Tired of this “Red pill, Blue pill” Analogy

in #deepshit6 years ago

It is a very nice metaphor, yes I will give it that and it may apply in many situations. But it’s just so easy to see yourself as awake and others as sleeping. It’s easy and it’s a trap. It’s a tool of the ego. It’s so easy to point out how you know better than others, to simplify it and say “If you knew what I knew...” “If you just did this...”. The fact is, the more awakened you think you are, the more likely it is that you are sound asleep. By insisting on your own “enlightenment”, whatever that may entail, you you are actively stagnating real progress.

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Firstly, you inhibit your own growth by thinking you know more than you actually do. You assume that your truth is true for everyone and this may not be the case. You may see something others don’t see merely because of where you are standing. They may see something you don’t see and think you have taken the red pill and them the blue one.

It’s the Illuminati. It’s the bankers. It’s the Russians. It’s the the Cabal. They’re trying to start a civil war between blacks and whites. They want to put chips under our skin. Fiat is evil. Bitcoin will save the world. Bitcoin is a psy-op. They're all lizards. Trump is going to end the world. Trump is going to save the world. False flags. Fake news. Alt-right. SJWs. Jesus is the answer. Ascension and a new earth. Blah blah blah.

I have my ideas and theories too. I’m not discrediting any of your theories, I am happy to hear them. I am discrediting your assurance that you know exactly what is going on behind the scenes. None of us have a full picture and we are all more easily swayed than we admit. Truth is complex, and perhaps there is no one objective truth. I need any case, we can do a much better job at piecing it all togetherness if we respect each other a little more, rather than seeing ourselves as so much.

Seeing yourself as more awake than others is an easy way to end up with a superiority complex. When you believe so adamantly that you have the answers and others don’t, you not only stunt your own growth, you start treating growth others without the integrity they deserve. You start deciding how things need to be from your own limited perspective. Guess who else has a superiority complex and think they know how it should be? Those so-called “evil doers” you are fighting against.

There is nothing wrong with having your beliefs and sharing them with others. You are free to believe that you are right and others are wrong. But how willing are you to let others believe what they believe? How can we ever seek to create a peaceful world when we expect others to believe the same things we believe and dismiss them as entirely ignorant when they don’t.

I tend to prefer some of the ideas that border on “conspiracy theories” and I love exploring the metaphysical. Still I like to hear input from my father who is semi-religious in a traditional sense and teeters back and forth between neo-liberal and traditional conservative. I may not believe in all the history that he has been taught but he has a great understanding of it and who am I to say that all of it is untrue because some youtubers have “evidence”. I like to hear what he thinks to consider the possibility that maybe it isn’t exactly how I imagine, to get another perspective. I can reject certain aspects of his perspective internally without arguing him. I don’t NEED him to see it my way, as long a story he can just consider my ideas the way I consider his.

Our world will improve when we learn to respect and trust each other, when we learn to discuss opposing views peacefully and learn to listen better, not when we convince everyone that our own philosophy is the correct one. If your ideas are as true as you think they are then have some faith that they will resonate with others. The idea that you’ve taken the red pill is simply your ego getting off on itself. It accomplishes nothing. It’s a nice metaphor and that’s all. Don’t get carried away with it. Don’t let it get to your head.

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I'm inclined to agree with you, having swallowed that 'Red Pill' this morning...till then, I was completely floundering within the abyss of an inconsequential existence.

Got a whole lot smarter too as evident by the extraordinary comment I managed to produce...What sayeth thee?

This actually is something I wanted to add, if we swallow the red pill it is only momentary as we need to constantly be open to new truths that reveal themselves to us and also the possibility that we are wrong about everything.

I was largely in agreement with you @whatamidoing . Just being a little sarcastic in a humorous way.

I know! I’m too serious!

Maybe you're not "too serious" Perhaps you are more 'focused' than average.
Have a happy day.

"When you believe so adamantly that you have the answers and others don’t, you not only stunt your own growth, you start treating growth others without the integrity they deserve." This. Nailed it. Really good post. :)

If a 'truth' repeatedly fails reality, i have issues with it, and may not be inclined to respect it.

If it fails reality and produces measures of harm, i may be outright opposed to it.

