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Do liberals adopt leftist personas to avoid confronting the consequences of liberalism? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 day ago by yunqihao@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

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This might be a silly question, so I want to preface it with an apology in advance and if you think there is a better place to ask please let me know.

I’ve come across a large number of self-described “anarchists” or “non-communist leftists,” or the like, mostly online,thanks to where I live (谢天谢地). But whenever you look a bit closer, the pattern is the same: underneath the aesthetics and language, it’s just liberalism. Pro-NATO positions, contempt toward the global periphery, and extremely reactionary responses when imperialism or capitalism are seriously questioned.

So my question is: Is adopting these leftist identities a kind of defensive mechanism (an attempt to distance themselves from the real-world damage caused by liberal ideology) or am I misunderstanding what’s actually going on?

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[–] 9to5@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The left (is a very big tent)

First of all (and I don’t have a problem with this) Hexbear as a website leans quite Marxist-Leninist when it comes to politics, with everything that entails. Because of that, if you look at Hexbear, you dont actually get a good representation of many Western leftists.

Marxist-Leninists and actual communist leftists do, of course exist in the West but a lot of people who call themselves leftists are some flavor of liberal or social democrat. Many people who identify as leftists dont hold particularly radical positions. Of course, theyll support some good things like free healthcare and education and maybe theyre pro-Palestine, but they often oppose countries they see as enemies of the West, such as the DPRK or Iran for example. Also the war in Ukraine turned a lot of these "leftists" into aggressive supporters of Nato.

Similarly, these “leftists” often care a lot about liberal democracy, and some even believe that capitalism can be reformed through electoral politics.

I myself consider the term "Leftist" a bit useless. Call yourself socialist, communist, anarchist etc but leftist is kinda aimless to me .

Anarchism is its whole own topic someone more educated should talk about (And I say this as someone who considers Anarchism to be a truly beautiful idea) not trying to be sectarian.