Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.
Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union…
The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.
Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.
Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?
You probably don’t speak any of the languages from the countries you listed. Almost everything that you know about them you’ve learned from “western” sources. You, like many others come to the fediverse and are exposed to counter narratives for the first time in your life. This comes as a shock, and you think that such people must be crazy, paid shills or bots. I encourage you to stick around, and actually read what people are saying.
Also, don’t mistake nuance for unqualified support. Do I like Iran’s government? No, but that doesn’t really matter. Right now my government (who does far greater harm to the world than any others you mentioned), is killing people there. I know from my experience and knowledge of history, that the US “intervening” is not going to end up improving the lives of the people there.
I speak some languages they listed. I lived in some countries they listed. If anything “western sources” often underestimate shit that happened and happens there.
You probably also don’t speak all those languages and get your sources from narratives that were translated to your language by propaganda wings of those countries.
You’re not immune to propaganda.
I never claimed to be immune. What I’m saying is that if you spend your whole life enconsed in a bubble of all-pervasive propaganda, don’t be so dismissive when you finally encounter perspectives and information from outside that narrative.
Conversely, when you grew disillusioned with your own bubble, and encountered propaganda from “the other side”, don’t immediately trust them. Two things can be true or false at once. Two terrible things can be terrible differently.
Sure, but I really don’t think that’s what this is about. As I said, we have a lot of westerners here who are unaccustomed to information from outside their gov approved narratives. Swinging wildly the other way (at least temporarily) is probably healthy and reasonable. Throwing up your hands and saying “both sides bad” while conveniently sharing a POV with the US state department really isn’t.
I’d like to think I have the ability to hate both equally, even though they’re each distinctly evil and wrong.
I don’t know. I’ve seen way too many times how ‘both-sidesing’ ends up benefiting the main villain. I think that you don’t realize that your consent is being manufactured. What good does it do for a US citizen to criticize the government of Iran, at a time when our government is waging an illegal war on them? It only furthers the propaganda narrative that our military actions are justified in some way. Whatever crimes they have committed there pale in comparison to the crimes committed by the US-- one of a very short list of countries that Westerners have any business criticizing.