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I love this book I love this book I mean and honestly I I'm I really feel like this is your this is your not doesn't have to be why is superlative but this is your Masterwork
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this is um it's so um it's it's this IM fully immersive experience so instead of instead of you kind of just getting the the the polemic
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and the facts and instead of of just being right I mean your other books are right you know mean you're so right and that that's part of the pleasure of it it's just oh my God she's right and she supported the right and now I can go out
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and make this argument myself in an intelligent way I and I feel right I feel right um this I felt validated you know I felt Val
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experientially validated and it's such a different value to get from literature to to feel validated as a human being struggling with this world of mirrors that we're living in and to to
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experience you that way it was um it was amazing um and and and a Masterwork for this moment in particular for a moment when so many of us feel so untethered and incapable of navigating a path
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through this this house of mirrors that we're in that it it felt like like a Jordan that's what I wanted to say in my quote like a Jordan Peele movie and then it's like oh my God this is what is going on even if it's not what's going
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on for you specifically it was like this is what is going on it's literature duh um so so can I just pause and say thank you like that is huge for me to hear
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from you Douglas and um I I also just want to disclose that you you you you you were one of the early readers of the book and and um and I did receive an email from you you know as one of the
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very first people who read it just just saying some of these things to me uh privately and it was just so stabilizing for me to just feel like this
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experiment had at least worked for you I mean I don't know if it's going to work for for for for everyone but that but that it worked for you meant a a ton to me um and I just really want to thank you for that I mean I want thank you for
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your public support but honestly that private support meant so much to me so thank you well thank you I mean for me the the the other validation about it and I kind of want to talk about this at the end of our conversation if there's
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time is the the courage to venture into uh what I would call a more literary or artistic or personal or impressionistic um style of writing
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while the Earth is burning to me I've wanted to there's some graphic novels I want to do there's some fiction I want to do there's some sort of creative work and I feel um I don't know if it's
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guilty almost to go do them because it's like wait a minute the world is burning my child is going to try to live in it how dare I take the time to do something
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more impressionistic more symbolic yet I mean did you have to was there a moment where you had to for yourself justify a departure from what could be called straight up social justice advocacy to
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do a project like this yeah and I mean I think I probably still feel that a little bit but um to be honest it wasn't a choice
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between writing a polemic um you know I'm right here's what to do book and writing this book it was really writing this book or just disappearing into
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speechlessness SL Silent Scream like I it was not that was not going to be be something I could do at that point you know and I really did kind of write myself back into a place where I feel
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like I can be part of a conversation like I really did not know what to say about what was going on uh in that sort of second third year of the pandemic um I needed
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uh I needed to find another register for my voice because the old one just was not working for me um and if I believed that just another argument about why we needed to do something about climate change was going to move the needle in
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any way then I would have done it it's the fact that I didn't feel that that that led me to try to find some other way of writing and and it really was honestly um I went back to school to write this
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book I never studied writing I never I never studied creative writing I never even studied journalism I just did it I I was a you know I was an English literature and philosophy major but I really just wrote for my my campus
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newspaper and then got job jobs and then started writing books and and so I was pretty self-taught and suddenly grounded as we all were you
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know I wasn't able to lead the the the itinerate lifestyle that I have been leading for a lot of my adult life which makes it hard to take
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on um you know to take a course I mean I'm never in one place long enough to do anything like that so I thought well this is a gift and I should I should enroll like originally my idea was like
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a lot of the writing schools were offering online courses like Iowa was offering online writing courses I thought maybe I can take a creative non-fiction course and get back to why I wanted to be a writer in the first place and maybe if I can't get excited about
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content I can get excited by form and um I make a long story short short I just didn't enroll in Iowa's um online courses I think I felt like
