Cultural libertarians vs. SJWs. Outcome: draw!

"The distributist" does not hold out much hope for the cultural libertarians in general and YouTuber Sargon of Akkad in particular in the culture wars against the regressive left.  This is because, in his view, the cultural libertarians lack institutional support or a means of getting any, the cultural libertarians do not understand cultural narratives on narratives and arguments, and that cultural libertarians do not understand their own ideology, specifically liberalism.  Take the half hour needed to view this video.  

In my opinion, the distributist is partially correct.  But only partially.  There are also factors he failed to bring up that also work against the cultural libertarians.

The distributist made a good point in that the cultural libertarians seemed to lack an overarching narrative, and seem to lack an overall strategy above and beyond refuting regressive talking points and demonstrating the superiority of liberal ideas. This is very true.  It is very hard to prevail in an ideological war long term without a narrative.  This is why I earlier asked what should by the mythology of the alt-left?  And when I say mythology, I don't mean that we adopt a pre-existing mythological or religious system.  I mean that we need to consider the importance of framing our world view in terms of a struggle of opposed forces and casting ourselves as the protagonist for good in this struggle.  The side in any non-violent struggle for control of a civilization that more successfully does this will win in the long term.  It's really that simple.  The "radical progressives" referred to by the distributist are doing the best job of this right now.  But that was not always the case.

Conservatism's success from the 1979 to 2006 time frame was because they were able to frame the debate in moral terms and control the argument.  However relevant and accurate liberal talking points were in refuting specific conservative policy positions were, the conservatives cleaned the liberal's clocks come election time, and for a while, made "liberal" a dirty word.  If you don't believe me, go over to YouTube and listen to any of Ronald Reagan's speeches.  He was an absolute master of this.  Once Reagan departed the Oval Office, Newt Gingrich codified this technique and even went as far as to circulate a memo to GOPAC members on the importance of using language to frame the debate.

Some liberals, however, were paying attention to Gingrich's techniques.  And the lessons were not lost upon them.  Let's keep in mind also that the foundations of the SJW ideology lie in postmodern philosophy and academic critical theory.  They are thus quite adept at dissecting the written word and rooting out subtextual meanings contained therein.  Or imposing otherwise non existent contextual meanings into text.  A progressive (I forget which one) lamented back in the 1990s that "while they were taking over congress, we were taking over the English department."  Meant to be ironic, I'm sure.  The real irony lies in just how intertwined control over the two turns out to be.

This has been, I think, a key to the meteoric rise of the SJW in the last ten years.  Morally ratched up talking points that make it clear that disagreement makes one a terrible person, repeated over and over again, have a definite impact.  For a while, at least.

His final point about the only way to defeat anti-liberal forces long term is through "long, slow march through the institutions" is somewhat true.  But only somewhat.  But let's not forget that in the 1980s and 90s, the most prevalent talking points one heard in the mass media were free market and free trade mantras.  The media is much more the tail than it is the dog, and as much responds to as it does direct public opinion on crucial matters.  A small number of devotees of a solid and consistent narrative can have disproportionate influence.  It's not like the radical feminists always enjoyed such bias, after all.  

Media runs on advertising, and therefore needs to attract viewers in order to attract advertisers.  People are drawn like moths to a flame to controversy, and "political correctness gone mad" is a near perfect way to do this.  I quite strongly suspect that the loyalty of most mass media and social media to the SJW cause is less firm than people like the distributist would suspect.  Many CEOs of major media corporations are white males, after all.  Even a media CEO firmly devoted to social justice and insists that movies, TV programs, video games and so on reflect social justice themes will find themselves facing an irate board of directors if enough financial disasters like the recent Ghostbusters reboot start hurting the bottom line.  Besides, it's not like criticism of the excesses of campus radicalism do not also make headlines.

Speaking of campus, here is where a more crucial and determined struggle will play itself out.  The cultural libertarians, and anyone else interested in a long term defeat of regressivism would be well behooved to focus their efforts here almost exclusively.  If PC falls in academia, it's just a matter of time before it falls everywhere.  But academia is where its supporters are most entrenched and most driven by ideology rather than mere material concerns.  It will not be an easy struggle.