Marxism being the primary example.

YUSSSSSSS! I got here through Clay referencing your post, and I so agree. The term I like to use is "flexible thinking." In Freudian terms of the ego, the ego is there to defend us from threats to our identity. So when people get in a habit of needing their identity validated by "knowing lots of important facts" and they feel like a positive outcome from having that defense up, then it becomes like an ingrained way of relating to others, and they just become less flexible to new information, or new communication styles, or new possibilities for validation of their intelligence. When we challenge each others beliefs , if we are inflexible like that, and in that pattern, we feel a threat to the identity, and that sets off the pattern to defend. ... Once people realize that their identity is a separate thing from their ideas... it can get easier to be more flexible. Or at least thats my understanding from a psychological standpoint.

It’s like the knowledge in itself is positive but it latches on to the ego and can’t really seperate itself from the ego afterwards. You are totally right. At least from my standpoint! ;-)

Daaaaaaaang you killed it with this.

You sort of inspired it ;-)

An interesting article and a good place to start a discussion. The whole Red Pill – Blue Pill meme is simply a popular culture symbol. We like our symbols and our memes. Many hold onto them with a death like grip.

My issue with the “Woke” meme is that is a fairly recent fad for some people to claim they are aware of the sociopolitical world around them. The problem is, just saying “I’m Woke” doesn’t necessarily make it so. Where were these “Woke” people five – ten – twenty years ago? And, just what is it they are “Woke” to? Are they now “Woke” to the machinations of the current President? Are they “Woke” to the history of the last fifty, one hundred, or several thousand years? All of these things are tied together… our Nation just didn’t drive along sleepily, and now suddenly the problems of today arrived unannounced, because the “Woke” person is currently aware of the issues our Society faces.

This is an interesting discussion point that the author made,
“You are free to believe that you are right and others are wrong. But how willing are you to let others believe what they believe?”

People can get very angry if you upset their boat of believes. And, rightly so if the person doing the waking is too ardently insistent. Another danger is if the person shaking the sleeper, destroys a sleeper’s core belief, is the one doing the shaking ready to fill in all the other believes that sleeper had that were tied to that one core belief? It is a terrible responsibility to wake others, especially if the Teacher doesn’t have the time to guide the sleeper fully to awareness. Leaving someone without one of their core believes only leaves them angry and confused, surely not better than before.

While I have had some success helping others clear up some of the things they were seeking to understand, they were already seekers, not sleepers… or swallowers of the Kool aide. Most I found, or they found me on the Internet in blogs and discussion forums. But, in the “Real World” I’ve found almost no success trying to ‘wake’ people. I’ve recently decided to give up on that pursuit, unless someone asks me a very pointed question, and then I have to dial up my awareness and watch how that person accepts my answers. If there is any signs of rigor mortis of ideas I stop quickly, because most likely that person isn’t a seeker, but someone looking for validation of their believes. They are not looking to hear my words, they are looking to tell me their believes, or even worse how I should think.

Truth is, in the real world, there is rarely time to explain to others what my thoughts are about the sociopolitical aspects of the world we live in… Online I can point to sources for research, and if the person is a true seeker they will look at the source, and then generally let me know they are grateful for the answers to the questions they may have had. Basically in the real world, how do you give an elevator speech about an idea that would take a book to explain?

Great comment here.

We cannot force people to accept truth, and we can never be 100% certain that what we know to be true is actually true, so all we can do is share our idea s respectfully and live our lives based upon them. If they hold up, others will notice and come join us.

In my opinion, the sleepers still need some sleeping in order to wake up well, and sometimes they may not be as clueless as I may assume, there are many paths to the same place.

I don’t reserve this kind of conversation for those who agree with me on everything but I make sure they at least respect my opinion before I get all tied up in any deep conversations about truth.

From your comment,
"In my opinion, the sleepers still need some sleeping in order to wake up well"
My concern is the sleepers will oversleep, by the time they wake up it'll be too late.

I should explain that I spend a lot of time reading about Propaganda, and over the last four years I've learned a lot form many sources. I studied Public Relations in college, back four years ago, and was introduced to Edward Bernays and his compatriots, one being Walter Lippmann... Lippmann's term the Bewildered Herd is what I called the sleepers. But, Lippmann's term expresses a disdain by leadership, for the sleepers that most should find repulsive.

