It’s hard to tell who reads this blog, but I get the distinct impression that readers from the US military are over-represented compared to the general population.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting or emailing with quite a few such people and they seem to have found the red pill that leads to this dark corner of the internet in one of three ways:
1) They get deployed and they wonder what the fsck is going on. Moldbug describes the hot and cold war between the State Department and the Department of Defense. If you’re getting shot at on behalf of USG by people who have been armed by another part of USG, his description of the hits close to home (so to speak).
2) They’ve had direct contact with a reporter for a significant period of time . . . and then they read the articles generated by said reporter. The disparity between what they know happened and what they read about makes them wonder.
3) They observe women around soldiers. Nothing seems to bring out the worst in women more clearly than the military (there’s some good descriptions of this in the book). The connection between the more political reactionary sites and the more general manosphere sites continue to get stronger and stronger.
Certain things demand explanation, and certain things can’t be explained by mainstream sources.
What leads a soldier to the red pill? What happens when he takes it? The book answers these questions for one particular soldier.
Mr Finlay was kind enough to send me the book (available here), which is a sort of fiction/non-fiction hybrid. Finlay served in Bosnia and Afghanistan and that’s where the events take place.
The book is split between Finlay’s experiences in the military and his pursuit of a woman (a Canadian stripper to be precise). But it’s really about one man’s discovery of the red pill.
The book is great. At times, it delves perhaps a little too overtly into red pill preachiness, but that’s also part of its charm.
I seem to remember that H. L. Mencken once that there is something ridiculous about a man that’s never been in combat and a woman that’s never given birth (I can’t seem to find this quote). If Mencken didn’t say it, he should have.
I assume that Finlay is roughly my age. My life couldn’t be more removed from combat of any kind. I have a couple friends in the military, but none of them are on the front lines in any way. Too many people in my generation are totally removed from this experience – the book’s worth reading for insights into this experience if nothing else.
There’s a lot more I’d like to say about the book, but I don’t want to give anything away. If you regularly read this blog, hopefully I’ve said enough to pique your interest.
