A review by sammiseah
Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

challenging informative reflective fast-paced

4.75

 I’m ashamed to say that I’ve probably read the first 100 pages of Shock Doctrine and How To Change Everything, but I never managed to finish any of those. Since 2018-2019, I definitely struggled to read books about the climate crisis and related socio-political books thanks to my climate anxiety, so I was a little nervous about this one.

I was initially attracted by the interesting premise: Naomi Klein investigates her doppelgänger (Naomi Wolf)’s descent into the land of fake news and conspiracy theories. The book veers away from the doppelgänger themes to provide a pretty good analysis of post-COVID US (in my opinion! But I’m perhaps biased, since I also lean left). It was also a very timely read, as I was reading this as Trump took over in the US and as we are over 400 days since October 7th (although the oppression of the Palestinians has been happening for much longer). 

I tried to take some notes but they were generally chaotic, so these are the points that I found interesting:

I took comfort in the fact that she admits that these issues sometimes weigh down on her too. It made me feel a little less alone in my anxiety about the state of the world. I also took comfort in the following concepts that she shared:
- The concept of calm as shock resistance. In her words: “Calm is not a replacement for righteous anger or fury at injustice, both of which are powerful drivers for necessary change. But calm is the precondition for focus, for the capacity to prioritize.” In contrast, panic just leads to chaos and irrational beliefs/actions?
- Sally Weintrobe: “Care and uncare for inherent parts of us all, and that each seeks expression and dominance over the other.”

Other relevant ideas/concepts that I found interesting, but that I should probably already have known if I stayed up to date with leftist literature 😅:
- the diagonalist movement: how the far right and far left unify over certain issues
- the role that fitness industry plays in right wing misinformation
- conspiracy culture does not challenge hyper-individualism that pushes crises through the breaking points, but instead puts the blame on singularly powerful individuals - ties in with an inability to look at systemic issues with existing systems/capitalism (inability to be truly left when starting as a liberal??)
- the people who exploit the planet are the ones who are unable to unself for even a moment?
- john a powell: “we can be hard and critical on structures, but soft on people.”
- change requires collaboration and coalition vs the fact that we live in a culture that tells us to fix massive crises on our own
- the need to fight fragmentation, sectarianism, and a stubborn refusal to make strategic alliances on the anti-fascist left
- struggle helps us see each other - alchemy of large protests, strikes, rallies, sit-ins - power of collective organising

Anyway, sorry for the chaotic collection of thoughts. I enjoyed the book and it’s definitely worth a read!