posted on 10 Dec 2023

Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world by Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein’s incisive political polemics have been a must-read for me ever since I picked up No Logo and discovered her clear blend of journalism and sharp-eyed analysis. The subject of No Logo was the rise to global power of the big corporations – bigger and more influential than most states – who peddle the mantra of globalism off the back of low wage exploitation of the poor and powerless. She then produced what has become perhaps my favourite book of hers – The Shock Doctrine – which uncovered the way in which those seeking to assert their positions of power and privilege use major disasters, wars or pandemics as cover for their illiberal agenda. She has also turned her attention to capitalism and the climate debate in This Changes Everything and On Fire. She is, what might have been called in previous times, a public intellectual and she is frequently (lazily and incorrectly) called a ‘spokesperson for the Left’.

But Doppelganger: A trip into the mirror world marks something of a shift of tone for Klein. Her starting point here is much more personal and – at first sight – somewhat whimsical by comparison with what had gone before. The subject of Klein’s book is the way her identity on various social media platforms became confused with the writer Naomi Wolf. Not, maybe, the worst thing in the world? After all, Wolf’s claim to fame was her feminist classic, The Beauty Myth, a book which explores, in the words of its subtitle ‘How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women’. At a distance, as well as sharing a first name, it would seem that both writers might also share common intellectual space.

But all is not quite that simple. Klein’s concern over the frequent social media confusions arises from the fact that Wolf’s identity on those sites has morphed into something quite different. Gone is the feminist social analyst and in its place has blossomed a fully-blown conspiracy theorist embracing the most extreme Covid conspiracies. In fact, Wolf’s embracing of conspiracies doesn’t stop at Covid – she’s plunged into anything that casts the individual as a pawn of the power-makers intent on taking away ‘our freedoms’.

Klein’s almost obsessive concerns about this identity confusion make more sense when you consider the reputational damage that might be caused to Klein’s ‘brand’ (an irony she acknowledges given the subject of her book ‘No Logo’). But, you might be thinking, this is surely not a substantial enough issue to merit a book of 350 pages? And, you’d be right. Because this just turns out to be the jumping off point for Klein to start thinking about how and why the social media platforms have become the breeding ground for so many conspiracy theorists, alt. Right ranters and extremists of various kinds. What is going on, she asks, “in this crowded and filthy global toilet known as social media”?

It leads her to also examine the whole notion of the cultural and political significance of doubles and the good and bad twin. Approaching the problem of her own doppelganger from this point of view leads her to think of the analogy of the ‘mirror world’ – a place where the evil twin reflects many of the same concerns about the public sphere but has an almost obverse solution to them.

Klein ends by suggesting that the issues that has made Wolf an ally of the likes of Steve Bannon and Donald Trump are real ones that the Left must acknowledge. But the Left also need to develop their own analysis of these issues and communicate them in a way that challenges the conspiracists and their disturbing solutions.

This is very much a book that captures the unease that exists around the world of social media platforms and the wave of AI that is on its way. But, for me, it’s an unfinished argument – it feels very much that Klein is thinking aloud here and that there is an even more thoughtful, more structured book to come. You wont find a ‘programme’ for action or a finished analysis of where the Left might find an effective way of challenging the Right but what you will find is a way into thinking about and understanding the ‘mirror world’ – and that may be an essential first step. 

Currently only available in hardback – but I’m sure a paperback will be on the way shortly.

 

Terry Potter

December 2023