What I've come to realize over the last several years is that most Americans are heavily programmed through propaganda, and the programming has been going on for most Americans, their entire lives since at least the early 1900s. The problem then becomes, if the majority of every generation since the 1900s has been programmed by the Propagandist, how do we distinguish truth from programming?

Another issue I see with the Bewildered Herd is that they seem to be waiting for some kind of Savior to come save them. The problem there being why would a leader be willing to put their neck out to help the Bewildered Herd, when the Herd actually has all the tools needed to save themselves, but are too afraid to do so? And, actually most Saviors know that if the Herd is too afraid to save themselves, they certainly won't stand when the Savior needs protection. It would take a very brave Savior to be willing to become a Martyr.

As someone who has turned off the tv and left my native culture, I can attest to the severity of programming that we go through, it took me a long time to even realize how programmed I was...still am to some degree.

We’ve been programmed to need a savior (leader) particularly none is coming. We have also been programmed to not recognize or protect any savior that comes, and to self destruct if we try to become saviors ourselves. A savior is not the answer.

But there are those of us who are waking up. If we just make what we do look easier and more fun than what those who keep us asleep would have us do, others will start to join us. If a kid is sleeping and you wake him up and tell him it’s time to get to work...he said going to want to stay in bed. If you he hears you playing with a new game console, he’s much more inclined to wake up on his own :-)

Yeah, I turned off the TV too. But, it seems I’ve replaced it with the Internet, in fact the reason I turned off the TV was because I wasn’t watching it anymore – except the occasional sporting event.

As far as human programming goes, when I read Edward Bernays’ 1928 book “Propaganda” I found where he laid out his entire plan to influence American and Western societies. He talked about using the sources of information and entertainment of the day, and going even further as to enlist the population's churches, clubs and any community organizations to bend people to word of the Propagandists. And, of course he didn’t leave out using our Education system to educate children to the correct way of thinking.

Anyway, Edward Bernays took his uncle Sigmund Freud’s ideas and applied them to the masses. The idea was to appeal to people’s desires over their needs. And, we ended up with a more base society because of it.

My question has been and the reason for my seeking is to find out how to reverse that Propaganda and turn it to making a more hopeful and healthy society. Why appeal to mankind's most base desires, and not appeal to those things that make humans better?

As to the Savior? He’s not meant to survive, isn’t that the message we’ve been programmed with?

Making the truth entertaining is a workable idea. On my old site, I used to do polls as a way to learn about the audience I was posting articles to. One of my earliest polls had to do with asking how many Lurkers were on the site. Having a poll allowed them to speak up without revealing themselves. One other reason I did the poll was because many of my articles were receiving more votes, than comments. And, I didn’t know who they were, or why they were not commenting. It wasn't unusual to see articles and seeded links with several hundred votes and comments, there were some that even had thousands of comments. It turned out from the poll results that about 70% didn’t like the tone of the site, and didn’t want to be ridiculed by others. So, how many Silent Lurkers were there? About 60% of the people reading articles on the old site never commented... which is about normal for the Silent Majority in most groups.

Once, I realized that there were that many people reading, but not commenting, I started to write as if all my articles, and comments had many more readers than were actually actively involved commenting. On my old site I had some really smart friends there as well, and we would have entire conversations – that we’d had before, and that we knew, each other knew the facts and truth of – just to entertain and inform the Lurkers. It is an effective way to reach others, and people would just watch and occasionally comment on how much they enjoyed the interplay in our conversations. It is a good teaching tool.

I’ve been meaning to get around to that book!

The whole concept of a savior is a program! That doesn’t exist in nature, it’s a dramatization, and an unhealthy one at that. We are all potential saviors, none above any one else, it’s just about being able to stand up and fulfil whatever it is that we were born to do, whether it’s teach, build, plant, or share. From there Strong communities are possible and peaceful networks between communities (similar to trade relationships between countries, which make war more difficult) can form and that’s how we can root out the old programs together.

