I know that it’s Chinese and it translates roughly as “white/Western left.” Looking it up on the Chinese wiki, Google translate gives me… well, this:
It is used to describe people who support policies such as the abolition of the death penalty , [ 3 ] animal protection , environmental protection , body equality , skin equality , LGBT , feminism , vegetarianism , marijuana decriminalization , euthanasia , abortion and immigration , that is, people with cultural leftist ideas in the European and American world.
This paints baizuo as something akin to American conservative terms like “woke” or “SJW.” On the other hand, I’ve seen baizuo on Hexbear a few times, but in those contexts it seemed to mean something closer to “succdem” or “Western chauvinist” rather than the definition above. Obviously, a term used to insult feminists, LGBT people, and environmentalists would be incredibly out of place on this site, hence why I’m asking about it rather than taking a machine-translated Wiki article at face value.
Baizuo was either came up by or came up by a fan of some reactionary netizen who’s famous for some unhinged ideology called Auntology. You can read a summary of Auntology for yourself. It’s just unhinged reactionary shit. A weird part of it is that he actually wants to balkanize China. I think a lot of those balkanized China maps floating around were made by his shitty fandom. So the weird thing about him is he isn’t a Chinese ultranationalist (he doesn’t think China should exist) or a Han chauvinist (he apparently thinks Han isn’t a real ethnicity) but some Chinese reactionary who wants to balkanize China.
The bai in baizuo is also from baichi, which means idiot. So, baizuo doesn’t just mean white left but also idiotic left. A more fitting translation of baizuo would be white leftoid or white left*rd.
That term was always sus.
Auntology as a handle is really funny though, if it’s a pun on hauntology
That’s not how Chinese language works. Just because 白 (bái) can be part of a word that means “idiot” doesn’t mean that it is infused with the meaning of idiocy. That’s like saying “the bai in baizuo is also from mingbai, which means clear/reasonable so baizuo doesn’t just mean white left but also reasonable left”. Which is obviously absurd lol. In most contexts, 白 means “white” and nothing else, although there are obviously many cultural associations with the colour white that are layered on top of that.
The connection between baizuo and baichi was established by those reactionaries. Like, you can say that baizuo is just an abbreviated form of baichi zuopai (idiotic left). “bai = white and zuo = left, so baizuo = white left” is something you would say if you just ran each character individually through Google Translate. Nobody calls the Black Panthers “heizuo” even though the two characters translated separately is “Black left.”
My broader point is that the term, due to its reactionary origins, isn’t as innocently translated as “white left.”
Is this your hypothesis or did you read this somewhere? The wiki article in the OP says 是”白人”与“左派”两个标签结合组成的称号, i.e., it’s a grouping of “white person” and “left wing”. I’m not saying you’re wrong, it’s just that I didn’t get that vibe as someone who speaks Chinese, especially because 白痴 is more of a clinical/bookish term for idiot and not something I heard people say very often in everyday life. I only went to uni in China and I’m not a native speaker though.
Hmm a “soyboy wojak” situation
Or how “aquaponics” is “aquaculture hydroponics.”
Baizuo is definitely a term that I’ve seen widely used on leftist circles on Chinese internet. And when I say Chinese leftists, a large portion of them are the nationalistic, anti-LGBT people who really hate American and Western imperialism. These are the type of people who are obsessed with geopolitics. Most normal Chinese people don’t care about politics at all (and a reminder that most normal people don’t obsess about the same shit we’re obsessed about here).
I am currently actively avoiding Chinese internet. Since Trump won, my bilibili feed has been filled with videos with millions of views talking about how Trump is finally going to take on the “woke movement” (觉醒运动), the weird obsession with Elon Musk (have you seen that AI video of Musk vs the court eunuchs with millions of views?), people who really hate Biden and how he deserved to lose, and people who think Trump is a comrade who will help take down the US empire.
American politics is like an entertainment in China right now and the diversity of opinions of it is a complete mess. There are some good analyses for sure but also many that are no different than a reactionary screed.
As someone who lost family to that cracker’s crime bill, I absolutely would agree with that take tbh. I hope I live to see the entirety of the Biden lineage die out uncontinued.
Comrade? No. Take down the US empire? Maybe lmao
There’s an online obsession with musk on parts of China? Damm that’s sad
I mean, Tesla is still the best selling pure EV in China (~500k sold from Q1-3 so far, a comparable number to the US) but it might get overtaken by BYD soon (and already massively outcompeted if you take into account the lower priced hybrids). There really is a weird obsession with Elon Musk that I cannot explain lol.
