Canadian author Naomi Klein‘s 2023 publication Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World may help readers to understand the implicit meaning of the word doppelganger. The literal meaning of this word is “an apparition or double of a living person“. In German, doppelganger literally translates to double walker or double goer. One may consider it as a ghostly counterpart of a person or an alter ego.

At first glance, someone’s resemblance to her/his doppelganger may seem a bit amusing. Same happened to Klein. However, the victim gradually get tired, as well as harassed. This publication is a testament to what can happen when famous personalities confront their doppelgangers with a different ideology.

The structure of this book is exceptional as it is a combination of memoir, economics, politics, sociology, social media, epidemiology, etc. The author has dealt mainly with her own doppelganger, Dr Naomi Rebekah Wolf, in this book. Dr Wolf is an American author, journalist and Conspiracy Theorist who is popularly known as the founding author of the Third Wave Feminist Movement. There are a number of similarities between the two Naomis. Both are White Jewish writers from North America who penned bestselling books on important issues in the 1990s. While Dr Wolff authored The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women in 1990, Klein penned No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies in 1999 in which she explained the connection between activism and the political economy of globalisation in the 1990s.

Dr Wolf’s feminism was a good fit for mainstream Democrat politics as its scope expanded till she became the Political Adviser to the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton. Klein, at a young age, used to admire Dr Wolf, and even interviewed her. However, Klein is the polar opposite of Dr Wolf’s ideology. Over time, the US author has transformed from a feminist intellectual to a staunch anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown activist. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Dr Wolf continued to spread her anti-vaccination and Conspiracy Theories about vaccines through her works. With this, she distanced herself from Klein. Hence, Klein has called Dr Wolf her “big-haired doppelganger“.

Klein has used the phrase The Mirror World in the title of her publication. In other words, the replica is reflected in the mirror here. Indeed, it is a perfect metaphor as it is basically the reflection of the author, but upside down. Klein has also included a X (formerly Twitter) limerick in her book to illustrate this existential conflict… “If your Naomi be Klein/You’re doing just fine/If your Naomi be Wolf/Oh buddy, big oof.“

Initially, Klein did not pay much attention to the other Naomi. However, she gradually started tracking Dr Wolf’s activities. She minutely listened to Dr Wolf’s discussions with Steve Bannon on (the latter’s) podcast during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Bannon is a media executive, political strategist and former investment banker who served as the White House’s chief strategist for the first seven months of President Donald John Trump’s first administration. According to Klein, Bannon is basically a full-time propagandist for Authoritarian and Neo-Fascist Movements from Italy to Brazil. In her book, the Canadian author has made an attempt to analyse the behaviour of her doppelganger on the basis of online culture and political ideology, apart from trying to understand the chemistry of their busyness and popularity.

In this publication, Klein has further made an attempt to understand the mysteries of the online conspiracy and misinformation. She has explained how online conspiracy has increased in recent times mainly because of the carelessness of progressive-minded politicians. Interestingly, the author has mentioned an equation… Narcissism + social media addiction + midlife crisis + bowing down to the public = Rise of Right-Wing Extremism. At the same time, Klein has questioned the role of the Leftists in thwarting conspiracies emerging from the mirror world during the Pandemic. She has talked about a divided world where the Conspiracy Theorists often misrepresent facts. However, they rightly explain human feelings. Klein constantly questions her own faith, as well as belief, too.

It is difficult to say whether the most important issues, intertwined with the irony of the image, have trivialised within the confines of this publication or have acquired the charm of a fiction. The book contains several examples of doppelgangers from literature and culture. For example, one can mention Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Great Dictator, Way of Escape and Operation Shylock: A Confession. In fact, we all feel like we are residents of some sorts of doppelganger culture, regardless of ethnicity, religion, race or nationality. Pluralist societies have fascist doppelgangers, while Jews and Christians are also doppelgangers of each other. As the book was published before the current turmoil in West Asia, Klein described Israel as a “doppelganger of the colonialists“.

Surprisingly, Klein has remained silent about the dangers of doppelgangers created by Artificial Intelligence (AI), deepfakes, etc. in the contemporary world. Instead, she has partially described how digital life, contemporary capitalism and political, as well as economic, disasters hurt human beings in the 21st Century. It is expected that Klein’s Leftist ideology and the mirror world would spread wings, with Donald Trump taking charge of the Oval Office for the second time.

Klein has never confined her subject matter to any binary. Just as a doppelganger enters into a wondrous world, Klein wanders from one subject to another. It seems that she continues to synthesise today’s confusing and unstable political environment through a looking glass. She also tries to understand the absurdity, as well as irony, of the political instability and shares her views with readers. There is no easily available antidote to the painful deception and fear that emanates from the mirror world. However, Klein has argued that unity among members of the working class, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or religion, is the only way to establish a better world.

Naomi Klein and her publication might have embarrassed (her doppelganger) Dr Naomi Wolf. It is mentioned in the Wikipedia page of Dr Wolf that “Wolf is often confused with author Naomi Klein; this confusion is a major subject of Klein’s 2023 book Doppelganger, which Wolf did not contribute to despite numerous attempts by Klein to contact her“. How refreshing it is to bring up a topic that embarrasses a senior author on a personal level, even though she shares a different opinion? Klein could have ignored the other Naomi and made an attempt to outshine her doppelganger’s ideology without mentioning her name.

What if Dr Wolf, too, pens another book on doppelgangers… From Inside the Mirror? In that case, a person, who has turned herself from the follower of conservative Right-Wing Politics to a progressive writer and a conspiracy theorist with an anti-vaccine mindset, would get an opportunity to portray her unintended resemblance to a Left-Wing author.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das