I think the distributist is wrong on some things, though. Namely that the SJWs emerge from, or are part of a fundamentally anti-liberal strain of thought. I think this is only partially true. Their appeal is, in significant part, due to an appeal to social inclusiveness. Due to an appeal to empathy with and care for the weakest and most vulnerable in society, or at least the appearance thereof. The SJWs claim the mantle of causes that are decidedly liberal - equal rights for women, minorities and so on, and much of their success is because of this.

This is where the real danger for Sargon, Milo Yiannopoulos and their ilk really lies.  If the cultural libertarians lose, it will be because of their own abandoning of liberal principles.  This is because most people don't really like actual racism and misogyny very much.  Most people don't like seeing things like Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones get hacked and doxxed.  Most people don't like the patently obvious meaning of comparing her to Harambe the gorilla.  Not far beneath the surface of many a cultural libertarian is something much more socially conservative.  Truth is, the libertarian high ground can more rightly be claimed by those claiming to be "genderqueer" or some other blue-haired silliness.  Until the SJW's swinging arm truly connects with the cultural libertarian's nose, the later will have a weak case.

I'm a fan and a sympathizer with Milo's "dangerous faggot" tour because I know how important it is to see campus political correctness be challenged.  But that challenge will fail if Milo and his ilk get lost in their own insular subculture of internet memes and racist shit posting and appeal more to one another's prejudices than they do to the general public's embrace of liberal values.  Keep the narrative to free speech and societal openness and the defeat forecast by the distributist won't materialize.

Western liberals a-la Sam Harris and Bill Maher were slow to recognize the authoritarian characteristics of PC for quite some time, especially in the days described in the video when they were united against the Christian right and with the LGBT crowd for gay marriage.  The English speaking world has next to no experience with left wing authoritarianism.  What surprises me is that the anti-regressive left has emerged as quickly as it has.

This will not end in a complete victory for either the SJWs or the cultural libertarians.  This is because liberal values are, I think, too deeply embedded in western culture to be uprooted in a single generation.  In all likelihood, the cultural libertarians will have to learn to live in a society that recognizes "gender fluidity", and may even come to realize that as silly as it is, it doesn't present an actual threat to their own freedoms.  The SJWs, on the other hand, will eventually have to face a world wherein they can't shut down anyone who they disagree with by a false appeal to oppression.  

The fundamentally liberal western world won't have it.

Sub Types on the Alternative Left

Left Wing of the Alt Right?

I’ve come up with colloquial expressions of subtypes I’ve noticed in my short time with this movement. Note that these are not hard fast rules or mutually exclusive categories but rather descriptions of what seem to be motivating passions. Some perhaps approximate the Alt-Leftist ideal better than others:

“The Left Wing of the Alt Right” – Rabbit uses this phrase quite explicitly. They are most open to race realism and most opposed to mass immigration and Islamism but are also inclined towards some kind of economic socialism or social democracy and are otherwise put off the Alt-Right somehow or other. Strasserites might be a more explicitly national socialist variant of this, and National Bolshevism would be even more out there still.  Left wing nationalism would be a softer variant of this.

“Gamergate Leftists” – Named from an article I read a while back claiming that most Gamergaters were left-leaning, these are another type. These types need not be big on Gamergate per-se (the more I studied Gamergate personally, the more lost and confused I got) but being anti-feminist (at least against the kind of PC feminist theory you'd find in a women's studies class or on any left-leaning blog) and anti-SJW is huge with them as is civil and cultural libertarianism.  If Milo Yiannopoulos was a social democrat, this is basically what you'd have.

I found a number of these posting on anti-SJW pages. They come to the Alt-Left usually because of a belief in Leftist economics, though they are usually not that far Left.  Guys who believe in some regulation and a social safety net. Some too get put off by the tendency of anti-SJWs to drift into genuinely misogynistic and racist territory.  Remember kids that SJW and social liberalism are not the same things.  Think YouTubers like Sargon of Akkad or the Amazing Atheist, though they don’t use the term Alt-Left to describe themselves. Not yet, anyway. These kinds are defecting less from Richard Spencer and more from Milo Yiannopoluous.

“Red Enlightenment” – These are most passionate about rationalism, skepticism, empiricism and in some cases, transhumanism and futurism. Generally scientifically minded and technocratic sorts of socialists or social democrats.

