I'm not one to post often. I'm not really one to rant to strangers online often, even. But, after migrating from r*ddit to lemmy, I've had this on my mind and this seemed like the place to vent.
I see discourse about tankies constantly on Lemmy. This struck me as odd. Why are these so called tankies such a threat? Why do I see people calling themselves left-wing and attacking tankies more voraciously than neoliberals and, sometimes, even fascists?
I think I know the answer, just as well as most people who will read this. These are the Zizeks of the world: people who do indeed think in a left-wing oriented way, but fail to recognise that they're also Western to the core and the biases that come with that.
I sincerely care about this much less than the actual reason I'm making this post. That is: why don't these people notice that their talking points, left-oriented as they may seem, always end up supporting US allies or attacking US enemies? I mean, do these people not see that Ukraine winning the war is a boon to the US, regardless of who is "right" in that conflict? Many other such cases, but I think I've made my point, or, rather, my confusion, clear.
That's it. That's the post.
To accept that your world view has been informed, for the better part of your entire life, by lies and slanderous claims, and that every defense you've put up for your world view has also been a defense of the atrocities that have been hidden from you, is likely one of the hardest hills to climb for almost every person looking for answers. I think most people never see that hill. I think for a subsection of people who do see the hill, they were brought there by someone who has seen the other side of it.
The more you have gained from these lies and slander, the better your position in life is, the harder it would be to walk up that hill. All of those material benefits you've had since birth drag you backwards, like the chains of Jacob Marley. For most of those people, they become what you describe, chauvinists. They become chauvinists because it would require them to admit they were wrong, It would require them to admit that their gains are ill-gotten, and it would require them to see their fellow citizens as worth saving.
The lies told to us are powerful, intergenerational lies. They are like a curse cast on the whole population. Breaking that curse requires starring into the deepest, darkest pit of horrors. Horrors that would make Hitler blush. The reaction to these horrors changes you, and you either turn away, tightening the grip of the curse, or you break free.
GOOD post
Thanks comrade.