By this point, we all probably recognise what we expect from Naomi Klein – incisive journalism about environmental activism, disaster capitalism and the shock doctrine. Ever since No Logo, Klein has written with both clarity and intelligence about the state of the world and what needs to happen to make things better. In some respects, Doppelganger is a little bit different.
Doppelganger starts from a place of confusion – Klein was regularly confused on social media with Naomi Wolf. Back in the 90s, Wolf was a celebrated feminist and her book The Beauty Myth was duly lauded. For a time, the two Naomis were distinct – and then, in the wake of quite a public shaming, Wolf started veering closer and closer to Klein’s world, with one important fundamental difference. Where Klein does what all proper journalists do – interrogates her reporting, makes sure information is validated and peer reviewed – Wolf jumps into conspiracies with her size 9s looking to make ripples. In the advent of Covid, Wolf went full on anti-vax, linking in with the likes of Steve Bannon, to spread misinformation and disinformation that has arguably cost people their lives. The situation, Klein explains quoting Philip Roth’s book Operation Shylock, is “too ridiculous to take seriously and too serious to be ridiculous.”
And so here, Klein seeks to find out what happened – to Wolf, to people in general (which involves looking at views from across the political spectrum) and, importantly, to herself – because this isn’t a book seeking to point the finger. It’s a book that wants to find an answer and then help. At the same time, however, Klein doesn’t equivocate. If something is wrong, if something is false, she calls it out. “This is not true,” she will say, and we know as readers if Klein says it’s not true, it’s not true. These kinds of lines in the sand really matter.
“For my entire adult life, I’ve been writing about the severing of signs from meaning. I had no idea, though, how far it would go.”
I’ve been fascinated by the ways in which ordinary people have been radicalised over the last decade, the ways in which politicians can say one thing and then do another, supported by a malign right wing press, and I’ve been hungering for a book that jumps into that melee, sorting the wheat from the chaff, and this is very much the book I was waiting for.
Brazilian philosopher Rodrigo Nunes gets to the heart of the problem with his concept of ‘denialism’:
“This is an upside-down state that… neatly serves the right and undercuts the left because, Nunes writes, it ‘displaces the real threats looming on the horizon with distorted, fun-house versions of themselves. Thus the problem with democracy is not political elites everywhere who are beholden to the interests of corporations and financial markets but a secret cabal of pedophiles planning to institute a world government.”
I’ve had my own experience of this (as I’m sure you have): huge graffito on a wall near where I live – THE MEDIA IS THE VIRUS. I want to say to the person who spraypainted the words – yes, much of the media is a problem, owned as it is by a handful of white billionaires who don’t even live in our country, spreading their poison from overseas. But the media spreading lies about a fake pandemic to strip you of your rights – hoax city, I’m afraid. Not only hoax city – hoax city funded by US billionaires, among others, to keep you from thinking about the shit that really matters (like tax evasion, inequality and, you know, the end of the world in the form of climate change).
Charting a path that takes in health bloggers and Republicans and grifters of all stripes, Klein leads you by the hand through the wreckage of what we have to concede are concerted efforts to destabilise democracies the world over. There are large sections of this book which feel very frightening to me but, Klein being Klein, there are also solutions. Suggestions. Ways of being in the midst of all of this serous ridiculousness.
“Yes, our world is still confusing… but it is not incomprehensible. There are always systemic forces at play, and a great many of them have to do with the core capitalist imperative to expand and grow by seeking out new frontiers to enclose.”
And furthermore:
“Elites who benefit greatly from these priorities are the same ones who bankroll political and media projects devoted to pitting nonrich people against one another based on race, ethnicity and gender expression – making them less likely to unite based on common economic and class interests.”
If you’ve lost someone down the Qanon rabbit hole, and you can persuade them to read this book cover to cover, who knows, you might just rescue someone from their delusion.
Any Cop?: Naomi Klein at her absolute best.
Bookmunch 