And this makes the whole DOGE cost cutting thing even more absurd because if the US goes into recession, the demand for Teslas in both countries will certainly plunge, and Elon would have effectively killed his own business. Would have been funny if not for the fact that millions of people will also lose their jobs because they let this idiot dictate the fiscal policy.
I was unaware, thanks for the insight! I thought domestic EVs were already bigger in China.
Elon won’t be dictating policy, he’ll be dictating who in government gets purged. The job he’s angling for is to be the one to determine who goes and who stays.
He’ll determine who survives to dictate policy.
You know how when a company wants to save money and it sacks 60% of the workforce? That’s what Musk wants to be in charge of doing to the US government and all of its agencies.
Not Chinese (nationality) but there are gay, trans, internationalist people who love geopolitics, maps, etc!!! Dozens of us!!! (Actually far more than dozens, it’s more common than you’d think)
Yes there are pockets of us like in Hexbear but if you go out and talk to normal people about why Stalin did nothing wrong, they’ll look at you like some crazy conspiracy theorists lol
shit I’d better make a different plan for my upcoming visit to China
From my understanding, most Chinese people, like most people elsewhere, aren’t really political, and don’t really want to get involved in long discussions about politics. The “I just want to grill” mentality is universal.
I’m totally kidding I’d much rather learn about the person I’m talking to and their life. I’m not going to bring up politics (other than wearing a sweatshirt with a huge CPC emblem on it)
I’d be the same. I’d totally go up to the old grannies playing mahjong in the park and try to chat with them in broken mandarin.
So, like, nazbol except they’re most of the Chinese left? Is that what you’re saying?
Not really, nationalism is hard coded into the anti-colonial left. Mao, Fidel, Ho etc. were all nationalists and patriots.
Anti-LGBT is because they see LGBT movement as another arm of Western cultural imperialism used to impose national and cultural oppression onto the countries being colonized (with the goal of forcing countries to open up their markets to foreign capital, through direct influence on their societal values).
This is why the anti-imperialist left in the Global South is usually very protective about their traditional cultures and values from being eroded by imported Western NGOs. If there is ever going to be progress for LGBT rights, it will have to come from within (like Cuba, for example).
What I am saying is that the more anti-imperialist/anti-US a person is, the more they are likely to exhibit these traits, which at times borders on being reactionary. It’s a real mess.
The anti-imperialist left in the Global south being historically anti-LGBT because they see it as an arm of western oppression is a wild statement
Not historically, but since the 1990s when Western NGOs freely entered many countries to promote “human rights” and “freedom” and “democracy” following the fall of the USSR. The 1990s was truly the prime time for neoliberalism.
Explain skin equality then
I don’t think it’s proper to dilute the usage of nazbol in the same manner that fascist has been as a label for everything that has reactionary and/or chauvinistic characteristics.
If anything I’m strengthening the term because these people have an actual presence (?) and potentially have influence over a state, unlike Nazbols.
I’ll agree to disagree then
They’re only nazbol, in so far as that “nationalistic” part refers to national chauvinism… it could mean something more defensive
I know exactly what you’re talking about lmao
auntology? ain’t that what mark fisher was always on about?
It’s right wing term used by a rightoid minority as far as I can tell
Words can have different meanings in different contexts. I’ve heard some of my Chinese leftist friends use it to mock western leftists in the same way we do here. Might’ve been a reactionary that came up with it but once it’s out in the world it’s a free-for-all.
Ehhhh, when the definitions are so close but the differences are so important that gets a little shaky, because confusing the two definitions is extremely easy. A lot of the context in which I can imagine a hexbear user using the word would make total sense with the more reactionary definition, just as much as with the better and less reactionary one, so it would be easy to misinterpret as more reactionary. And even if everyone involved knows what it means it could open up wiggle room for reactionaries to slip into site discussions, by using the term’s plausible deniability to get away with terrible statements.
“Western chauvinistic leftist” or language equivalent is generally just clearer and seems to have less murky and questionable of a background.
Plus some words just inherently emanate Hitler particles. I don’t know if this counts as such a word necessarily, but the definition given on this post comes close enough to extremely strange Nazi-Bolshevik brainworms to be uncomfortable. If the term literally is referring to mental capacity and not levels of chauvinism or evil than it is definitely a Hitler particle emanating phrase.
I’m sure your friends mean no harm, it just isn’t something I personally think should be given the complete green light to be used. (Here, probably fine in friend contexts and stuff) Maybe like a amber light for caution.
USAmericans insisting that they are “not like other leftists”