“True Liberals” – Antiracist and feminist supporters who think the whole thing has gotten out of hand and are concerned for the SJW’s lifestyle puritanism and opposition to free speech. They are more pro-feminist and pro-social liberal than the Gamergaters though. “The Democratic Party of the 1990s,” someone once remarked to me when I described the alt-left to them, to which I replied, “There were no liberals or Leftists in the 1990’s except myself.”

“Brocialists” – Socialists or social democrats with a penchant for men’s rights and anti-misandry. I seem to have drawn a number of these to my page, and a few of my moderators fall into this category. Hillary Clinton supporters have accused Bernie Sanders of using these as his base of support.  Used as a pejorative by the "Lorettas" of the present day left, I'm a firm proponent that we reclaim the term.

“Red Templars” – Especially and specifically anti-Islamic. We get a lot of these from Sam Harris and Bill Maher’s followings. Unlike the Left Wing of the Alt Right types, these sorts are more standard liberals otherwise.

“The New Old Left” – Would dispense with race, culture and identity all together if they could and make Leftism mostly about economic Leftism. The Realist Left page and the blog Social Democracy for the 21st Century are like this. Farther left you’d find /leftypol/ on 8chan and some Marxist/Anarchist groups that reject IdPol.  A whole separate entry could be made of the economic subtypes one might find on the alt left.  I've also found a lot of labor nationalists and assorted 3rd positionists: mutualists, distributists, market socialists, state capitalists, syndicalism and so on.

 A few types that I have not seen many of and would have expected more are Christian leftists (Catholic Social Teaching, the social gospel and even liberation theology seem especially well suited to alt-leftism) and dissident feminists.  Surely, some feminists must be frustrated with what's happened to their movement.  It's been a long, long time since anything this dogmatic, intolerant, and puritanical has arisen in the western world.  Those well meaning devotees to feminism and social justice time and again are the ones who come under the sternest censure for the most minor of transgressions.  How many women out there, after getting called out one time too many for some sleight micro-aggression or another think "screw this" and drift away from the movement, while still holding to its essential ideals?  Many, I would think.  I would hope.  They can't be that hive-minded, could they?  In any event, if there are, the alt-left must be the port-of-call for women of liberal sentiment overall who reject this 21st century rehash of 16th century puritan culture.

On the other hand, I've noticed more than a few economic libertarians in alt-left circles, which I fail to understand since center to left economics is a pretty big part of this.

There may be more variations on the alt-left theme out there that I have not met yet.  

Regressive left + SJWs: Authoritarian Styles and Tactics, Not Liberal Beliefs

NEW!  Watch the accompanying Video on Samizdat Broadcasts, with additional detail!

In a December 31, 2015 post, Salon boasts proudly that "2015 was the year of the Social Justice Warrior, and Progressives should embrace the term."

Although the term "Social Justice Warrior" was constructed as an insult against progressive activists, the year 2015 has amply demonstrated why liberals should embrace the term.  Social justice issues dominated the year, from race to sexual identity and beyond.

Wrong again, Salon.  This reads like many progressive defenses of political correctness as simply "being nice" or "being respectful" to one another.  I would not argue against being a decent, conscientious person.  There's nothing to be gained by using racial slurs or being rude and boorish towards overweight women.  Or anyone, come to that.  In fact, I would go further than Salon and a lot of other socially progressive blogs these days and dare to suggest that our decency and conscientiousness should be for all (except those whose actions warrant censure), including the dreaded cishet white male, instead of being parceled out according to who has more "marginalized identities."

Conflating political correctness with niceness and being socially liberal with being a social justice warrior is a wide path that ends in authoritarian regressive leftism.  It's not "nice" to criticize the barbarism of Islamism - they are the victims of western colonialism after all, so we'd better not do it.  It's not "nice" to point out the very real social dysfunctions in black communities - they're the victims of institutional racism after all, so we'd better not do it.  It's not "nice" to criticize misandry in feminism or advocate for male victims of sexual and domestic violence - they're the victims of patriarchy and rape culture after all, so we'd better not do it.

There's nothing nice about any of this.  The victims, in all the above cases, are very real. Refusing to talk about it for fear of offending established interests is as far away from being nice and being what liberalism is supposed to be about as you can get.

