Ask Lemmy

Tankies gonna tank. And those two instances constitute two thirds of the tankie triad.

"US bad, so every enemy of US must be good"

Basically it's a lot of that, plus a bunch of authoritarian and contrarian bootlickers who think they're leftists.

They have this quasi-religious cult vibe that makes them like this:

1. Sacred texts that give answers to everything.
2. Saints and prophets. I mean - they mostly identify themselves by someone else's name - e.g. stalinists, trotskyists, maoists etc.
3. Aggression to outsiders. Building a good sect requires that, it's how you keep folks inside - just make them hate the outside.

That's not a scientific conclusion on my part, rather vibe-based one, and some conspiracy theory communities can also be described in that way. Which also leads to next conclusion - they're kept in by a sense of community, and since that community is built around fringe and often cringe ideas - it only leads to doubling down on ideas that seem stupid or dangerous or simply not thought through to any sensible person.

It seems to me like they take the wrong lesson from leftism, which is that the US is usually the bad guy in most situations and they represent oligarchy interests by default, then extrapolate that to other countries opposed to the US being the good guys by default. Nuance and taking the facts at face value for every situation is much harder to explain to others as an ideology.

They've also been infected with a cynicism that makes them open to grifts similar to the right. Our best fighters can't be perfect, so they try and rip support off of them. Jimmy Dore, the Aussie green party, Jackson Hinkel, the Caleb sex pest dude, they all have criticism of everyone else while providing no real ideas of their own and how to get there. They're just propped up as a distraction rather than a movement.

Because social media is where nuance goes to die - and that applies to both MLs and us.

A lot of them overcorrect from falling for capitalist propaganda into falling for USSR propaganda

For example, about North Korea. Claims about it are probably exaggerated to some degree, but I sincerely doubt it's secretly the success story at least one ML I had the displeasure of talking to seems to believe it to be.

The truth is nuanced. Nuance is hard. Blaming everything on the West is easy.

On the other hand, MLs themselves are also more nuanced than we often give them credit.

Unfortunately, like nuance, communication is also hard. Especially in hot-headed situations like this.

I think the defense of Stalin comes at the end of a particular path that can be very appealing to people for various reasons.

One potential driver of it is that ML/Stalinist groups are not too dissimilar from a secular religion; it has a group of people ready to welcome you as a friend and ally as long as you agree to a certain worldview and a very specific reading of history from approved texts that always pose historical Maxrist-Leninists as righteous figures who didn't really do anything that bad, and if they did, it was for the greater good, and justified.

Those texts can even make a certain amount of sense if you're disillusioned with the status quo, and distrust western media. It's also likely extremely comforting to believe that while the western world is fucked up and exploitative, there are at the same time powerful allies elsewhere in the form of the AES states, which in their view are making steady progress towards the promised socialist utopia.

So ML groups can offer a feeling of belonging, friendship, a comforting worldview, and the belief that if we just follow the directions of long dead prophet-like historical figures (like Lenin or Stalin), then we will someday have heaven on earth. These are extremely appealing aspects to someone who may be very lonely, or who may have suffered a severe trauma and may not have their basic needs met (which may also be what leads to some people being attracted to the MAGA cult)

To someone well versed in history and a desire to find multiple viewpoints for a historical event to avoid propaganda bubbles, the true nature of ML/Stalinism and its authoritarianism becomes self-evident. But for those who never went down that path and are in a vulnerable state, a 'scientific' cult offering you hope, meaning, and companionship is very easy to fall into, and thus willingly self-delude themselves to attain in-group status.

Just like with normal religions/cults, once they are deep inside it, they are heavily encouraged by the in-group to suspect any outside information that challenges their narratives or isn't approved by the group, and thus the cognitive dissonance they could create if looked at more objectively can mostly be avoided.

Also similar to religions; a ML member is strongly encouraged not to have doubts about the validity of the approved sources/texts/history. If doubts are voiced, the group will attempt to re-affirm the validity of the texts (keep the faith). But if that fails and the member continues to voice doubts, they are likely to be ejected from the group, which is very traumatic for most people, but especially so if there is no other support groups to lean on. This likely results in many keeping doubts to themselves, or convincing themselves those doubts are just CIA lies, similar to how Christians try to reject their own doubts with the concept of Satan spreading lies to tempt a Christian from their faith through logic or archeology.

How about Western , chinese amd russian imperialism is bad?

All of lemmy is a gradual progression to the left. Starts at the average liberal and stretches all way down to them. Then because Republicans/right wing people don't exist here they get to call liberals nazis. Someone always has to be a nazi and someone always has to be a good guy. They think they are the good guys.

I have conversed all the time onthe platforms and with users without it coming upt.