It's not about if an ideology uses authority to entrench itself. Every state and organization with any power in the world does that. It's about who wields that authority against who, and for what purpose. We generally consider Hitler and Mussolini to be exceptionally "authoritarian", but in reality the only thing exceptional about them was that they directed that authority inward instead of just outward, the latter of which we in the west are all more accustomed to. They took the full-spectrum colonial violence typically reserved for non-white people outside their borders, and directed it also towards white people within their borders. This (and only this) is what we have been taught to view as an unacceptable aberration.

TLDR Authority itself is not "good" or "evil". Authority is just a weapon like any other, and what makes it heroic or repugnant is who wields it against who.

[–] mitram2@lemmy.pt 1 points 3 days ago

I agree with you and don't feel it contradicts the opinion that "authoritarian" is more than a mere tool against communists

Either way, and as I've said in another comment, this feels mostly like discussing semantics, but I'm enjoying the civilised conversation