Anarchism

3079 readers

32 users here now

Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.

Other anarchist comms

Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com

220

How do people actually fall into the "Tankie" mindset? (anarchist.nexus)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by stinky@anarchist.nexus to c/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com

455 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying "99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in 'Tiny Man Square' [...] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda [...]," I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn't change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.

I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.

Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] F_State@midwest.social 1 points 5 months ago (2 children)

me and the other libs

Is this a parody?

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

No. The great majority of MLs on Lemmy were born, raised, and still live in the imperial core, just like most other people on Lemmy. We got the same education, indoctrination, and propaganda as everyone else, so most of us started out as liberals with largely the same beliefs as everyone else. We believed all the same Cold War propaganda as everyone else. Investigating and peeling away the layers of propaganda and lies is actually a long, slow, and not particularly pleasant, effort.

[–] Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com 8 points 5 months ago

Speak for yourself, peeling off cold war propaganda is an incredibly liberating process for me. It actually gives me hope that revolution is possible and that not only things can potentially be done, but have already successfully been done.

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 5 months ago

At the time I was a lib even if I didn't identify as such