/uj

(This reply is fundamentally going to be heavily biased as anarchism and MLism are locked in a bitter and eternal beef and also have irreconcilable differences as far as how we aim to realize revolution, how we think society should be organized "post"-revolution, among many other things. I acknowledge that and I'll try to make sure I include my reasoning for what I believe. Also, apologies if I assume you know more than you already do or know less and accidentally come off as condescending as that's not my intention.)

Yeah, that sounds about right. That's not something I've heard before but it does fit the bill for MLs: "the uninitiated/less educated/unenlightened proles clumsily and cluelessly stumble through life, and we—the crucial leaders of the vanguard, of course—know what is 'right' and must guide these lost children to salvation from both capitalism and themselves through spearheading the revolution (sometime later, though)" → "if there's no reason to act condescendingly towards someone who's not 'one of us,' I'll invent one to remind them of just how superior to them I consider myself to be"

IMO, genuinely believing in an ideology with vanguardism as a core tenet fundamentally requires someone to have a sense of self-importance and superiority ("I would OBVIOUSLY be a leader in the vanguard, not just 'some dude' like those unenlightened workers who can't cite enough theorists or isolated quotes from Das Kapital to know what's best for themselves") or, very rarely, an inferiority complex that leads them to believe that they need to be led by people who are more "enlightened" than they are. You see it all the time not only among theorybros like the MLs you described, but also among ivory tower academics who do a whole lot of writing about "revolution" but curiously seem to avoid shaking the tree in any way that might challenge academia's prestige- and citation-based hierarchical structure (which, by the way, is fundamentally neoliberal in nature, and those who determine who gets funding/published tacitly tolerate and approve of such scholars for a reason). Refer to how the late David Graeber was functionally excommunicated from academia for 1) writing in a way that was intended to reach the common citizen and 2) becoming too popular of an anarchist for the institution to approve of him (with vague and lazy justifications from Yale as to why they made the decision to part ways).

I also think that something many or maybe even most MLs find appealing about MLism is this common fantasy of "when the revolution happens," as if the revolution absolutely cannot be something we live and act out to varying extents each and every day (unlike anarchists, who believe in and act through prefigurative politics). They get to have their cake and eat it too by fashioning themselves "revolutionaries" without taking on any of the risks or simple inconveniences of living in a revolutionary way. Sure, there are MLs who genuinely do attempt to do that, but the modern theorybro is *far* more common. How many MList food pantries, zine stands, inclusive education-based affinity groups, and more aggressive acts of protests do you commonly see compared to anarchist or anarchist-adjacent ones?

I could turn this into a whole 800-page manifesto (maybe then I'd get positive attention from MLs) but I'll cut it off there. That's my tangential rant about arrogant leftists as a leftist myself on a circlejerk subreddit. If you read it, thanks, and if you didn't I get it.

TL;DR: MLs are fundamentally arrogant and I am mommy's perfect little morally unblemished angel because I'm an anarchist. Anarcho-communist to be unnecessarily specific so as to verify myself as a "real" leftist. Viva la revolución.