55 pages • 1 hour read
Naomi KleinDoppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Surveillance Capitalism and Nationalism
Content Warning: This section contains discussions of fascist ideology and eugenics.
Capitalism is an economic system wherein a small number of people own the means of production and most of the land and resources, and everyone else is paid a wage for their labor so that they can purchase or rent small quantities of land and resources for their own survival. It is currently the prevailing economic system used around the world (See: Background). As Naomi Klein argues, surveillance capitalism is the enforcement of the capitalist project through various forms of government and corporate observation of the general population, including CCTV cameras, cell phones, Big Data, digital financial transactions, and more. Nationalism is the establishment of national identities and states, which are reinforced with borders, passports, and (in many cases) linguistic, religious, and/or ethnic identities.
Doppelganger explores how all of these forces feed into conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists like Wolf are often frightened by and angry about surveillance, and they may feel frustrated by the economic limitations of the capitalist system. Klein posits that conspiratorial thinking often draws upon the right emotions but gets the facts wrong: Instead of correctly identifying the sources of these negative emotions, conspiracy theorists retreat into nationalism and blame various groups of people that they perceive to be “other” for their problems. Common targets for conspiracy theorists include (but are not limited to) Jewish people, Muslims, immigrants, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community. By placing the blame on these groups instead of recognizing the actual structural systems causing the world’s problems, conspiracy theorists make the world a more unsafe place for everyone. Conspiracy theory rhetoric tends to prop up far-right political talking points while dismissing and attacking progressive talking points.
In Klein’s view, nationalism and surveillance capitalism represent major obstacles to genuine solidarity and positive change in the world. They encourage people to see themselves as different from others. She argues that nationalism and capitalism are positioned as natural and inevitable parts of life, instead of systems that were deliberately constructed, comparatively recently, by human beings. The first step toward deconstructing these concepts is to see them for what they truly are, instead of misdiagnosing the problem and falling into conspiratorial rhetoric. Klein, who describes herself as “a third-generation leftist who believes freedom is won collectively and gets itchy around flags” (43), has been examining these concepts and systems of power for much of her career, and she argues that it is only through solidarity and collective resistance—as embodied in the theme of Solidarity, Nuance, and Interconnectedness—that these structural issues can be effectively addressed.
Diagonalism and the Mirror World
The Mirror World is Klein’s term for the social and political sphere occupied by conspiracy theorists, far-right politicians, and her own doppelganger, Naomi Wolf. In the Mirror World, people take well-researched concepts and factual analyses and twist them to suit their own rhetoric, which is increasingly disconnected from reality. The use of the term “Mirror World” emphasizes the uncanniness of this political space. For Klein, Wolf’s mirroring of her own political discourse has been particularly acute and frustrating. The two of them have written about similar issues, but Klein has long felt that Wolf’s work takes her ideas and creates warped, factually inaccurate versions of them. This mirroring is made more challenging by the fact that many people confuse Naomi Klein with Naomi Wolf, both online and in real life.
Diagonalism refers to the relatively new (and largely unexpected) political alliance between members of the far right and members of formerly left-wing or centrist alternative health and New Age subcultures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people who used to vote for left-wing political parties became very distrustful of government health advice, COVID-19 vaccines, and mask mandates, often because they had previously been skeptical of mainstream Western medicine. These individuals started to feel that nobody was taking their concerns seriously except for anti-vaccine protestors on the far right. This led to the development of a diagonal line between these subcultures and far-right politics. The isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic only served to heighten this new diagonalist alliance.
Klein argues that this diagonalist rhetoric often echoes concepts from fascism and eugenics. Instead of following community health measures like masking, distancing, and vaccinating to keep everyone safe, diagonalists prioritized their own health at the expense of the lives of more vulnerable people. Many of them either consciously or unconsciously subscribed to fascist ideas about bodily purity and superiority, positioning certain people (e.g., children, elderly people, immunocompromised people, and people with disabilities, among others) as fundamentally lesser and ultimately worthy of death.
Klein argues that these ideas were (and still are) very dangerous. They have made it harder for governments and healthcare systems to keep populations safe, and they have deepened divisions among groups of people. Klein also asserts, however, that left-wing activists often become ineffective in addressing the concerns raised by such issues when they end up defending the status quo for fear of being lumped in with conspiracy rhetoric. She therefore argues that the best way to combat both conspiracy theories and structural problems is to engage in activism through action, not just words.
Solidarity, Nuance, and Interconnectedness
Klein argues that the problems facing the modern world—political polarization, the rise of conspiracy theories, worsening climate change, profound economic uncertainty—can feel overwhelming. Klein’s work foregrounds the leftist perspective, presenting solidarity, interconnectedness, and a nuanced understanding of complex issues as the only way toward true progress. She argues that it is only by coming together that humans can solve their problems in a meaningful way.
In the concluding chapters of Doppelganger, Klein explores how solidarity between groups of people can provide opportunities for real change. The problems facing the world are too big for individual action alone. Solving these problems will require many millions of people to cooperate to build a better, more just world. When things start to feel hopeless or overwhelming, movements of meaningful solidarity can help people generate hope, stick together, and direct their energies in a useful way. Klein warns against getting stuck in identity politics: While there are differences and disagreements among oppressed people, the ability to set those differences aside and work together is crucial for activists. One of the dangers of activism is that it can often feature bold speeches and good ideas that never get put into practice. Ultimately, what people say is not as important as what they do: Klein encourages people to act on their beliefs and their interconnectedness.
Klein also encourages people to see their doppelgangers as potential reflections of themselves, which can help leftists to improve and refine their own approaches to activism. She regards doppelgangers as useful for revealing one’s own inadequacies: For example, she suggests that far-right commentators like Steve Bannon are effective at communicating in a way that makes people feel that their fears are being heard and taken seriously, despite the fact that Bannon does not necessarily offer workable solutions to their problems. In light of this discovery, Klein argues that left-wing activism can become more nuanced and effective if it learns to directly address the fears that far-right commentators and conspiracy theorists capitalize on, instead of leaving the field to the conspiracy theorists by defending the status quo. In taking her doppelganger seriously, Klein suggests that she has learned important truths about some of the failings on her own side of the political spectrum and areas for improvement and growth.
Klein argues that by breaking down the barriers that keep people separate and distinct, it becomes easier to see what kinds of action might make a real difference in the world. She suggests that collective action is only truly effective when people are willing to work alongside others with whom they might not always agree, but that recognizing how interconnected all human beings are can help people find solutions together.
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