The Conspiracy Nuts vs. the SJWs
Exploring the schisms in how we see the evils of the world
Naomi Klein is not Naomi Wolf, and she’d like us to be clear about that. Klein, a darling of Leftists and progressive liberals, is a cultural theorist famous for scathing critiques of the capitalist system like The Shock Doctrine. Wolf, once an advisor to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, now more often found on the Conservative media circuit, is a cultural theorist who has shifted her focus from third-wave feminism to raging against vaccines and the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Back in the day, Klein didn’t mind being confused with Wolf, but as Wolf slid ever further into a world Klein found dangerous, the association with her became more and more disturbing.
This story of the two Naomis kicks off Klein’s 2023 book Doppelganger: two women with the same name and different versions of the same job, living, it seems, in utterly different realities. A microcosm for society at large.
If we’re picking sides, I’m definitely more of a Klein. I grew up in an educated, liberal household with a scientist father and I’ve been political since the 2000 election. I cut my teeth as a child opposing the Iraq War and fawned over Obama as a teen, before I took the red pill (read: became a socialist) in college, then the black (became an…
