The Shock Doctrine, from back in 2007, was such a crucial book in understanding the misery of the post-9/11 neoconservative world at the time. I read it as a young man, and it explained so much to me about how capitalism upends systems around the globe, giving me the vocabulary to make sense of it all.
I’ll forever be grateful to Naomi Klein for being one of my favorite political and social writers. I hadn’t read No Logo, but the urgency of the lessons learned from Shock Doctrine and the leftover hellscape of the whining-down Bush era did make it seem back then that the tools were starting to be formed so we could begin forming a better system.
Since then, the world has somehow gotten even worse. It’s incredibly frustrating, because every one of us should know better. Yet something has happened to humanity since then–spoiler: it’s cell phones and social media–and while there have been some gains, on the whole it seems harder than ever to get people to be on the same page and make sense of it all.
For the post-2015 world, the post-2020 world (that is, the post-COVID world), Naomi Klein has at last written another brilliant book to capture the current zeitgeist. At the same time, it’s quite the personal memoir, which turns out to be the perfect way to explain what the hell is happening. Utilizing the metaphor of the Doppelganger, used as a way to interpret various novels and films, then critiquing subjects from parenthood to personal branding and racism and most of all our online selves, the thesis begins with the absurdity of how Naomi Klein constantly gets confused with Naomi Wolf.
‘Other Naomi’, as Klein puts it. Naomi Wolf is of course the 1990s author of The Beauty Myth, who was always pretty bad at research and liked to make bombastic over-the-top statements over the years, has now become something of an internet joke. Look up the rhyme, if you don’t know. Wolf, the feminist who has since abandoned everything she seemingly once believed in to pal around with the far right (who have been very blatant about taking away women’s rights in recent years if you haven’t noticed), is fully within the right-wing misinformation internet land. This phenomenon specifically is what the bulk of the book Doppelganger analyzes.
Naomi Klein has been a consistent leftist, who strives to critique the system and is frankly too smart to be that much of an internet personality. Wolf is an altogether different sort of character. Since embarrassing herself and getting kicked out of the so-called mainstream, she has become a frequent guest on Tucker and Bannon. It was particularly COVID-19 which broke the brain of not only her but of half the world.
In many ways, Klein’s real target isn’t Wolf but Steve Bannon, that arch ghoul who is working so hard to steal elections and destroy democracy. Klein studied the famous strategist’s podcast, in order to discover how populists co-opt movements which has caused many to actually shift from left-of-center to the far right (and it’s often hippie/spiritual types who make this strange path). Some of this is due to the difference between lukewarm liberalism and true economic leftism, while much of it is admittedly because of the failure of the left to respond accordingly to the challenges of our times.
Klein labels the mediasphere of Bannon and the canceled conspiracy-obsessed, “the Mirror World.” It’s an excellent way to put it. A lot of that comes from internet addiction, the way we’ve been trained on our phones to value online clout instead of human connection. The damage happening is overwhelming, but like The Shock Doctrine, at least there’s a vocabulary we can use to highlight what is happening and hopefully deal with this.
Conspiracy theory subculture, as she says, often gets the feeling right but not the facts. There are valid reasons it’s become such a powerful way to manipulate the masses. By the way, Klein is much more sympathetic than I could ever be to those people who have fallen down such rabbit holes. It’s downright saintly of her how hard she tries to understand the truly lost.
Another thing to appreciate from Klein with regards to this book, is how very personal she gets when she makes these points. It’s not just about how annoying it is to be mixed up with Wolf, nor only the universal struggles of the 2020 lockdowns we’ve all experienced, but of her own family. She tells of her own child diagnosed with autism, with heartfelt authenticity, and about how this unfortunately led to early encounters with the anti-vax movement even before that movement became a powerful political force.
Furthermore, Doppelganger is also among the best books I have ever read about Judaism and anti-Semitism. The debates throughout the 1800s, the tragic history of Nazism and Zionism and so much, expertly researched and analyzed in a context that sadly matters right now as much as it ever has. Her take on Israel and Palestine in particular, the Doppelganger effect through history which turns victim into oppressor, this couldn’t be more timely. It is in fact quite horrifying considering she wrote it before the war that began on October 7th of this year.
The book makes many connections on a spectrum of issues, and then ends on a somewhat depressing note. Because, I suppose, it has to. We still have a shit ton to work on with climate change and economic equity and so very many issues. A resurgence of a true left still hasn’t happened yet, and Klein’s descriptions of how the Sanders presidential campaign ended among online infighting instead of a bigger solidarity movement offers stark lessons on how much more needs to be done.
Maybe, just maybe, readers out there will work at slowly making a better world. We kind of absolutely have to. Sure no one book has all the answers, but this could help. We do need the language to understand what we are dealing with, and then build up the solutions. This book alone won’t save the world, nothing probably will, but is a decent step (and perhaps even crucial) however small along that long and difficult path.
by raelianautopsy