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When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of \u201c<\/span>The Feminine Mystique<\/span><\/a>,\u201d Betty Friedan\u2019s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name.<\/em> Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:<\/span><\/p>\n The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one\u2019s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.\u201d<\/span><\/blockquote>\n The Alt-Left Is Real<\/strong><\/p>\n There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a <\/span>myth<\/span><\/a>, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. <\/span>I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are \u2018pejoratives\u2019 used only by the right to attack the left. <\/span><\/p>\n In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) \u2014 for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?<\/span><\/p>\n When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth. <\/span><\/p>\n It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. <\/span>It claims to speak for the marginalized<\/span><\/a>, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.<\/span><\/p>\n It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom. <\/span><\/p>\n Now\u2026imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.<\/span><\/p>\n What’s in a Name?<\/strong><\/p>\n I can\u2019t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn\u2019t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is. <\/span><\/p>\n In his video, <\/span>Rubin offers<\/span><\/a> that it doesn\u2019t matter which term we use, what\u2019s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. \u201cWhatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also <\/span>made the following observation last year<\/span><\/a>: <\/span><\/p>\n Today\u2019s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn\u2019t liberal.\u201d <\/span><\/blockquote>\n Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:<\/span><\/p>\n