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because I'm you know somewhat of a known person that I would would feel too self-conscious doing that and so my friend V uh formerly EV vensler wonderful playwright um I was talking to
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her about this and my feelings of speechlessness and my desire to find another kind of writing and just at least get excited about writing if I couldn't get excited about what I had to say in that moment and she introduced me to this amazing um
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writing teacher whose name is Harriet Clark a fantastic fiction writer as well but who has taught at Iowa taught taught at Stanford and Harriet took me on as a private student and we just I went back to school and she had me doing writing
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exercises and and and and and this the idea for this very strange project which I assume you'll explain at some point yeah it'll be the intro came came to me and and it it did really
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start in that sort of way of like this form is exciting to me it is exciting to me to use my own doppleganger and identity confusion to talk about all these different ways that we double ourselves individually and collectively
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personal branding optimized Wellness Israel Palestine ethnic doubles I mean the whole the whole shebang and I thought that is weird enough to get me excited about form and then the content
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followed if that makes sense yeah uh that's great that's great actually cuz I mean the way it it felt like what what had happened maybe was that the situation although it's also the other way to tell the same story is this
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situation that you were in um with this living doppelganger Mirror Image phenomenon it required you to take some
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action in other words this this is a response a way don't this is a way of kind of digging out of of that well you either need to you know
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defend your identity um and and be the you know try to be the last Naomi standing you know I am not she you know or you you you you you do what doppelganger books do which is use the
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doppelganger as a mirror to to to understand yourself better and to understand the US that is not the they um because they're lines always get blurry and so yeah part of it was just
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like I went I went uh deep in the doppelganger Canon that was another fun thing you know just I just started reading books about you know I was reading DVI and Edgar alen Po and and
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Octavia Butler and Ursula lwin and then in the end it was Roth in the end it was it was that that that it was it was Operation that that got me so excited that I had to had to write
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this but also you said Jordan Peele like yeah spending spending those those lonely pandemic evenings um watching doppelganger films and and realizing it really is this very very rich I mean you
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know this as a theater person because theater people are always studying like the Shadow Self and the doubles and all this but this was a little bit new to me and it was fun you know and it had that Thrill of the new you know because the thing about you know I think maybe your
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listeners like last heard me talking about about the climate CR and that is indeed what I talk about most of the time and I still do climate research I I head up a research center at a university uh related to climate
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Justice um you know this is this it it's it started to feel like I don't know how to just say the same thing over and over again I have to find I have to find a
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new entry and and and this felt this felt like a new way in and it doesn't feel like I'm leaving that world it feels like I'm finding another access point and I hope I'm helping other the piece I want to write for I
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don't know who n plus1 one of those places about this book is I want to I want to compare uh your your like first books with bre and this book with our
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toe and theater and its double and and really talk about uh kind of the the need for participatory felt um personalized um experience and then arto also wrote about the plague I mean it's
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just it's actually it's a really fun a really fun way into this I if I if I could justify the I would love that and honestly that I would love to read that and and and because I'm still learning so much about this literature and you
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know as you know the the most the fun part about putting a book in the world is is is is there's this whole other stage of learning all the things that you didn't you didn't know and I knew that this material was going to be fun
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for people like you to think with you know it is that's the thing it's fun to think and feel with is the other thing and feel with it you know because then you can move into these more impressionistic Landscapes and get other kinds of insights which are usually
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scary to do at a time like this for reasons precisely that are discussed in this book and you know and that's for me what's going on here is how much are we allowed to allow our our emotional felt
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reality into our decision making and our our perception apparatus at a time when it seems so many people are being led astray by emotionality and Charisma um
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but we can't surrender that's the that's the moment that's the moment when you most need to do it right um and because it yeah they are not being led into this
