From the White-PillBox: Part 60
The stark contrast between being White Pilled versus Black Pilled
This installment of the White Pill series provides some context regarding the purpose of these essays.
We will start with a review of the various “pill colors”: their origins, and how they are used in the liberty sphere.
The Red and Blue Pills
This concept was introduced in the movie “The Matrix”. The hero discovers that the day-to-day reality experienced by people is a fiction. Instead, people exist in liquid vats, with electronic signals fed into their brains. These signals give people the perfect sensory illusion of a “real world” and their day-to-day “reality”. They are unaware of their true condition as warehoused bodies; unaware the collective heat and electrical energy of their bodies are used to power the computers that maintain the entire system.
The “Red Pill”
In the illusory world, a person may be offered a red pill. This will reveal the true underlying reality. They can still experience the fake world, but their mind now understands that world is a facade.
Being “Red Pilled” essentially means waking up to a reality that was previously hidden by false distractions.
A person who is Red Pilled can have a hard time psychologically. The knowledge of true reality is unpleasant. And trying to explain what’s really going on to the non-Red Pilled is almost impossible.
The “Blue Pill”
Once Red Pilled, a person can eliminate the harsh truth by taking the Blue Pill. This erases the knowledge of reality from their mind. It returns them to the comfort and ignorant bliss of the fake world. It eliminates the discomfort of deeper knowledge.
The concepts as used in the anarchist/voluntaryist sphere
Red Pill
The Red Pill is the insight that political reality is not what we are taught.
It is to understand that the State, in any form whatsoever, is illegitimate because it uses force - it violates consent - to accomplish its goals. To be Red Pilled is to have one’s eyes opened; to focus on the fact that it is wrong to violate consent, full stop. It does not matter:
Who is doing the violating (yes, even a politician)
How many are doing the violating (yes, even the majority)
What label the violator uses (yes, even the label “government”)
If the violation helps others (yes, even tax funded projects you like)
If the violation was approved by a vote (yes, even if you participated in the vote)
The Red Pill elegantly puts two simple ideas together: 1) consent violation is always wrong, and 2) government necessarily operates by consent violation. Being Red Pilled clarifies that government is illegitimate, full stop.
All of us in this movement have had our own “Red Pill” moment. That’s the point at which our exposure to these ideas finally “clicks” in our mind. It’s a no-going-back moment. Once we see it, we cannot unsee it.
The parallel to The Matrix is quite close. First, we internalize something: in the movie, a red pill; in our context, information about the nature of the State. The effect: a more accurate perception of what is going on.
Blue Pill
In the liberty sphere, this describes the majority of people. This differs from the movie, which did not use that term to describe all the people dreamily floating in a nutrient bath. There, the blue pill was only offered to the rare few who were already Red-Pilled, so that they may return to ignorance.
But in the freedom movement, “Blue Pilled” does describe the majority, who still see the State as legitimate. They have never been exposed to ideas that question the legitimacy of the State. By default they absorbed and accepted the indoctrination which, almost from birth, instilled in them the belief that a ruling class has moral authority over them 1.
And “Blue Pilled” also includes many who have been exposed to these ideas, but cannot yet internalize it. Their indoctrination is so powerful that it cannot permit the obvious moral conclusion: that the State - in any form - is a bad institution. Their mind insists on defending the status quo; it cannot permit itself to fully see reality.
They are aware enough to complain about the State: they may agree it is highly inefficient; they may stipulate it can be corrupt. But they cannot give up the illusion itself. They somehow feel that a corrupt idea can be made to work in reality. So they advocate:
Changing the system “from within”
Enacting the right laws
Electing the right people
These are attempts by their mind to avoid the reality that the State is simply a bad idea. They are uncomfortable admitting the State is just as impermissible as murder, rape, slavery, and theft. Instead they believe the State can be altered into becoming moral. This is more palatable than admitting it should not exist at all.
The discomfort does not stop there. They sense that the whole edifice of the State’s legitimacy is powered by one simple thing: their belief. And if they end the belief, the State vanishes from their mind. They are the child whose eyes are starting to open, but experiencing the last desperate hope that Santa is real.
The White and Black Pills
These apply only to the Red Pilled.
Once we see reality for what it is, we start to think about our new perspective. In the movie, the reality itself (humans kept in vats) is upsetting. In our world, the reality of the State is upsetting. And in both cases, the ignorance of the masses is upsetting.
We think about the prospects for “waking people up” to the reality of the world, and we see all the challenges ahead.
When we contemplate all this, we feel discouraged; we lose hope. We call this “being Black Pilled”.
When we see reasons for hope, we feel encouraged. We call this “being White Pilled”.
The psychology of being Black versus White Pilled
Being Black Pilled predominates
There is little doubt that freedom advocates spend most of their time being Black Pilled. They see the negative trends; they see the damage the State does, and its effects on real people and real cultures, and they conclude the situation is virtually hopeless. Even when positive signs appear, they tend to dismiss them or belittle them.
Being White Pilled is rarer - and harder
To see the positive trends - to see reasons for hope - generally takes effort. There are cracks in the foundation of the State, but they are easily overshadowed by the relentless parade of negativity associated with statism.
Summary of the pills
Being Blue Pilled is the default: accepting what is presented to us as true and legitimate.
Being Red Pilled starts with a psychological “ah-ha” moment, when we realize what is presented to us is false. It is similar to realizing one has been in a cult. From then on, one remains Red Pilled 2.
But being White or Black Pilled is different. These represent the attitudes we choose to take about political reality.
Although the Black Pilled can seem depressingly negative, they are after all acknowledging the reality of how bad things are. But sadly, this perspective can dominate one’s thinking, seeing only the negative trends, and missing (or willingly disregarding) reasons for hope.
The White Pilled see reason for hope. True, they are easily perceived as starry-eyed (and some may be so). But a healthy White Pill perspective fully understands the reality of how bad things are, while trying to identify the real-world reasons - the non-pie-in-the-sky trends - that offer hope.
Conclusion
Being White versus Black Pilled is a choice to adopt a particular attitude. This choice is one of the many factors that contribute to our psychological ability to navigate the world.
Our attitude can help or hinder us internally. This inevitably has an impact on our interactions with others out in the world.
This is how our choice to see the White Pills can enhance our effectiveness at spreading the ideas of liberty. This in itself becomes its own White Pill.
However, there is somewhat of a Blue Pill parallel.
In both cases (movie, and our world), people are born into a blue-pilled state…conditions that manipulate their perception. It’s just that in the movie, the deception is so utterly flawless that it is impossible to overcome the false perception. Without any way to wake up, there is no need to refer to people as blue pilled.
In our world, the deception relies on lifelong indoctrination. In this way, the blue pill corresponds to the State’s relentless propaganda. It puts up mental walls against man’s reason and rationality, which if set free, can undermine the legitimacy of the State. Thus we call people blue pilled because the State must put work into making and keeping them blind.
It does happen that some of the Red Pilled revert back. For whatever psychological reason, they cannot handle being fully aware of the truth of the State. Their minds protect them from reality by returning to seemingly safer, traditional political opinions.