Is Ashwagandha the Red Pill?

In a previous post, I discussed how redpilling ‘usually means overturning the standard liberal narrative’ — but in practice, involves ‘muting empathy and ignoring one’s conscience’. Recently, I came across a related trend on TikTok of young men recommending the supplement ‘ashwagandha’ for its ability to ‘kill emotions’. (I have clipped a few examples below, but do a quick search on TikTok and you’ll find dozens more.)

Ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen (a herbal pharmaceutical) that has been shown to reduce stress, is used to treat insomnia and anxiety, but it also, anecdotally, has been reported to improve testosterone and physical performance. For over a year now, it has been discussed on forums dedicated to fitness and self-improvement.

This new development, where individuals claim to have ‘killed their emotions’ through long-term use of ashwagandha, is troubling for two reasons: first is the placebo effect is sure to convince many impressionable young men that they have indeed become emotionless. Second is the fact that so many of these young men want to kill their emotions. In my previous post, I wrote that:

The far-right red pill encourages individuals to abandon their residual empathy in the name of ‘truth’, which is reflected in the slogan: ‘facts don’t care about your feelings’. According to this view, empathy is a burden and a barrier preventing us from seeing things as they really are. The red pill gives these individuals permission to deaden their empathy and thus ‘live freely’ — that is, without that pesky conscience

Ostensibly, this clarity is the goal of killing one’s emotions. For these young men, ashwagandha is the red pill.