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world through facts they are being led there through feeling and you know that's one of the arguments I make in the book is that is that conspiracy culture and I say culture not Theory because I think there's a way that cons you know I think
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some there are real conspiracies in this world and and we have to be very careful um not to not to be so credulous right that suddenly we're like oh anybody who believes that there is a a conspiracy
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out there about anything is must be Bonkers I mean that's that's not what I believe anyone who's read the shock Doctrine knows that I spent a good part of my career actually documenting uh real like real
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conspiracies that we can prove like the CIA was involved in destabilizing end's government and knew full well that they were plotting a coup um in Chile and on and on and on and down to like more you
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know recent news items like it seems like uh Tesla is suppressing information about how about their battery range you know there's a lot of people in on that so so so we can't it's just that it's
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not like a nefarious plot to get the adrenochrome from you know a a a bunch of 12 year olds it's just the same old you know capitalist growth profit yeah
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um uh uh dominance Etc so but but but but but there is a feeling that is being tapped into in conspiracy culture that where there's often truth there like there's truth they're tapping into a
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fear of surveillance right it's not your vaccine app that is putting you under surveillance but maybe it is your phone and maybe we are dealing with that and we aren't dealing with the all the
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anxieties that are Unleashed by that um so yeah so we have to be willing to to access those feelings look at the monster in the mirror do all of that
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shadow work um and I guess you know coming back to your question around like should we be doing this when the world's on fire I I think part of what becomes clear when you dig into this literature
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and cinematic history is that it's prec precisely in the most destabilizing fiery monstrous moments that the figure of the doppelganger is most used in the
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Arts right like the first theoretical work uh trying to understand doppelganger art was by Freud's Protegé Auto rank the psych Austrian psychoanalyst he wrote it in 1914 it's
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called the D it's called the double or their doppelganger um and and his translator speculated well it's it's probably no coincidence that this is the first year of the of the first world war
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um that all of the stopple gang or art is out there in the culture like the the student of Prague and that people are trying to understand their their monstrous sides their their their most
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repressed desires um and then there's chaplain you know um in 1940 with the Great Dictator and this master work of anti-fascism and he does it by I mean how do you implicate yourself more than making
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yourself Hitler and the Jewish Barber yeah you know um and here's chaplain who kind of has this weird thing where he sort of looks like Hitler like they both have the miniature mustaches and this is you know I mean the layers are
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fascinating but uh yeah anyway yeah no absolutely it's good stuff yeah no it is it is so I mean this this kind of all started for you
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anyway uh specifically in in 2011 around occupy and I remember that moment cuz I was writing articles kind of for occupy about occupy trying to help people in
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the mainstream understand that um just because they're not saying there's an agenda doesn't mean there's not a purpose here I was trying to say occupy is a new normative State and you know the CNN and MSNBC everyone was upset
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that there were no demands and I was like no no no this is not about demands this is about a new way that we're occupying reality occupying a thing um and then um Naomi wolf pops up with
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um these These are the 10 or whatever these are the 10 demands the official demands of the movement and people are saying oh these are I mean because you would think of occupy as a more Naomi
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Klein thing than a Naomi wolf thing think oh here's Naomi Klein's official 10 demands of of occupy and then I think from that moment on we were Off to the Races
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right it was awkward Douglas I mean you know especially because I mean just for very Niche reasons for me you know that I don't expect other people to understand but I you know I have
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been um in you know a kind of a movement intellectual you know since my 20s and it's an it's it's a complicated space to occupy to be the person writing books when people are out there there in the
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streets um you know getting arrested and you know putting their bodies on the line and doing the hard work often Anonymous work of organizing and then here's this person who's like in all the newspapers and getting all this attention and because there's an
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inherent contradiction in that and there has been since I published no logo just as the protests in Seattle were exploding Against the World Trade Organization um where I am very careful not to speak for movements you know like
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I am I am very careful not to um like always to be very clear that there is a difference between somebody who writes books about movements and somebody who is leading those movements and you know it's something I care about I don't expect other people to care about the