It seems like you have a lot of experience blogging and stuff. I might have some questions about how to branch out off steemit. I like it here, but it’d be nice if I could make some fiat until crypto really takes off. Just thinking.

I’d probably say that the notion of a Savior comes from the human desire for the symbolic replacement of a parent's offer of safety.

What brought me to bring it up was something I read from Noam Chomsky. He was talking about the difference of giving speeches to groups in the U.S. and groups outside the country. He said after giving a speech in a foreign country, audience members would seek him out to tell him what they were doing to make their Governments or Countries better. But, after giving speeches in the U.S., audience members would seek him out and ask, “What can we do?” That’s always stuck in my mind.

The other thing I was remembering when I brought up the myth of the Savior was a conversation I had with a Conservative co-worker. Now, before I go to far, I need to be clear about something, I’m not Liberal or Conservative, and neither party appeals to me at all… I just mention my co-workers party for context… See here was big, burly 300 lb man telling me he was waiting for a Savior to lead the revolution, he’d heard about on Limbaugh’s and Prager’s radio shows. Further, this Savior would have to be a Saint, with no agenda of his own… before my co-worker would throw in his lot with the Savior. I just shut up at that point, but my mind was mulling over some questions… like why would a Saintly Savior put their skin on the line for people that wouldn’t take a chance to save themselves, unless that leader was pure and untainted? The other thing that bothered my was why would a Savior put their life on the line, if their followers wouldn’t do the same? I thought my co-worker was being cowardly.

Anyway, that’s kinda where I was coming from on the whole Savior thing.

oh, I also meant to address your question about blogging.
I spent six years on another site that was very active when I started... it was my first experience with social media, and since I was a budding new writer it was a great place to practice my skills. The plug was pulled on that site, so there's no going back...

As far as starting your own website? I've looked into and have most of the pieces in place to do so... but other things in life require more attention right now.

What I plan on doing is having a friend 'host' my website on his server. And, then I'll take his advice and use 'WordPress' for the basic structure of the website. WordPress offers free versions of its product and there are many free 'themes' you can use as well. And, then I found a Domain name I like and bought the rights to it from a domain name registrar, like GoDaddy, there are others domain name registrars out there.

So, step one, find someone to host your site. There are many services that will do that for you. I'd find someone local if you can. And, then depending on how much you pay-per-month, you will receive varying levels of technical assistance.

Step two, find a theme for WordPress you like free or for rent.

Step three, get a domain name registered.

Step four, mix 'em all together and you have your own site.

That's about the limit of what I know and until I do it, I don't know what I don't know.

Finding good tech assistance is key...

The other thing to consider is how to get traffic to your site. I know you can link to it here on your blog with Steemit... and I'd probably do both sites at the same time, just for exposure.

The other thing to do is do a YouTube channel and maybe podcasts for exposure... some YouTuber's do pretty well for themselves, although I doubt it could be more than supplemental income for most.

I hope that helps?

Interesting post and I see your point. There is quite a wide spectrum when it comes to being woke. You pointed out a few talking about the russians, illuminati and others.

Imo, those are by products of being woke, once you've gone down a rabbit hole and seen things, it opens up every other rabbit hole to go down and from there it can be hard to discern truth from tinfoil.

There is nothing wrong with having your beliefs and sharing them with others. You are free to believe that you are right and others are wrong.

But how willing are you to let others believe what they believe?

How can we ever seek to create a peaceful world when we expect others to believe the same things we believe and dismiss them as entirely ignorant when they don’t.

For me, taking the red pill simply means that I see things now in plain english, where prior I saw everything in code. Taxation is theft, war is murder, unlawful arrest is kidnapping, and so on. The reason I copied this paragraph from you is this...everyone is allowed to believe what they want to, I am ok with that.

But it seems not everyone else is ok with just leaving me the hell alone. How can we have a peaceful world when I advocate for peace, yet the people who want to vote for peace completely disregard my wishes to be left alone to my own devices?

I believe in not violating other peoples individual rights. There are others out there who believe just the right amount of force and violence can make the world a better place, but I'm the ignorant one when I tell them that voting is violence.