To get a better sense of what the SJW is really all about, this excellent article on extremism is a useful tool for clarification. Laird Wilcox, who along with John George authored the excellent 1996 study of American Extremists, list a number of traits that define extremism and are useful for separating the SJWs from the socially liberal nice guys.  These are:

1. Character assassination.
2. Name calling and labeling.
3. Irresponsible sweeping generalizations.
4. Inadequate proof of assertions.
5. Advocacy of double standards.
6. Tendency to view their opponents and critics as essentially evil.
7. Manichean world view.
8. Advocacy of some degree of censorship or repression of their opponents and critics.
9. Tend to identify themselves in terms of who their enemies are: whom they hate and who hates them.
10. Tendency towards argument by intimidation.
11. Use of slogans, buzzwords and thought stopping cliches.
12. Assumption of moral or other superiority over others.
13. Doomsday thinking.
14. Belief that it's okay to do bad things in the service of a "good" cause.
15. Emphasis on emotional responses and, correspondingly, less importance attached to reasoning and logical analysis.
16. Hypersensitivity and vigilance.
17. Use of supernatural rationale for beliefs and actions.
18. Problems tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty.
19. Inclination towards groupthink. 
20. Tendency to personalize hostility.
21. Feel the system is no good unless they win. 

The SJWs convert socially liberal ideologies into closed belief systems that refer to themselves in order to justify themselves, and use denial of guilt of heresy as proof of heresy, in which denial of being a racist, homophobe or whatever is cited as direct evidence of one's guilt.  This is very reminiscent of the workings of the medieval inquisitions and witch hunts, and was characteristic of pro-communist show trials in Stalin's USSR and the anti-communist zeal of McCarthyism.  It is a sad reflection on the failure of our academic and media institutions that history has not been learned from and both the ideologies and techniques of the SJW have been embraced by media and academia largely without question in much of the western world when employed by the charmed circle of feminists, Islamists and anti racists.

Richard Hofstadter's excellent 1963 essay on the Paranoid Style in American Politics could apply just as well to the postmodernist critical theory of the SJW.  To paraphrase the manner in which Hofstadter contrasts the "paranoid style" with sober and accurate reflections on history,

"The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there in history, but that they regard a "vast" or "gigantic" conspiracy is the motive force in historical events.  History is a conspiracy set in motion by demonic forces of almost transcendent power, and what is felt to be needed to defeat it is not the usual methods of political give and take, but an all out crusade."

This describes precisely the manner in which the SJW perceives whichever forms of marginalization they are most concerned with.  Racism and patriarchy were not unfortunate historical detours, necessitating a sober and liberal feminism and anti-racism to correct.  Rather, racism and patriarchy are the sole, defining characteristics of western civilization, embedded in our every institution, form of relationship, our language and even our subconscious thoughts!

This is why, from the SJW mindset, the ends of defeating "oppression" justify any means necessary employed to do so.  The moral compass of the SJW is calibrated not to the respect of human dignity and rights that one would expect of a liberal, but to this Leninist notion that truth and morality are measured by whether actions benefit an "oppressed" or a "privileged" demographic.  Arguments reminiscent of Stalinist denials of repression inside the Soviet Union declare "oppressed" peoples incapable of racism or sexism, and so are given a free pass to engage in even the most wanton acts of prejudice.

The SJW has no qualms about usurping the identities and struggles of the marginalized peoples they're professing to represent, and speak on behalf of entire demographics of people - even when individual members of those demographics disagree with them in large numbers.  The dangerous notion of false consciousness is trotted out to dismiss those members of marginalized groups who deny their marginalization, adding yet another circular thinking dynamic to the style and tactics of the SJW.

Censorship of those who offend "marginalized" peoples is therefore justified, because the offense taken by the marginalized is indicative of the overarching transcendent meta-historical evil that is patriarchy or white supremacy, and the temporary evil of censorship of a privileged person is a mere inconvenience in the face of it.  In truth, the making of these kinds of sacrifices to defeat ultimate evil is something that the SJW relishes rather than laments, for it signals their intentions to "give until it hurts" and go the extra mile in the winner-take-all battle of pure good vs. ultimate evil.

We've seen enough examples of this kind of thinking in history now to be rightly concerned.  Hitler felt the Jews an evil so despicable that any means were justified in order to defeat them.  Hitler believed posterity would thank him for his efforts, but the general verdict of history would suggest otherwise. 4chan foolishness notwithstanding, Nazism is an evil the western world has no interest in revisiting.

