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?
I’ve found this to be an interesting blind spot among Chinese comrades(or perhaps I’m a little jealous). A lot of you seem to genuinely struggle with the concept of just how…wilfully ignorant a lot of people are in the west and the rampant undercurrent of anti-intellectualism over here. People who question the system too much are never given answers, only punishments, so for most us it is ingrained to never think about or examine capitalism or liberalism too closely. They are treated like car noises or birdsong, just a kind of “background noise” of life, something that is always present and nothing can be done about them, but people will consider any discussion of them strange or unusual, and sometimes even react with outright hostility towards someone who questions liberalism. And this is just questioning it, actively opposing liberalism over here can ruin relationships, friendships, can get you fired from your job, so any socialists either have to “mask” around the liberals they spend most of their day interacting with, or else they will be socialists who still have a massive liberal blind spot and still effectively will be liberals, despite claiming to oppose capitalism. Liberalism isn’t really “taught” to us over here, we don’t have classes on it, it’s just all-encompassing and pushed onto everyone through osmosis.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense and I’m mainly asking this question and discussing in this comment section to try fix this exact blindspot you mention (at least somewhat) and I also get to practice my english which is a bonus.