Have your own beliefs and opinions. It's when those beliefs and opinions directly go against my own (forcefully) that I have a problem with.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you on any of those points but it could easily be turned around too. What if I think you are abusing the rights of animals by killing and eating them, or confining them? Couldn’t I say that you are violating the rights of others and that you are not awake? I’m just playing devils advocate here, I eat meat, but I appreciate vegetarianism and the idea that animals are not very different from us.

What if you raise your children in a way which I find to be abusive? I could easily say you are abusive human rights. But you may just see it as child rearing. So what is apparent and given for one person may not be for another.

The most relevant example I can think of is, what if you legally own the rights to a large plot of land and I have no land to my name. In your mind that land is yours and if I take food off of it and build a little house on it I might be committing a crime. In my mind the land belongs to everyone and since you have way more than you need and I have nothing, I am right to take a little piece just to take care of myself. I am also happy to leave you alone, as long as you aren’t keeping all the resources to yourself.

So I actually agree with you. I just don’t think it’s so objective. Also you don’t usually get far with straight out retaliation, I still don’t regret not flipping my desk over every single day at school when I was forcefully kept in school.

What if I think you are abusing the rights of animals by killing and eating them, or confining them?
What if you raise your children in a way which I find to be abusive?
what if you legally own the rights to a large plot of land and I have no land to my name. In your mind that land is yours and if I take food off of it and build a little house on it I might be committing a crime.

These are simply disagreements between two parties. To which they could be handled in court (if necessary). Those three examples are you stating that you don't like something that I am doing. None of which effect you personally or negatively.

You lose nothing if I decide to be a carnivore, even though you may disagree with it.

You lose nothing if I raise my kids in a way you don't approve of. If it gets to the point where most people would claim it to be abuse, take me to court. Still, you are not effected negatively either way.

Taking land that I own is stealing, and therefore you would be a thief, regardless of your less than ideal circumstances.

Clearly you can see the difference between disagreements that don't effect you, and opining for government to force your neighbor at gunpoint to do something you approve of that they might not want to do, no?

That's the point I am trying to make when saying woke. Disagreements are one thing, forcing people to behave the way you want them to, when it doesn't effect you, is wrong.

I still don’t regret not flipping my desk over every single day at school when I was forcefully kept in school.

lol, same here! How much time could have been saved...

But your concept of ownership and theft has affects me in a negative way and could easily be considered oppressive by those who are hungry. Your faith in court and faith in the concept of ownership have made me powerless and very much affect me. Raising your kids to believe in these concepts is also oppressive to me when the concepts themselves are oppressive. I’m just making a point here.

It’s really all perspective.

I’m just making a point here.

Playing devils advocate or do you stand behind these ideas?

To me, those are kind of analogous to "your life is oppressing me so I get to kill you." Are we not all beholden to the golden rule? Unless sociopaths?

Reminds me of this meme:
nature.jpg
source

That’s a cute way to pick fun at anyone who doesn’t have a job.

There is one huge detail about this meme that is missing, no one is telling him he needs to pay for that rock to sit on or that land to hunt on. If he has the means to feed himself and it’s nature he’s up against, yes he’s being lazy. If it’s other humans coming between him and his food it’s a very different situation because they claim resources for themselves and call it civilized. It’s sociopath to throw fresh food into the garbage every day when there are people starving because they couldn’t pay for it. Or to not allow homeless people to build their own houses on what we deem “public property”.

It’s very easy to sound civilized when we have lives that are working out or own our own land or means of production, and believe that everyone could do the same “if they just work hard enough”, but it doesn’t always work like that for everyone.

And I don’t condone killing anyone.

I don’t really condone stealing either but I place it below keeping food from someone who is starving on my “list of bad bad”

That’s a cute way to pick fun at anyone who doesn’t have a job.

I guess if you want to take it that way. I think it is highlighting the all too often claimed 'I'm oppressed victim mentality'.

There is one huge detail about this meme that is missing, no one is telling him he needs to pay for that rock to sit on or that land to hunt on.

Considering it's a made up meme, I can't argue that. But place him in the boundaries of the USA, or any other government, and you're damn right someone would be insisting he pay to sit on that rock or hunt those lands. Need I mention permits for hunting, permits for building/homesteading, property taxes, etc? I would love to go start my own homestead in the wilderness but currently that is not an option.

