I believe it is primarily a result of ignorance and self-denial.

At least in the USA, a lot of people went their entire lives unaware that there is any difference between liberals and leftists, and used the labels interchangeably for themselves.

Then, at some point along the way, they encountered actual leftists online and were told differently, so rather then confront that they've been accepting and perpetuating a falsehood about themselves all this time, they find some "legit" leftist label they can cosplay as instead. Engaging deeper with their new adopted costume label is something that hasn't happened yet for them.

being a non-marxist leftist is so fucking funny to me. does that mean a pro capitalism leftist?

A lot of self described anarchists do seem to loop back to liberal beliefs, but they might just not actually know what the fuck anarchism is because i know some anarchists and theres nothing lib about them.

Its the difference between understanding dialectical materialism and not understanding it.

I have a liberal relative who agrees with all my shared insight, but then gets fooled by anti-korean atrocity propaganda against the DPRK. Someone who will read about materialism but then righteously declare that morality is an innate human trait, telling me that materialism isnt correct because theres no argument against idealism that convinces him.

Mostly they are "true crime" enjoyers. They enjoy leeching off of "woke" political literature because it makes them feel better but won't make the emotional work to actually internalize themselves in it. These people are emotional vampires who feed off the misery and the iconography.

But mostly its just that they're terrified of seeing the world. It all comes back to their fear.

Your post reminded me of this

I think you're right that they do it as a defense mechanism, but it's just as much a defense against things that actually becoming communists would cause as it is a defense from the bad image of liberalism. It's because actually taking the plunge into opposing NATO, defending AES, opposing imperialism, and generally deprogram themselves would require them to:

• Not only have disagreements with their reactionary family members and friends, but now also their liberal ones, reducing their social support network
• Become genocide deniers in the eyes of polite society if they're pressed on topics like the Holodomor and the Uyghur genocide. This particular point also applies to a ton of other specific points of anticommunist propaganda that they would have to be able to identify as false in the first place (how often do you put yourself in the kind of headspace to question whether a historical event like the Armenian genocide is accurately portrayed by your education? would you take the social risk of deciding to become a revisionist on it? would you trust that your revisionist position is actually based on the evidence and not your ideological bias?). Generally, it's very socially punishing to "defect" from the established historical narrative. In the case of the Polish person you mentioned in the other comment it's definitely worth noting that there's been a concerted effort by the European far right (especially in Eastern Europe) to construct the Double Genocide Theory to make the USSR to be just as bad as Nazi Germany. So to contradict the hegemonic anticommunist position is equivalent to becoming a Holocaust denier. Not a lot of people are willing to take that social risk.
• Unlearn how they see the world in a more fundamental level than the simplistic anticapitalism that you see from the soft left crowd. Fundamentally, a lot of radlib types who nominally oppose capitalism still see the world through a neoliberal postmodern perspective that they've only subtracted free market capitalism from, but is otherwise untouched. Replacing that with something new is hard because one of the traps of postmodernity is making people think that believing in anything is cringe.

Welcome aboard!

And don't worry this is absolutely the right place to discuss things like this.

It's all about "image" for liberals, they want to be seen as a good person, so they adopt leftist aesthetics in order to seem like a good person without actually needing to do anything, at most they'll donate to charity. It's about making themselves feel good for being a "good person" without actually wanting to put in the effort to help others and actually be a good person.

This is one of the reasons they are so hostile against actual leftists and insist that they are as "left as they come" or "the real leftists." because if they claim to be a good person while doing nothing and there is someone over there, actively trying to make things better for everyone, then it makes them look bad by comparison, so they need to attack that person and find some excuse as to why they are actually "worse" than the liberal, and therefore the liberal is still a good person.

I think the answer to this depends a lot on the kind of people you are talking about, by which I mean what their social position is. For a lot of people, "anarchist," "libertarian socialist," etc. is basically a consumer identity or similar category of personal aesthetic. This is especially true in my experience of young people and academics, though of course it manifests differently in how they discuss the topic in either case. They are still manifestly liberals, they just treat leftism as a matter of fashion.

Shitty lemmy users are not the first time that I've seen self-described "anarchists" do literal Nazi apologia to attack the Soviet Union, people actually say that shit in the real world too, albeit much more rarely. I struggle to care about people attacking Stalin or whatever, but the people I have in mind were all downplaying or expressing "positive aspects" of Operation Barbarossa.