SJWs have nowhere near the blood on their hands that fascists and communists do.  But this kind of thinking is leading them away from their own best ideals.  They've all but lost sight of their initial objectives - racial and gender equality - and are now unabashedly partisan in favor of women and peoples of color, and unabashedly authoritarian and without principle in their methods of activism, undermining their essential credibility among all save for the shamelessly self serving among their chosen demographics.  The price will be paid down the road by the very women and minorities they're professing to champion, for the good name of feminism and anti-racism is being irredeemably spoiled by SJW antics.

The weakness of the western world, however, is in its failure to recognize the stormtroopers when they wear plaid rather than black shirts and dyed hair instead of steel helms.  Of course, the SJWs are a long way away still from the kind of power needed to shed blood on Bolshevik or Fascist levels.  But the failure of media and academia to recognize distinctly illiberal ideas when advanced under the banner of historically liberal ideas should be of concern to us all, but especially those most concern for freedom and liberty for the historically disadvantaged.

Coming soon on Samizdat Broadcasts: An analysis of "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer

What follows is a teaser excerpt from an analysis of Eric Hoffer's brilliant work The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, which includes discussion of how Hoffer's work continues to be relevant today.

"Once people start to become satisfied with their conditions of life, the psychic fire that animates the true believer begins to wane.  The present must be seen, at best, as a bridge between a once glorious past and a destined to be glorious future.  The bridge between the two is the true believer’s willingness to sacrifice contentedness in the present.  As a corollary to this, Hoffer notices that “the boundary line between radical and reactionary is not always distinct. The reactionary manifests radicalism when he comes to recreate his ideal past. His image of the past is based less on what it actually was than on what he wants the future to be. He innovates more than he reconstructs. A somewhat similar shift occurs in the case of the radical when he goes about building his new world. He feels the need for practical guidance, and since he has rejected and destroyed the present he is compelled to link the new world with some point in the past. If he has to employ violence in shaping the new, his view of man’s nature darkens and approaches closer to that of the reactionary.”  

This truism is born out in any observation of the curious mix of appeal to the pre-and-postmodern that one sees in far right reactionary modernism, which used leading edge technologies such as radio in the 1930s or internet memes in our time to spread decidedly not leading edge social ideas.  The radicals, in an interesting contrast, have been in a decades long retreat from modernism under the auspices of “postmodernism”, until what we now have is the barely disguised fascism of the social justice warriors.

The true believer cannot take solace in the present, and this is what insulates them from recognizing the validity of any actual real world successes the movement has enjoyed.  They can only truly be motivated by what Hoffer describes as “Things which are not.”  People are, Hoffer claims, less likely to fight to the end for the things they have and value in the present real world, because their practical value is ultimately subordinate to the ultimate value that the person reconciled to the present places on their lives, or those things that make their lives possible.  This is in stark contrast to the true believer, who so recklessly dispenses with the present and thus has, they feel nothing to lose.  As an example, Hoffer cites “It was not the least of Hitler’s formidable powers that he knew how to drain his opponents (at least in continental Europe) of all hope. His fanatical conviction that he was building a new order that would last a thousand years communicated itself both to followers and antagonists. To the former it gave the feeling that in ‑ fighting for the Third Reich they were in league with eternity, while the latter felt that to struggle against Hitler’s new order was to defy inexorable fate.” 

This could shed some light on why it is that academic, media, business and government leadership in the very late 20^th and early 21^st centuries have cowed so quickly and readily before even the most absurd demands of the politically correct social justice warriors.  For professionals and administrators in these governing organizations are examples of the irony that Hoffer observes “that those who hug the present and hang on to it with all their might should be the least capable of defending it.”  Militant social justice activists, on the other hand, however much they too have, are truly fighting for “cities yet to be built and gardens yet to be planted.”  

When late 20^th century feminism, accustomed only to victory after victory - at least in the social and professional spheres - all the way back to the 1960s finally encountered serious resistance a few short years ago in obscure backwaters of cyberspace, the crux of that resistance was, despite what its supporters or opponents might tell you, neither about misogyny in gaming culture, nor about “integrity in video game journalism”, but about the stewing mix of hope and resentment in hearts and minds every bit as alienated from the present and therefore every bit as willing to pull out all the stops as the radfems themselves have been for the attainment of things they have not."

