe parallels TRP. Nietzsche was a philologist who was informed by the Homeric pre-christian virtues of the past and I believe his philosophy is deeply inspired by those virtues. Nietzsche's Ubermensch is a man that has recognized the "death of God," (the death of the narrative), divided himself from the herd mentality, seen the absurdity of existence, and chosen to embrace it. (1) Similarly, RP's "Alpha Males" divide themselves from the paradigm of the herd (Blue Pill narrative), (2) recognize the absurdity of romantic BP love as an end-goal (the anger phase), (3) and choose to substitute their own "mission" in place of that one (becoming a man).

Tl;dr: The RedPill is a "bootcamp" for "NiceGuys." NiceGuys are men that have not truly accepted the call of manhood because they view the world through the lens of entitlement. The RedPill begins the radical transformation process of transforming NiceGuy "boys" into RedPill "men" by accepting their point of view while also offering them the tools and knowledge they need to take control of their lives and end their obsession. It does so in a way that parallels ancient philosophical traditions including Zen Buddhism, Virtue Ethics, and the Hero's Journey which, at their core, are all "coming of age" stories and narratives which have been destroyed by the deconstructive and nihilistic philosophies of postmodernism. TRP represents an essential rediscovery of purpose, especially for men, in a culture that despises it.

I hope that you all found this post worthwhile and interesting. I'm open to any feedback on how to improve this material.