The Purple Pill is based on an idea from a movie called the Matrix. The “red pill” concept became popularized on social media in recent years as a way for individuals to indicate a sort of right-wing wokeness. These individuals are quite controversial but I actually find some of their points quite compelling.

Where they start to lose me is when the ego causes some of these individuals to use language which breaks down communication with their counterparts. They can come off as holier than thou if that makes any sense. I think it’s unfortunate because a lot of the time they have really interesting and i would argue beneficial perspectives, but the way they are layered between the owning of liberal “snow flakes” makes it difficult to take them seriously.

It doesn’t feel like the “red pill person”, so to speak, is trying to educate people but is rather lecturing and wagging their finger at others who “just don’t get it.” Much to the chagrin of those of you enjoying this so far, this phenomenon is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right. It just goes by another name.

“Wokeness” is a similar way of wagging a finger without trying to educate people. No shade to anyone who has ever identified with these designations, but i think when you play it out these terms aren’t how we want to identify ourselves politically. We end up slaves to a much bigger machine. The machine is a democracy so for someone to be “woke” enough or to have taken enough red pills to just suddenly “get it” is truly impossible. Democracies are built of individuals moving around and interacting with one another. There are 330 million people in America. If you think you truly know it all, you are surely mistaken.

Being “woke” or “red pill” indicates the hypothetical attainment of some exclusively available knowledge. I’m all for individuals achieving exclusive knowledge when they work for it like in the case of scientific academia. However, these concepts are similar to blind religious proclamations that seem to occur as a consequence of an emotional response to some worldview shattering new information that most people aren’t “woke” enough to understand. It doesn’t indicate open-mindedness and intelligence. it indicates that an individual was open-minded exactly once. Worse it indicates that the individual immediately closed their mind again after finding some piece of information they felt worthy of clinging on to like dobby’s precious from the Lord of the Rings.

I’ve come to the conclusion that left-wing wokeness and right-wing red pill views are actually not in it of themselves bad ideas. Both views suggest the situation where an individual was living in a false reality and comes to their senses all at once. For the left, a piece of knowledge awakens them from a brainwashed slumber. For the right, a piece of knowledge doses them out of a brainwashed slumber. I am all for enlightenment and both groups seem to think they have uncovered the core of the power structure. Perhaps they have, but if that is the case, they should know that that structure is always changing shape so what is true today is often not the case tomorrow and most people never hear about it.

Coming to enlightenment cannot stop with a singular self-aggrandizing designation of superiority as is suggested in the way that woke red pill perspectives seem to do. Enlightenment is a trajectory. It is a decision to be on a path that continually assumes that the individual on it is wrong so that both good and bad ideas are put to the test without the filter of what we want to be true blinding us from critically assessing our preconceptions.

The old adage of the powerful says “divide and conquer” is the name of the game and these holier than thou attitudes appear to be making us even more divided if you ask me. The wokes and the pill poppers who make it into the popular press these days don’t seem worthy of such accolades.

The purple pill is meant to be an ode to these two ideas as i do appreciate many of the perspectives offered by such world-views. Where the Purple Pill primarily departs from these ideas is their exclusivity. I don’t care what party you identify with. I do believe that both parties are operating from a dangerously incorrect point of view which is destroying our country. Haha. But i won’t judge you for disagreeing with me.

My saying is, hate the politicians, not the voters. And frankly, i don’t even hate the politicians, they just frustrate me. I can understand and respect the motivations behind voting for any politician while still staunchly disagreeing with most if not all of the policies said politician implements. Because that’s how democracy was meant to work. Red and blue make Purple and the Purple Pill is just my attempt to show everyone how crazy we’re all acting in as nice of a way as i possibly can.

I’m acting crazy too is the thing. The crazy places my mind has gone during the pandemic can not be overstated. But i don’t blame myself because everyone is so afraid of poking a politically dissenting beast, that no one tells each other their honest opinion anymore. People are too afraid of being wrong, so they never try to be right and the whole country is suffering from this brain disease simultaneously. It is causing stagnation in the public discourse and it is making our young people talk in ways that give me nightmares of war.

To be honest, Everyone is acting like children right now in my opinion. When people lose in politics these days, it is like the other side becomes the embodiment of Satan. And when they win, the other side is still Satan, just a much more manageable Satan.

I can acknowledge that i am as ignorant as any one of the other 8 billion bags of chemicals that make up our human species. However, i do my best not to engage in party politics and group identities. I have seen 0 positive effects on our society thus far as a result of other people engaging in this tribal way of thinking.

I am all for tribes, but you can’t have two tribes fighting to the death over the same land. Merge tribes or form a new Jeep Grand Cherokee Nation if you can’t get along because no one should truly hate their neighbor in a unified body. It just doesn’t work. If there is not a succession in the United States, these broken relationships will still cause the fabric of our society to crumble over time if we fail to correct course in our public discourse.