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

submitted 3 weeks ago by yunqihao@hexbear.net to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7373861

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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[-] queermunist@lemmy.ml 39 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism goes in-depth into this.

There's an entire industry of ideological production to create non-revolutionary "Marxists" that reject the contributions of non-Western Marxist theorists and revolutionaries. Their job, which has been largely successful, is to recuperate Marxism into a form that is class collaborationist, aligned with Western hegemony, and (most importantly!) aligned against actually existing socialism.

They're not just online here in the West. They're respected in academia, they're on TV, and they're always publishing works.