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fact that I care about it but I care about it you know and so um you know that you're referring to this um really true moment okay which I'll if you'll just bear with me I'll I'll set the
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scene for you um which was it was it was uh you know the height of Occupy Wall Street stre and there was a March through the financial district um and it was kind of a show of strength because
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the police were threatening to to evict the park and um in the middle of the March I needed to pee went into a a a public restroom in you know one of the
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one one of these big buildings and I I was in the stall and I heard two women talking about me like that that you know and it was that terrible you know mean girl feeling of like oh my God and one
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girl said to one woman said to another woman um did you hear what Naomi Klein wrote I about and and they were just scathing about what Naomi kleene had written about the movement I don't think
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she understands our demands and I was just in the stall just Frozen going oh my God what had I written um and then the more I listened the more I realized who they were talking about and it was
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not me it was her because like you I had seen her waving the demands that she alone had to based on some random surveys online and um so I came out and I said words that I would say many many
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many times in the future I think you're talking about Naomi wolf um but yes that is when that's when you you know I think when when she was more clearly identified as somebody who wrote books
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about uh feminism and and child birth and women's bodies and I was more like the anti- capitalist climate change person uh the the the dividing dividing our areas of expertise were were a
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little bit clear I think they were and and then they went wobbly around 2011 but I think probably before that people there were people who were just like oh there's a couple of loudmouth Jewish Naomi just opining about things kind of
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Lefty and kind of anti something kind of have highlights right they act all intellectual and say some things I don't understand but all right yeah but but interestingly for me that
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that her need to uh to specify and characterize this is what occupy is to take something that was I don't mean nebulous but not
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defined in that discreet way and name it felt a little bit like conspiracy culture in general which is I mean you and I might say 9/11 happened partly
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because of American policies we trained the ter terrorists there's there's on the surface of the story there is huge American complicity and conspiracy it's
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enough you but the conspiracy culture goes on to say and there's like dynamite set in the world trade they come with the very specific thing they kind of land on it or the brilliant piece you
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wrote about coid conspiracy it's like yes there's the there's problems with the vaccines there's problems with fouchy there's problems with the CDC there could be this it could be that Bill Gates and the availability of act there's a huge amount of problems we
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don't need to go to Nanobots that respond to 5G towers and once but I understand because the systemic critique is difficult to hold
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in one's head the idea of Nanobots in the virus is easy the systemic critique of occupy is nebulous and unsettling these specific demands is easy and it
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feels like that's the the on the mirror side of uh of the the equation here is a culture that is kind of incapable of holding the
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the holding the sensation holding the systemic problem which doesn't necessarily have a person to blame or a uh you know a piece of yeah
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yeah absolutely I think I think um a systemic analysis is is not going to offer that sort of Hollywood like
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unveiling like you know it's it's it's it's uh you know it's all Charles Charles swabs you know uh fault or it's all Bill Gates's fault um the cabal right and this is why you know the
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anti-semitic conspiracy theory is like the oldest and most recurrent conspiracy theory around um and it's why it is described as the socialism of fools because and I think we could say all of
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conspiracy culture in a sense is the socialism of fools right because in instead of looking at at an analysis of of of of what capitalism was built to do
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right which is to maximize profits and grow at all costs um no matter the ex you know no no matter the cost on on people on the on the natural world um
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you're looking for like a room somewhere where 10 people just plotted the whole thing and if we could just get rid of those 10 people then everything would be fine and that's why people like Tucker
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car Carlson and Steve Bannon love this and their billionaire backers because it actually is incredibly good for power to have people distracted on some far off
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um you know if we could just prove yeah that there was the the dynamite that blew up you know the Twin Towers or we could just prove you know that this was a plot between you know the Chinese Communist party and and Bill Gates uh to
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depopulate the Earth or whatever then we're not talking about the you know the conspiracies in plain view right the the the people who didn't have to die because we didn't have to S you know