The completed analysis will appear on my YouTube channel, Samizdat Broadcasts.  In the meantime, read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements on PDF here.

Is it time to reboot Feminism?

This turned up in a closed Facebook group I belong to:

"SILENCED: A Spanish documentary about male victims of domestic violence that feminists want to censor. Its producer and director is the musician Nacho González, who launched this project in a crowdfunding platform in order to be able to film it. Unfortunately, some weeks ago, he has received the notification that his movie's crowdfunding has been suspended due to the massive criticism coming from feminist collectives."

Which naturally compelled me to share it on my own page.  And do follow the link posted above, even if you don't speak or read Spanish.  Feminist collectives will not suppress knowledge of male victims of domestic abuse.  Google searching it is not exactly hard.  Nor will they suppress knowledge of their attempts to suppress knowledge of domestic abuse.

They're digging their own grave at this point.

Public tolerance and acceptance of feminism's lack of willingness to abide by any kind of consistent moral or ethical principle beyond its own ego-centrism is nothing short of preternatural.  But it is not eternal.  They wouldn't be the first benevolent movement in history to burn out its otherwise considerable credibility trying to suppress knowledge of its less than benevolent side.  The empty pews in many Catholic churches and the present as opposed to past subscription rates for Pravda tell cautionary tales that a feminism long succumbed to the arrogance of power will almost certainly not hear.

There is far and away more historical precedent for collective moral failures of this nature than we'd generally like to admit.  The bigger they are, the harder they fall, after all.

As it is, feminism is too invested in this "male privilege/female marginalization" dichotomy now to allow for the theoretical possibility of domestic abuse - that most cruel hallmark of male dominance - to afflict men at the hands of women.  Or occur in homosexual relationships, possibly to greater degrees than it does in heterosexual relationships.  But never mind the victims, we have a narrative to preserve here!.

It’s easy for any school of thought to turn into an echo chamber of ideological purists and “true Scotsmen.” Feminism is no exception to this pattern of behavior. But at what point does a devout dedication to political dogma simply become a form of cannibalism?  Given that the mainstream of even intersectional feminist thought (which is the mainstream of feminist thought, whatever they may have you believe) is attacked for being white or induces guilt in its heterosexual sisters should answer that clearly.  The lack of self awareness evident in the manner in which organized feminism presents itself is nothing short of breathtaking.  To be outdone only by mainstream media's willingness to give it a completely free pass.  Or maybe they're in on the joke on some level, and are laughing along with the rest of us.

Ridicule of the excesses of intersectional feminism has become an online cottage industry.  Anti-SJW social media outlets have been keeping many a keyboard warrior occupied at least as far back as GamerGate now, and it's quite surprising in retrospect that it took that much time to pass from the days when Peggy Nash first unpacked the knapsack of white male privilege back in 1988 until the inevitable backlash began its push from margins to center.  It says a great deal about the state of the postmodern western world that video game geeks circa 2014 ended up doing what should have been done in academia back in the 1970s.  Namely, calling bullshit on the whole notion of universal male privilege and female marginalization.

But what has been done cannot now be undone.  Feminists can scramble to ban anti-SJW pages on social media all they want.  But first they should consider talking to Angela Merkel - a figure they should idolize given that she's Germany's first female Chancellor - about how easy it really isn't to suppress sensitive information (about a migrant rape crisis, for example) in the information age and the political consequences of trying and failing to do so.

In any event, feminism as a credible force for moral politics is living on borrowed time now.  The fact that many self identified feminist women are attracted to and have sex with men, conform to western beauty standards and even get married testifies to the likelihood that it is now about signalling and telegraphing one's liberal virtues in social media spaces that require such behaviors, rather than a way of life or a political platform.  For the most privileged and well positioned people in the world to lecture anyone about the evils of their privilege is a joke that can only be played straight due to the sheer magnitude of its absurdity.  In short, it's become the left's equivalent to what Christianity is on the right.

It seems to me as though feminism is in need of a reboot.

And if you think that I don't have to right to say that due to the fact that I am a white cishet male, you've proven exactly why feminism does need a reboot.  Think of that as a needed counterpart to Lewis's Law.  Which itself is further proof of feminism's need of a reboot.