It’s sociopath to throw fresh food into the garbage every day when there are people starving because they couldn’t pay for it.

Main reason for this is that government says these grocery stores can't just give out old food. I wish they could and think they should.

Or to not allow homeless people to build their own houses on what we deem “public property”.

Again, government laws prohibiting anyone from homesteading land without approval. We agree on this and most topics actually.

Without playing devils advocate, in your own personal opinion, if I want to live my life in peace in the wilderness, in what way(s) would I be oppressive to anyone/yourself?
Disagreements aside about eating meat or anything like that, I'm talking about how you personally would be effected negatively.

You can live that way sure!

....the problem is that most people want more than they need, way more than they need, like obscene amounts more than they need, and they aren’t taking responsibility for each other....our western “freedom” is a lot more like egoism than freedom. That’s not going to go away overnight.

I’m not against all luxuries but I think prioritizing the well-being of ALL should come before certain luxuries for a select few and I don’t see how free market capitalism without regulation does that (not sure if that’s your stance, I just know it’s a popular one around here and it SEEMS to maybe be where you are coming from). Big business and big govt are both big problems but they would balance each other out if they were kept seperate from each other as they were meant to be. I don’t see how a free market would stop certain people from being insanely selfish on its own, I don’t see how we are ready for THAT level of freedom, though we are certainly ready for way more freedom than we have now.

The next positive steps forward will come out of community and experimentation, from the bottom up, not the top down. 20 hour work weeks would really get the ball rolling (30 would be a small but meaningful step forward) but it’s already happening thanks to the internet, it’s just slower and a lot of the opportunity is being sucked up by “whales” while we are busy trying to “get by”. I don’t see how greater levels of competition between individuals could achieve any better than what we’ve got now except for those who already have way more than everyone else. I would love to see someone break up all these massive sprawling companies and create some competition on that level, but who has the means to do that besides the state? They aren’t doing it, but decrease their power and then the corporations are free to act like states.

I usually don’t enjoy debates unless it’s just about sharing perspectives without any kind of push to change each other’s ideas....if we could do that, maybe we should keep this going on discord. It does seem we agree on a lot. I am still trying to find a middle ground between my own views and that of the many capitalists and libertarians on the platform, I believe there is one to be found and it’ll be force to be reckoned with when it is found.

I think that whole red pill/ woke thing that people like to talk about kind of implies a dichotomy which doesn't really exist. I may throw some crazy ideas around but I also freely admit that it is just some bullshit being said by some guy on the internet lol. I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that it is about feeding their egos. People like to feel like they're right so they develop these world views in which they are the only ones who are right.

There is a discussion of Truth in Milton's Aeropagitica, that I like to (badly) paraphrase, which is pretty similar to your point in the last paragraph. Essentially, he says that Truth will always defeat Falsehood because "she is strong next to the Almighty." I don't go in for the religious angle but I always liked that message.

I know what is true for me. I enjoy sharing it. I belief that if it’s true for others they will hear it eventually and I don’t need to beat them over the head with it, and if I’m wrong about something I’ll figure it out sooner or later. I agree with that quote but I’d think of it more a story rising above, because it does not require a fight, winners or losers.

Haha I get you but Milton liked that kind of adversarial view of things, I think. He was arguing against the censorship of books in that one. His political works are not easy to read but there is a lot to love in them.

All of it seems like religion, new conspiracy theories give light to new religions. Not saying I don’t agree with any of it, I just think it wise to gather your own experiences, look inside and feel the truth of something. You’re right, we don’t need to force our views on others but we should share them too.

Agreed. I like conspiracy theories actually and I think some of them are pointing in the directions the truth, it’s just the fervor with which people are convinced that it’s true when it’s just a theory. It’s rare to find people interested in those theories who is willing to admit how little they know for sure.

Absolutely, couldn’t agree more. It takes humility to be open with ones beliefs and keep questioning them

Our world will improve when we learn to respect and trust each other, when we learn to discuss opposing views peacefully and learn to listen better, not when we convince everyone that our own philosophy is the correct one.

Absolutely. This is so nicely put. I loved this post.. so succinct and well said. X

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