Anarchism

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

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) by stinky@anarchist.nexus to c/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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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 :)

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[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There is no one answer. Dr. Bob Altemeyer‘s book “The Authoritarians” sheds some light on the psychology.

Regardless of what you think about vanguardism as a means to leftist ends, they also seem to miss the logical point that vanguardism and the state are meant to wither away. It is a theoretical rightist means to a leftist ends, it is not itself leftist.

But again, if you read The Authoritarians you find that logic and reason do not matter to them. Trying to reason with an authoritarian is pointless.