A lot of people in neoliberal societies are politically defeatist and they are only not-capitalist-realist in terms of utopian fantasies that they can never connect to any sort of real-world politics beyond making cooperatives and giving to charity. And maybe calling for a general strike for which the infrastructure does not remotely exist.

I agree with what others like Luke said too, this is just something that I've personally seen too much.

Edit: Oh yeah, and like Damascusart says, because liberalism is the only "real" opinion, being a leftish liberal becomes the ultimate Good Person position and people who pride themselves on that sometimes do literally feel threatened by communist criticisms of their professed beliefs. This is again something that I can attest to real world experience with, though I wouldn't call it ubiquitous in most lib spaces.

Sources to learn for about the non-communist left a.k.a the Compatible left.

Books

1. Western Marxism: How It Was Born, How It Died, How It Can Be Reborn.
2. Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?

Articles

1. Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism.
2. The Function of the Compatible Left Seen in Its Attacks on the Venezuelan Revolution.
3. Left-wing anticommunism.

Videos

1. How the CIA supports a 'compatible left' to aid US imperialism.
2. On the 'Compatible Left' (Part 1) - Gabriel Rockhill Compilation.
3. The Unspoken Ban on Principled Socialist Writers

Yes

Sorry you had to deal with that. It sounds like a disappointing experience. I hope you feel welcome here.

To add to all the good answers already given: there's also a lot of racism involved. There are people who genuinely think of themselves as leftists and who might not think they are being racist, but the internalized chauvinism still clouds their judgement. They are unable to fully feel the weight and importance of non-western/non-white peoples thoughts and emotions. Those just register less to them and feel distant and less real. Even to self-proclaimed anti-racists. That's one contributing reason to why they don't notice the contradiction in their values, which you mentioned.

One antidote to that is genuine human connection to bridge the racist empathy gap. Historic materialist analysis helps a lot too, of course, but it's not always enough in my experience. Look for the ones who have close non-western friends, partners and family who are affected by NATO wars, they tend to learn faster.

Yes. They morally understand that liberalism is bad but they don't take the step to stop actually being liberals. What they do instead is wear leftism as an identity and aesthetic while still fundamentally politically acting and being liberals.

It's the same as the hippy culture of dressing up in peace and love outfits. Without taking it further to an actual change in political activity it will be a phase that many of them eventually grow out of. Arguably a lot of those hippies achieved more surrounding opposition to the Vietnam war than the current wave of aesthetic leftists, and yet those hippies grew out of it.

The problem is individuals that see politics as an aesthetic to wear to project that they are a moral person to others rather than actually changing the way they engage in political action.

I think your diagnosis of a self defense mechanism is correct. It is an emotional barrier that they erect to protect themselves from emotionally participating at the same level they are physically participating. If that makes sense. But it’s all just a byproduct of going down the wrong mental road. You can see it in the inverse: they refuse to rhetorically support AES or view themselves as socialists because they do not want to suffer the emotional consequences of being seen as “supporting oppression” that they do not materially support so it’s all meaningless anyway.

I think it’s also a symptom of living in the imperial core and also having sham democracy. The state acts without your permission constantly, it impoverishes the people to enrich an oligarchy, you feel profoundly alienated and disconnected, and as a consequence you imbue greater meaning on what stances or opinions you have. It also is reminiscent of work culture and how “don’t blame me I just work here” is a means of keeping yourself intact.

I'll go against the stream this time and say that I don't particularly believe it's a defense mechanism, but a logical result of propaganda in the west.

Western "leftists" rationally do have good moral tendencies: equality is in principle underpinning their worldview, they want welfare state for everyone, freedom of speech, feminism and anti-racism, LGBTQ rights... The problem is that they've been endlessly propagandized against all of those things, and so they aren't aware of their biases.

We've been primed against immigration and Muslims and black people, we've been primed against China and Russian and Iran, primed against Islam, primed to be misogynistic and to oversexualize women, primed to be anticommunist and to disregard the failures of capitalism and overfocus on the shortcomings of actually existing socialism... We live in capitalist realism, the thought that history has ended, that capitalism is forever, and that the only possible way to make things better is either through reformism (typical lib) or through isolation from capitalist in little communities (many western "anarchists").

We've been told time and time again that communism is Stalin and that Stalin is Hitler. We've been told that communism is hunger and repression and militarism and authoritarianism. We've also been told that capitalism is gradually improving the lives of people since its inception, that development is happening everywhere, and we aren't taught that capitalism is based on the imperialist exploitation of the global south.

