naomi klein – kepagewriter

Genre: Academic, politics

Narrative Style: First person academic

Published: 2023

Rating: 5/5

Format: Kindle

Synopsis: Naomi Klein kept finding people confusing her with Naomi Wolf which only worsened as Wolf took a trip into the land of conspiracy theories and misinformation. Klein became obsessed with following Wolf’s Twitter account during Covid 19 and found herself unable to look away. Doppelganger is the result of this obsession, detailing Wolf’s fall from grace and the wider issues of misinformation, conspiracy theories and where it all leaves us as a society.

It was only recently that I discovered that Naomi Wolf had become a darling of the right, promoting conspiracy theories surrounding vaccines and appearing on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. She just hadn’t come up on my feed – not even since Musk’s takeover. I was surprised to say the least. I remember reading The Beauty Myth while I was at university and was impressed enough to go to see her talk at Waterstones in Manchester while promoting Fire with Fire: New Female Power and how it will Change the Twenty-First Century. While I didn’t like this book quite so much, I assumed that she would continue to be a respected academic writer. Boy was I wrong!

Klein begins by discussing the fact that people often mistake her for Wolf and the ramifications of that now that Wolf was promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Klein also does a good job of invoking the strangeness of the Covid 19 lockdowns which contributed to her becoming worryingly obsessed with Wolf and her cronies. At first, I wasn’t sure where Klein was going to go with this – it was interesting to read but seemed to lack Klein’s usual political commentary. However, as the book progressed, Klein widened her argument to include fake news, wellness vloggers, the situation in Palestine and her own Jewishness, bringing each topic back to what she calls the ‘mirror world’ and discussing where that leaves us.

The main topic of this book is disorientation – something that I often feel these days when watching the news or looking at tweets on X (something I can’t seem to stop myself from doing even though it is not a pleasant place these days). I had observed the increase in conspiracy theories during lockdown with a sort of grim humour, sometimes congratulating myself that I wasn’t so stupid. What I hadn’t realised was exactly how apt the term ‘mirror world’ really is. Those who are worried about vaccine shedding are responding to a real worry – the spread of infectious disease. Those who worry about enslavement via the QR codes used to check in to venues are responding to worries about privacy and data usage. Not that I’m suggesting that Wolf is correct when she suggests that vaccine technology can cause time travel and make the vaccinated into robots – these claims are patently absurd – but to dismiss these people as merely stupid is also unhelpful. Klein suggests that it may be that there is something lacking in the way the left has dealt with both these issues that has helped push people towards these theories.

By the end, this seemed more like a typical Naomi Klein book as she suggests that somehow we have to start looking for ways to work together rather than focusing on the things that separate us. As suggested in 2017’s No is Not Enough, Klein ends her book by saying everyone needs to work together if we are going to combat the climate crisis. This means looking beyond surface differences and beyond party politics. We need to stand together despite the fact that our politics and identities might differ. Fighting climate change is more important than all the rest.

Having said that, I find it hard to be especially optimistic about this happening. As I write, Donald Trump is about to be inaugurated for his second term as president with Elon Musk firmly at his side. Both men have used the disorientation that Klein describes to their advantage and I would imagine they will continue to do so. Mark Zuckerberg recently said that there would be no more fact checking on Meta platforms and X already seems like a free for all in this respect. It’s hard to be hopeful for the future.

It really depends what you mean by thought provoking. For example, reading a book about a certain time or place might bring you new knowledge and understanding about that place and time. Reading Beloved by Toni Morrison, for example,or Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave me a new understanding of the human cost of slavery and civil war respectively.

However, I have decided to focus on two non-fiction books that genuinely did change the way I thought and behaved. The first is No Logo by Naomi Klein which investigates the insidious nature of global marketing. One of the things that I found the most disturbing was the way mainstream advertisers quickly swallowed up anything that might be considered alternative and began to actively seek out the underground so that they could be seen to be cutting edge. Everything is just another fashion now: mainstream, alternative, exotic or eccentric quickly became just another market to be conquered.

This book also introduced me to the concept of thinking about where the products come from. I was appalled by the notion of sweat shop labour and resolved to make changes to my own purchasing practises. It is almost a given now, that big companies use cheap labour in order to maximise profit but at the time of reading I wasn’t really aware of it.

The most important thing about this book was the fact that it made me think about the relationship between brands, companies and consumers and I began not to take things at face value and to think critically about was going on in the world.

Shopped by Joanna Blythman performed a similar function but with relation to the big supermarkets in Britain and the way that they were destroying the high streets. When I read this book, I was already doing certain things – such as buying from my local butchers, having a veg box delivered – so I suppose it wasn’t quite such an eye opener as No Logo but it was still shocking to find out the extent of the exploitation of suppliers and consumers.

Now seven years on from the publication of this book, it seems that

what Blythman had to say is more relevant than ever. When you can’t go five minutes up the high street without falling over a Tesco Express or a Sainsbury’s Local (there are at at least two of each in the middle of Sheffield.) and the big out of town supermarkets can sell you just about anything you want, it seems little surprise that the high street is falling apart. It reminds me of that Dead Kennedy’s LP, Give me Convenience or Give me De

ath. Forget choice or fairness or flavour, as

long as you can shop 24 hours a day it will all be all right! (Sorry, I have become a bit ranty an

d I am currently sitting at my computer

trying to stop myself from carrying on in this fashion)

What I really wanted to say about both of these books (and others such as Fast Food Nation) is that they made me sit up and not only think but act. I think that everyone can make small changes in their lives. I haven’t been to McDonalds and their ilk for 10 years now. Probably it makes very little difference to their global turnover but at least I can rest assured that I am not supporting them.

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Tag: naomi klein

Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World – Naomi Klein.

DAY 16. – Most thought-provoking book – Naomi Klein and Joanna Blythman.

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