Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

Naomi Klein appreciates the irony of having written a book called No Logo and now finding herself trying to shore up her own personal brand. Naomi Wolf is another middle-aged, big haired, Jewish thinker who came to prominence in the nineties with an influential book.

And while it's annoying enough to face constant mistaken attributions on Twitter, things escalate when her doppelgänger takes a hard rightward turn into anti-vax conspiracist. Still, it seems thin gruel on which to base a book on.

But this is just an entry point into the rabbit hole that is our society's obsession with the other, with the mirror world. From the mild, like our personal online avatars in the attention economy, to the massive, with right wing media network spouting wild conspiracies as traditional journalism flounders.

Significantly, Klein notes that conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong but the feelings right. Political elites beholden to corporate interest - becomes a cabal of pedophiles planning to institute a world government. Railing at globalists, elites and the World Economic Forums conveniently diverts attention away from capitalism as a broken system and leaves most global billionaires intact.

It's a powerful tool of diversion and distraction that keeps us so busy fighting ourselves, dunking on others, owning the libs or fact-checking the right we miss the opportunity for collective action for something better. Change requires collaboration, even when it's uncomfortable. But we're so caught up in the frantic, divisive, noisy hullabaloo. We're hooked on the dopamine kick of being validated in our own little bubbles as we land another sick burn before doomscrolling to the next crisis.

In the end Klein posits that calm is a force of resistance. That calm is the precondition for focus, which gives us the capacity to prioritize and possibly work together. Just a far reaching and prescient read.