What would an "alt-feminism" look like?  Lord knows, it's needed.  And it's likely that present day feminism, for all its absurdity, will not disappear any time soon unless a better model is put forward.  I do not have the answer now, except that the question is long overdue in the asking.

SJWs are the new fascists

In his 2004 book The Anatomy of Fascism, author Robert Paxton comes to this as a final definition of fascism:

A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity in which a mass based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

He also lists a number of mobilizing passions:

• A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions. 

• The primacy of the group, towards which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and the subordination of the individual to it;

• The belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against its enemies both internal and external; 

• Dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict and alien influences. 

• The need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible or by exclusionary violence if necessary. 

• The need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group's historical destiny; 

• The superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason; 

• The beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success;

• The right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess within a Darwinian struggle.

Paxton gives a pretty good and workable definition of fascism here. And except for the point about the authority of a single, inevitably male chieftain, this describes the regressive left SJWs, or what they are in the process of becoming, almost perfectly. And don't be fooled: there IS a leadership in the social justice warrior movement.  These ideologues and their silly theories turn up suspiciously simultaneously with suspiciously similar copy-pasta sloganeering for it all to be coincidence.  The lack of honesty and forthrightness in this movement is still one more reason not to trust it.

They are as much the real fascists these days as their alt-right enemies are. They are the far right in perfect disguise. They are obsessed with culture and identity. They, the SJWs, with their obsessions with cultural appropriations and white privilege, are completely absorbed in protecting the racial purity of the non-white races.

Do not be fooled by the "leftist" pretense of the SJWs. The fascists had a quasi socialist quality to them too. This is fascism, plain and simple. Notice how academia and mass media support the regressive left. Would academia and mass media support truly progressive or revolutionary elements? The SJWs protect the interests of capital by keeping activist vigor focused on cultural and moral purity. This is exactly what fundamentalists and fascists do. The fascists of 1930s Europe exalted the white man. The SJWs today exalt minorities. Otherwise it's the same ideology. A compensatory cult of community purity with no concept of liberal ideas like individual freedom, or with any sense of economics, historical materialism or the like. 

Only unlike the neo-nazis of 4chan or Stormfront, "intersectional" feminists disguise their fascism with what are ostensibly our best ideas: inclusiveness, racial and gender equality and so on.  They are given a pass in academia and mainstream media that other schools of thought would never dream of.  But they are authoritarian to the core.

To question the SJW is not to be a heretic or a traitor, but a bigot and a reactionary. Which is really the 21st century's version of the same things.  And this new century is all the more bigoted and reactionary for it.

Progressivism and Romanticism

Elsewhere, I had the following to say about the alt-left vs. mainstream progressivism.

I’ll submit as a defining characteristic of the alternative left vs. the more mainstream progressives is that the alt-left is much more skeptical of the transcendentalist underpinnings of a lot of leftist thought, especially post 1960s. We are, at heart, a push to bring enlightenment rationalism back to the center of leftist thought and activism.

Transcendentalism – the kind originating back in 19th century New England, had its roots in European Romanticism, and is marked by a kind of idealistic utopianism. Religion and science alike were distrusted, in favor of subjective personal intuition and creativity. Nature and people considered “closer to the earth” (indigenous peoples and women) tended to be idealized. 

Emotion and intuition were extolled as being a kind of liberation from the bonds of strict empiricism. People were thought of as naturally good but corrupted by overly rationalized institutions and belief systems, against which struggle was seen in idealized terms. 

I suspect that the alt left’s appeal is to people with liberal sensibilities but who are off-put by romanticist elements in mainstream progressivism. This is marked by the progressive’s tendency to go beyond mere equal rights for “marginalized” peoples and into flagrant idealization of them. 

Women, immigrants, people of color, indigenous people, Muslims, Buddhists, LGBT people and so on are not necessarily viewed as superior to white Christian (or atheist) males (although they can be) but as being less corrupted by the soul destroying rationalism of capitalism, objectivism and/or Christian theology, which is thought to instill in the white male an oppressive, dominating mentality. 

I find this kind of thinking to absolutely pervade post modern progressive thought. It is anathema to me, and I think the rise of the as yet embryonic alt-left is kind of rationalist and realist reaction to the romanticist conquest of materialism on the left.