A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | National Indie Bestseller "I've been raving about Naomi Klein's Doppelganger . . . I can't think of another text that better captures the berserk period we're living through." —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times "If I had to name a single book that makes sense of these last few dark years, it would be this one." —Katie Roiphe, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) "If ever a book was necessary, it's this one." —Bill McKibben
"Thoughtful and honest . . . Incisive . . . Klein moves her reader toward the truer grounds of solidarity in these times." —Judith Butler What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us—and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror. Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger asks: What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now—and an intellectual adventure story for our times.
Naomi Klein, una de las periodistas más influyentes del mundo y autora de bestsellers como No logo y La doctrina del shock, nos ofrece en Doppelganger un análisis revelador del laberinto de espejos de la polÃtica de hoy y de las realidades inciertas del universo digital.
Cuando Naomi Klein descubrió en las redes a una mujer con su nombre de pila, pero con opiniones dañinas y radicalmente diferentes a las suyas, a la que confundÃan crónicamente con ella, parecÃa demasiado ridÃculo para tomárselo en serio. Hasta que dejó de serlo.
Llena de confusión y dispuesta a encontrar las respuestas, Klein decidió seguir a su doble en un extraño e insólito mundo espejo y, al hacerlo, pone al descubierto nuestra propia cultura en este momento surrealista de la historia, en el que nos hemos convertido en pulidas marcas virtuales.
Naomi Klein, una de las periodistas más influyentes del mundo y autora de bestsellers como No logo y La doctrina del shock, nos ofrece en Doppelganger un análisis revelador del laberinto de espejos de la polÃtica de hoy y de las realidades inciertas del universo digital.
In my defense, it was never my intent to write this book. I did not have time. No one asked me to. And several people strongly cautioned against it. Not now - not with the literal and figurative fires roiling our planet. And certainly not about this. -Introduction: Off-Brand Me
The first time it happened I was in a stall in a public bathroom just off Wall Street in Manhattan. I was about to open the door when I heard two women talking about me. "Did you see what Naomi Klein said?" I froze, flashing back to every mean girl in high school, pre-humuliated. What had I said? "Something about how the march today is a bad idea." "What asked her? I really don't think she understands our demands." Wait. I hadn't said anything about the march - or the demands. Then it hit me: I knew who had. I casually strolled to the sink, made eye contact with one of the women in the mirror, and said words I would repeat far too many times in the months and years to come. "I think you are talking about Naomi Wolf." -Chapter 1, Occupied
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | National Indie Bestseller "I've been raving about Naomi Klein's Doppelganger . . . I can't think of another text that better captures the berserk period we're living through." —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times "If I had to name a single book that makes sense of these last few dark years, it would be this one." —Katie Roiphe, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) "If ever a book was necessary, it's this one." —Bill McKibben
"Thoughtful and honest . . . Incisive . . . Klein moves her reader toward the truer grounds of solidarity in these times." —Judith Butler What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo? Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us—and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror. Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger asks: What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now—and an intellectual adventure story for our times.
¿Qué pasarÃa si te despertaras una mañana y descubrieras que has adquirido otro yo, un doble que casi eres tú, pero que en realidad no lo es? ¿Qué pasarÃa si ese doble compartiera muchas de tus preocupaciones, pero de forma totalmente opuesta, y promoviera aquellas causas contra las que has luchado toda tu vida?
Cuando Naomi Klein descubrió en las redes a una mujer con su nombre de pila, pero con opiniones dañinas y radicalmente diferentes a las suyas, a la que confundÃan crónicamente con ella, parecÃa demasiado ridÃculo para tomárselo en serio. Hasta que dejó de serlo.
De repente empezó a enfrentarse a una realidad distorsionada, a obsesionarse con las amenazas que recibÃa en lÃnea, con los interminables insultos de los seguidores de su doble. ¿Por qué su otra sombra habÃa seguido un camino tan extremo? ¿Por qué la identidad —todo lo que tenemos para enfrentarnos al mundo— puede ser tan inestable?
Llena de confusión y dispuesta a encontrar las respuestas, Klein decidió seguir a su doble en un extraño e insólito mundo espejo y, al hacerlo, pone al descubierto nuestra propia cultura en este momento surrealista de la historia, en el que nos hemos convertido en pulidas marcas virtuales.
Doppelganger es un libro para nuestra época y para todos nosotros; una comedia negra absolutamente seria que nos invita a enfrentarnos a nuestros reflejos en el espejo. Es para cualquiera que haya perdido horas en el pozo sin fondo que es Internet, que se haya preguntado por qué nuestra polÃtica se ha deformado tanto y que quiera salir del vértigo colectivo y volver a luchar por lo que de verdad importa.