Liberalism is a rather logical, moral and rational conclusion with the information most people have at their disposal, and it's very socially acceptable, the problem is in the information at the disposal of people. The illogical, immoral and irrational conclusion is conservatism and right wing. What we need to change is therefore in my opinion the information that people have. We need to drill into peoples' heads our discourse, our historical evidence, and our materialist based understanding of reality.

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.

Obviously, it’s hard to speak generally about people in these broad strokes.

However, what I’ve noticed is there’s this instinct with people entering leftist/socialist politics to want to find a “new path” to socialism that avoids identifying with the USSR and AES countries. So they see opposition to those countries while doing a perfunctory criticism of the West as “fighting imperialism of all kinds” without realizing that AES countries are nowhere near the hegemony of the liberal imperial core. It’s an idealist view that sees everything as “marketplace of ideas” and doesn’t consider the material.

I'm not disagreeing with the other responses but I would add a simpler explanation as well. Which is that everyone starts somewhere and there is no way to accomplish a total ideological shift in a single moment. So it is expected to find individuals who have undergone some change but it is inconsistent. And it's easier to make superficial changes so that would come first. Maybe stop there, if there is no pressure to continue.

I think a lot of people, they grow up in whatever their ideological context is, and at some point they realize it is not comprehensively ideal. Then when looking for a better way to be, will look for people who seem to share critiques and even have something resembling a plan, way forward, or vision for the future. Whatever those people are calling themselves becomes a label to associate with.

I think anarchism has had a bunch of moments over the past while where they seemed to be the people with their heads screwed on properly. Anarchists were prominent at Occupy, which whatever we say about it now, was formative for a generation of western leftists. Involved with the various attempts to reinvigorate the union movement, taking an outsider approach to avoid collaboration with capital. They have analysis to describe police and prisons that was highly salient to BLM. And then about the non-profit industrial complex that severely limited the efficacy of same. When Me Too happened, anarchists had a pre-existing body of thought on topics of consent and sexuality ready to roll. Anarchists have been associated with trans liberation and the best parts of the general LGBT movements. Antifa (ARA and similar) were anarchist-led projects for a long time and when nazis came crawling out, anarchists were the first ones advocating the previously-unspeakable position of physically beating them back. Anarchist positions about electoralism are extremely digestible to a populace who sees little point in participating in sham elections. The concept of Mutual Aid is of course from Kropotkin and has been a long standing anarchist tradition. Harm reduction, sex worker organizing, drug reform, polyamory are zones that anarchists are able to combine a libertarian streak with social consciousness which sets them apart from the craven individualists. This is just off the top of my head and not comprehensive.

On top of all that, basically all cities that support anything that could call itself a left have a few anarchist people and groups who've been plugging away over the decades, doing anti poverty, direct action casework, publications, social spaces, art projects, vegan and animal rights, food not bombs, running co-ops etc. So a lot of people have some fond idea of anarchists who helped them out, were willing to risk being confrontational when needed or throw a kick ass party. Whereas marxists were often seen to be embroiled in strange factional disputes, aggressively selling newspapers, pointlessly esoteric armchair philosophizing, entryism into dead-end institutions, giving long speeches, academic or professional activists careerism, or being weird cults.

Since there is no mass movement to easily join in any case, everything is done one at a time. Often interpersonally. Now by the influencer and social medias too. Considering how marginal anarchism actually is, so far in the 21st century, anarchist ideas have disproportionately massive reach. So a lot of people will be calling themselves anarchists if they have found any of the above influences to be positive.

To be a marxist, there is an implication that you'd have to read and be able to defend marx. And probably lenin, mao and even more than that. To be an anarchist, there is no specific test or qualification. And since it is widely understood that all kinds of ideologies are wanting to use the anarchist label, you can get the shine off whatever is amenable to you, while easily disregarding anything you don't like.

I don't think it's defensive. I think the impulse is to move away from the prior liberal consensus; which is good. Anarchists are well positioned to pitch their ideas to people with a wide array of grievances, while keeping demands low. So it is an adaptation. The path can go on to other things, or it can stop shortly. If we wish to promote a longer path, then the only way is to stop depending on individual initiative for ideological indoctrination. Require external motivation through structure and organization.

Yes

Most of them want leftist policies that benefit theirself. Everyone else can be acceptable casualty. I suspect many realised they profit from imperialism and actually happy about it but too coward to admit it