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Blue pill.
Red pill.
Black pill.
Have you ever heard anyone talk about being “black pilled?” If so, then they’re discussing the idea of obtaining so much “truth” that it leads them to embrace hopelessness and despair. The path from awareness to nihilism is unfortunately a common path.
Don’t take the black pill.
If you write more about this subject, please let me know. I’d be interested in reading!
The places where I see “black pill” ideology discussed the most are in the world of dating and in the world of politics. I’m sure it gets applied to other things as well, though.
In the dating context, I have read about guys – described often as “incels” – who have no hope for ever achieving a happy romantic relationship, so they embrace an extreme form of “black pilled” nihilism that says nothing they do, and nothing that will ever happen, will change their outcomes for the better. Being black pilled is like an acknowledgement of defeat and a lot of people end up taking their own lives. It’s horrific and sad, but it’s also dangerous for a viewpoint like that to become a spreadable ideology.
In politics, it comes up in the context of “the people who are in charge are evil and nothing will ever change.” An example of that might be found in the reaction to the Jeffrey Epstein situation. He operated at the tippy top of American society (probably other countries, too,) was protected by the American justice system and both major parties, and after his death (which was fraught with sketchy context) none of his clients have even been named, let alone prosecuted, and nobody in the American government is pushing to make it happen. You could look at that and conclude that the entire system is rotten, top to bottom, and that there is no hope.
To all of that, I’d offer this: In most of the cases where I see someone talk about being” black pilled” it’s over a relatively narrow span of their day to day life. It’s important not to hyper fixate on one thing, because doing that can be self-defeating (obsessing over one’s dating life doesn’t often help) and it can make it harder to appreciate the other things in our lives, which often *are* positive. If a person cultivates the places in his or her life that are positive, and bring joy, then that joy and positivity often multiplies. Then who knows where that leads. But many people need to seek out professional counseling to help get started on that, and I definitely encourage it.
This is an excellent and well-explained explanation. Thank you so much! It’s sort of like “all or nothing”, “cut & dry”, or extremist thinking patterns. I really enjoyed reading your reply!
You’re welcome! I’m glad that helped. I’ve been trying to study Gen Z and they seem a little more susceptible to some types of extremist thinking patterns. They’ve arguably had more dramatic societal changes thrown at them than previous generations so it makes some sense.
I’ve never heard of Gen Z.
That’s the umbrella term for people born between (roughly) the mid 1990s and the early 2010s.
Ohhhh, okay 👌
Thank you; that’s cool