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systematically underfund our Public Health Care system and our elder care and we could have had schools with smaller classrooms and more teachers and more nature education and air purifiers and all these things
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that that that actually were not just wear your mask get your VX not just individual Solutions but actually Collective uh political responses right um so you know I I don't think you know I
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mean one of the things that that that the book gets into is like what it it's it's you know it's shocking to a lot of people who used to know Naomi wolf that she would be on Steve bannon's podcast you know every day for two weeks which
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you know happened uh uh in one period that PE people might not know they published a book together they put out t-shirts together like I'm not saying she's a guest on his podcast I'm saying they are actually you know in League
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together now I think it's kind of not that interesting what she's getting from him which is a very large audience um she had already been kind of ejected from Liberal left Society she'd made
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some pretty big foundational errors in her in her books she had been kind of you know I don't like the term but kind of cancelled um and she's getting a whole new massive audience from these guys but the I think
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the more interesting question is what are they getting from her and and what are they getting from other conspiratorial figures like that in including RFK Jr um you know why is Ban and love RFK Jr and I think you know I
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think part of it has to do with the role that conspiracy plays as a distraction from those systemic critiques but they also get I mean something from us I mean Steve Bannon I mean to my to my delight
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and horror read an entire section of my book team human aloud on war room pandemic and it was a section of the book that I looked at and I still there's nothing I can really change in it to defend it from being used in that
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context was talking about the the you know the the human Spirit the grounded human local spirit and our our kind of uh battle against the technocracy and the use of technology to program us into
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submission and you know you meet your neighbor and you know have bond together I mean a very you know put the social back in socialism kind of uh uh passage and he read it as
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as basically evidence that someone who's very knowledgeable about the tech industry and Tech World understands that they are out to get us that they and and it's true on a certain level right these
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Technologies are biased towards dehumanized things they're they're agents of capitalist they want to extract value and surveil it's sash zubov you know with with with a bit of my sort of humanism thrown in and I
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didn't know how to feel about that you know it's like on the one hand a million people I think you should yeah yeah yeah hear it but I think you should yeah no I mean that's very interesting and I can I can relate
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to that um to that outof body feeling um but I don't think you should beat yourself up over it except in the it except to the extent that you are no like if it is the case that you are no
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longer out there screaming making those arguments because they are then that is something I think to be self-critical about um but there is that moment and you write about it in the book that once they say it I don't want to say it
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anymore I heard the the woman you need to say it extra more it's hard the Italian dictator lady the one that he voted in the um the dictator later see that's I'm really precise the far right Georgia Malone
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I mean it sounded like she was reading from my book we are human beings we are we are embodied we will not let cap you know money or technology well with some transphobia and some you know massive
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racism also she said we as we are under attack as Christians and white people yeah there a little of that I am a woman yeah yeah but right so you're saying we double down we reclaim it don't well
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look uh well because you know when I be before I started writing books um I was I edited a small left-wing magazine in Canada called this magazine it which is a strange name for a magazine used to be
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called this magazine is about schools it was you know it was founded by 60s radical they they expanded it from this magazine as from being about schools to being just an alternative left magazine so they just change it to this
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Magazine anyway in the in the mid90s we did a piece on the the rise of the new right as represented by Gingrich and um you know there was a Canadian version of
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this so people like David from who then you know went went on to work for George W bush and um we we had a series of profiles of of these guys trying to understand what they're tapping into and
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and one of the writers for that issue um Doug Saunders wrote something about how one of these figures whose name won't mean much to American listeners um was
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was using some arguments that came from the left and he said you know we can't be angry if he's using them because we left them unattended and I always think about that
