The Red-Blue Cocktail

The implicit belief among many Red Pill Eaters is that the Red Pill represents the acceptance reality and the Blue Pill is adherence to what Roissy terms the “pretty lies” of fairy tales and Disney Movies.  This assessment is one that correctly pulls us away from living in a world of delusion and towards actually leading effective lives here on planet Earth.  I think it’s a fundamental and essential stepping-stone, but it’s not entirely correct.

Athol Kay somewhat shares my disagreement with this assessment but takes it in a direction I find somewhat erroneous:

The standard line is that the Red Pill is the truth and the Blue Pill is the illusion. But it’s more like the Red Pill is muscle and the Blue Pill is fat.

To be sure, you want more muscle than fat on your body, but if you cut the body fat down low enough… eventually you keel over and die. You simply can’t be 0% body fat. Nor can you be 0% Blue Pill without being a rather paranoid and dysfunctional person. It’s simply not possible to sustain an endless state of assumed telepathy assuming your partner or opposite sex is out to get you.

If you see all women as gold-digging-cuckolding-false-rape-raptors, you can’t have a successful relationship with one. It’s no different than a dyed in the wool all-men-are-rapists-and-beat-women-as-a-default-setting feminist can’t have a relationship with a man. You eventually assume the worst and tear the relationship apart from the inside.

The last of these paragraphs is entirely correct, but he reaches the correct conclusion through faulty reasoning.  Elsewhere in his post, he equates the Red Pill with “fixating on the minor points of bad mood or inattention and assuming evil intent”.  To swallow the Red Pill wholeheartedly is to “assume the worst”.

Although Kay explicitly rejects the notion that Red Pill=truth, through his muscle-fat analogy he nevertheless expresses some ambivalence on the point and says in the comments:

You’re equating Red = Alpha, Blue = Beta to me. I’m more saying Red = Truth, Blue = Illusion.

There’s a small degree of comforting illusion we need to make our relationships run smoothly.

In no way do I wish to rip on Kay, for I suspect he actually agrees with me more than he might suspect, but Kay explicitly rejects the Red Pill=truth formulation to create a thesis only to adopt that very formulation in its defense.

At the same time, even the most cursory reading of Kay’s blog would lead anyone to recognize that Kay has an exceptional grasp of reality regarding the nature of inter-sexual relationships.  Yet he seems to advocate accepting illusions.  How can one be as right as Kay yet simultaneously believe that one must also accept the inherent wrongness of delusion?

At risk of infuriating the entire Manosphere for my presumptuousness, let me redefine our beloved terminology by fitting it into my favorite formulation:

The Red Pill=reality, “The Earth” human nature, how things actually work, our instinctual nature, A is A

A

The Blue Pill=the Ideal, “The Heavens”, how things should work, abstract ideals (e.g. liberty, marriage, love), our better selves

G

Nothing is wrong with understanding A, and nothing is wrong with believing in G, but everything is wrong with getting them mixed up.  Whether we’re talking politics, economics, or relationships, when we substitute rational analysis of what we think should be with what our brains and senses tell us actually is, we’re setting ourselves up for disaster.  The Heavens and the Earth may both exist, but they’re not the same place.

So when we speak of men who’ve swallowed the Blue Pill, we talk of those who assume that their idealizations of what woman should be somehow applies to the realities on the ground.  Every time we mix up what we think should work when appealing to women with what actually works, we conflate G and A.  When we attempt to seduce a woman with gifts of stuffed puppies, we “tempt the lord thy God” by flinging ourselves off of a building, assuming that we can defy the laws of physics (or in this case sexual attraction) and somehow not get our knees bruised.

Likewise, we can do irreparable damage when we view the world of G through the cold hard lenses of A.  Like I described here, even if not a single marriage since the dawn of man has been perfect, Marriage still is.  When we viewed Marriage as an ideal, as an aspect of G, families were more likely to stay together, our instincts were held in check to a greater degree, and the vast majority of us were far better off.  When we started seeing it as just another patriarchal power construct or equally valid social arrangement, we started falling apart at the seams.

To many of us, the adorable elderly couple that’s been together for seventy-five years represents an ideal.  We don’t know if during the early years of their marriage the husband seduced frauleins during the occupation with his chocolate rations, nor do we know if that cute old little wife once banged the milkman when her husband was off getting shot at.  You can’t escape A.

But when we had a healthier grasp of G as well, couples with the same instincts we’ve got today were far more likely to keep it together through the rough times.  That “socially constructed” marriage came closer to Marriage than what we’re likely to see today.  They still screwed up, but their own adherence to G, as well as that of society, made them more likely to work things through.

And even the man who understands A as clearly as any man alive, who has mastered Game and has as much hand over his wife anyone, even he claims to have never cheated on his wife.

To believe him (as I do) is to believe that G exists as well.  If you recognize that it’s not A, belief in G can help you navigate through the darkness of human instinct.  It’s not delusion, nor is it “fat”, sometimes it’s actually how things are.  “Render unto Caesar” is only half the sentence.

One final illustration:  Recently Sunshine Mary asked “How much game should the Christian wife require?” and she correctly answered “None.”  G is eternal, the marriage vows do not change.  However, if she asked “How much game does the Christian wife require?”, the correct answer would have had to be “At least a little.”  Part of A is that incentives matter, she might gain a whole lot of fun and freedom if she leaves her husband, she’s likely to have plenty of opportunity to cheat if she wants it, and there’s no chance whatsoever she’ll be sent so some island with a scarlet “A” permanently affixed to her blouse.  We’re all potentially part of the sexual market until we’re physically unable to have sex anymore.

Which brings me back to Athol and the last of my essential Truths:  I am what I am.  I usually shorten this as I when applied to the abstract Individual or as U when I’m dealing in the second person, but here I’ll use S for “she”.  Your wife or girlfriend is a woman.  She’s hypergamous, responds to dread, and will drop you if you don’t satisfy her instinctual drives.  The hotter she stays for you, the hotter she’ll be to other guys and the more she’ll be tempted to stray.  A is A.

But she’s also an individual.  What piques the hypergamic instincts of her feminine sisters may not have quite the same effect on her.  Likewise, what satiates her in your relationship, what she notices about you, may be something that other women don’t notice quite as much.  This might be because of something her father did, or it may be because she’s somewhat more self-aware.  Perhaps she’s one of those weirdos who actually believes in something.

She’ll invariably find herself drawn away from you from time to time, but there might just be something to her that doesn’t play itself out quite like it would in a chimpanzee.  Know that good girls have their own form of Game.  Be aware that you’re a man who’s susceptible to idealizing a woman, but that the best way to ensure that A destroys your relationship is to make her into your G.

Even though Laura or Tracy or Becky is a woman just like every other, they’re just as distinct from each other as you are from your best friends Mitch and Brad.  Kay:

If you see all women as gold-digging-cuckolding-false-rape-raptors, you can’t have a successful relationship with one. It’s no different than a dyed in the wool all-men-are-rapists-and-beat-women-as-a-default-setting feminist can’t have a relationship with a man.

So I advocate some properly-placed belief.  A isn’t always ugly.  Perhaps if we destroy the “pretty lies” we might find some beautiful Truths on the other side.

Or to put it another way:

Look beyond the Kung Fu fighting

God is love

But get it in writing

                                                                 –Van Halen, “Stay Frosty”