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 :)

  • chloroken@lemmy.mlEnglish
    33·
    14 days ago

    We call it a dictatorship. The term “authoritarian” was developed by the west to antagonize its enemies. It means nothing except “this country is bad” in the exact same way that “terrorist” means nothing except “this person is bad”.

    Read it again and again until you learn.

    • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
      21·
      14 days ago

      People who try to convince you that words are meaningless are never up to any good. I’m sure it makes you feel real good about yourself to pretend I’m too stupid to understand instead of smart enough to see that words that are often misused still have meaning.