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you know a great line it is a great line and if you think about Bannon that is his skill he looks at the issues and the people who we you know air quotes but like we liberal leftist however you
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defined it have left unattended abandoned ejected um and he says come on over and it's not because he agrees with your book at all Douglas I mean this is a guy who teamed
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up with the Mercers to do like the worst kind of you know AI surveillance you know this is his Jam he loves surveillance capitalism you know I mean he was deep in the Cambridge analytica stuff it's not about what he believes
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it's about what he understands to be powerful and he sees that that that that the issue that people are frightened um of what is happening with their humanity
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and they should be um in the age of surveillance capitalism and AI um and he sees that there are a lot of broken promises by mainstream Democrats to do something about these tech companies and
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in the same way that in 2016 he saw that you know workingclass blue you know bluecar workers in de-industrialized areas had been abandoned by the Democratic party who said that they were going to challenge these free trade
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deals and just signed more of them he he sees an opportunity that's all that's happening I think with your ideas um you know or my ideas it's not about conviction it's that he is a smart
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strategist and smart strategists know that it is wise to look at who your opponents are abandoning and what issues that used to be theirs that they are now neglecting and just bring them into the
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fold you know and and of course mix them in with the real agenda which is you know anti-immigrant um and um uh now transphobia but the real agenda of course is just power I mean he says it openly on the podcast
00:31:02
that the plan is to take power for a hundred years that's what he likes to say right right so it doesn't it it doesn't matter that he
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says technocrats are a problem right so he agrees with the basic and whatever we want to call it the sort of the social dilemma critique which is another set of problems of its own that's my mirror world are you
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know the you know I did I did uh uh Team human they did team Humanity I do you know present shock they do time well spent it's a it's an interesting mirror world for me but it's not as Extreme as what as what what you went through but
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right so just because um Bannon agrees that the technocracy is out of out of control doesn't mean we should stop but and and the line we also shouldn't take him at his word I mean I I think he he
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may or may not agree with it what he what hetic other people out there agree with it um you know I mean same thing around surveillance I don't think he's serious
00:32:09
about that um because his actions you know would say otherwise um but you know in the same way that he knew that Trump needed to say that he was going to renegotiate the trade deals and bring
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the jobs home and protect Medicare and protect Social Security I mean this is a this is an effective political agenda and then what did they do once in power they hand massive tax cuts to the rich hire a whole bunch of guys from Goldman
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Sachs I mean you know I mean it it's rampant hypocrisy but what he know what he knows is what people want to hear right and that and that it works or there's enough of a grain of truth I mean the line in the book is great once
00:32:47
an issue is touched by them it seems to become oddly Untouchable by almost everyone else and that to me it was a Oh I just it was one of those rug pullout moments
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like oh my god I've been running from thing running from thing to thing it's like okay they said that I'm going to run on to something else now you know so I'm going to talk about Judaism I'm going to talk about technology I'm going to talk about this because they catch me
00:33:12
and then recontextualize it in another way and I abandon my own babies in that in that sense you know what I mean and you're you're right we we've got to come back so when you do um uh uh you know B
00:33:26
basically uh um which one the the the disaster capitalism and then we see um the sort of the crazy mirror World critique of great reset and CLA Schwab
00:33:39
and those guys the the beauty of that moment the learning of that moment for me was you went and wrote a piece saying hang on everybody this is the real problem this is the crazy version of
00:33:52
that problem we must not let the crazy version of the problem take our eyes off the real one you know and that was um you took a lot of heat for that I remember on Twitter all the the
00:34:04
conspiracy people were saying oh she's part of the thing now she's do you remember that they're always saying that oh yeah well I mean I I daily get hered uh and be and told to read my own books
00:34:16
um but were you already in were you already in no that was the moment that was the moment yeah that was the moment when they when they when they decided that I that that I was a lost cause
00:34:27
um but was that the moment then you were deciding to then investigate the mirror World it seems like it was like that was when you were saying you know for me it was what I called fractal NOA back in my book present shock I was like look we're
00:34:39
getting really good at connecting the dots but sometimes we then create a picture that's not real we I know I called it fractal noia it's this paranoia you know because we want there to be a story to it even when there may
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not be a story when it might just be a lot of happening in a systemic way M you know the drive narrative it was definitely one of the moments yeah um I
00:35:03
I had a a little runin um I won't get into the details but with the great reset um where where and and I'm the thing that about the great great reset that was so
00:35:15
