This week, we bring you a two-part interview with the author and activist Naomi Klein. In her recent book, Doppelganger, she attempts to detangle a case of mistaken identity (people are always confusing her with the feminist-turned-conspiracy-theorist Naomi Wolf) and that leads her on a journey towards understanding the political implications of all kinds of doubling: how conservative activists have taken advantage of progressive failures and adopted the analyses, language, and tactics of the left; how people are alienated from their public and online selves; what it means to maintain a personal brand, and more. It all adds up to a fascinating and often frightening portrait of a “mirror world” — the evil political twin of our own.
In the first part of the interview, we talk to Klein about the book and its diagnosis of modern political life, how failures on the left gave right-wing activists an opening to fill the emotional and political needs of people struggling with change, and why it’s important to keep writing — and acting, even in a moment that seems bleak.
Click on the link below to read the interview — and be sure to check back on Thursday to read the second installment.
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Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images
This post was originally published on The.Ink.