interesting to me is unlike these other conspiracies that we like that that we've been talking about where they are unproven right like where people are saying something that they're without facts to support them without evidence
00:35:29
to support them um the great reset is is is another Beast entirely it's it's it's it's a it has all the forms of a conspiracy theory right like I found this and look in that it's connect
00:35:42
except for there's a website in explainer videos up on the WF website like so it's like you know I say in the book like what do this drive to reveal the not hidden you know like like if
00:35:54
this is a conspiracy theory it's the only one with his own explainer videos starring the king of England like literally um King Charles then Prince Charles like was explaining with the
00:36:06
great reset and only only and the only way that you could sort of see this as a revelation is if you've never heard of the world economic Forum before and like this whole thing is is new right like
00:36:18
what like every year like a whole bunch of like Elites go up on a Swiss Mountaintop and then like and and you could understand how people get like really worked up about it because the thing is is it's a it's
00:36:30
an important reality check like yeah that is really quite Bonkers we should not put up with that but the fact is it's not a conspiracy it's actually just the way the world works right um so that
00:36:42
one is very very interesting to me um yeah that piece was called the Great reset conspiracy smoothie if anybody would like to look it up but yeah I think that that did that was the beginning of my interest in trying to pick these things apart and
00:36:54
then you know like for me I did go through that phase where I was like okay so does this mean I can't write about the shock Doctrine anymore because it's it's been so kind of polluted and turned into this doppelganger of itself and now
00:37:09
I is it unusable and then things still happen like you know the the the horrific fires on Maui and I still hear from Grassroots activists who say there is real shock Doctrine going on here and
00:37:22
it would be helpful if you know you could help us amplify this you know um like there are real estate speculators who are coming in you know before the you know the the the the bodies have even been found trying to get people to
00:37:33
sell their ancestral homes there is still a whole agenda that is being pushed down people's throats and and that's when I realized no we can't give up our like you said like we like we cannot give up what we truly believe in
00:37:47
just because they are polluting it nothing would be a bigger gift to Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson um and the and Georgia Malone and the rest of them them if if if if if people on the left
00:38:01
believed that we needed to shut up about the things that we believe in because they have you know co-opted parts of them I you know in fact I think it's it's it's you know if it's possible to bring people back from these worlds it's
00:38:13
going to be because there are robust movements that speak to the the same feelings that are being warped and exploited by the Steep bannons of the world but actually provide real um responses that are going to improve
00:38:26
people's lives like debt relief or Universal healthare um yeah not to be a boring leftist but it is part of our mutual attracting to Bernie even because it was like okay you know and that's why
00:38:39
you know I had no problem with Bernie Sanders going on Joe Rogan it's like bring them tell let give them an alternative go right in the belly of their beast and and say no no no we're
00:38:51
all United you but that's a whole other story but you know we're workers we I'm with you I was I was I was I I I absolutely supported Bernie going on Rogan going on Fox you know I mean I think I think I think when you're a
00:39:03
political candidate you're trying to get elected you want to reach those people um and you know whether or not you want to you know be excited about the endorsement that's a separate debate but going making the arguments absolutely
00:39:14
you do that yeah and the way that you decided to bring us through this it's interesting there's this in the book there's this moment where you're like oh I think it's a regular thing where your
00:39:27
dog sees itself like in the in the storm door it sees its mirror um and like barks at itself every night when the reflections just right and you each time you go and you say it's okay baby it's
00:39:39
it's it's this it's this great moment but for that to be the by the way her dog panger that's what I'm most proud of in the book is I'm trying to put the word dog poger into the culture and I'd
00:39:52
like your help with that all right I will use it we will call this episode Dog p ganger um but as a moment for as a moment for insight it's for me that was
00:40:04
the gateway to why you went in a literary Direction with the project do you know what I mean it wasn't the the tax report from Monsanto that sent you that would it was your dog Looking At
00:40:17
Its Reflection that's that set off the journey which then brings which is why it ends up being the such a more I'm not going to judge it like that such a
00:40:29
holistic um experiential Journey rather than just a factual Journey do you know what I mean it it you dimensionalize it in a different way which then ends up
00:40:42
there's people if they don't read the book they're going to think oh this is a hit book like a hit piece on Naomi wolf which it is not it is so empathetic to what your doppelganger is experiencing
00:40:54
on the other side of the mirror because it's it's you you know it's it's it's not you but it is you know and um you're you're allowed to do that because you don't have to agree with her this is a
00:41:06
story now it's literature this is like closer to to to Moses and monotheism right you know what I mean it's like it's like that it's it's it's a a a a
00:41:19
it's this this mental emotional Adventure that you go on that then gets you to that place to see the things so then though it makes it creates and I hate to use this
00:41:31
word but for me it created a safe space to start thinking about stuff that I'm not allowed to think about right so mirrors so here's the mirror that that
00:41:43
although I think now you answered this with the early part so nationalism the extreme nationalism and the the is a version of identity politics for Mirror people
00:41:56
right yeah and it it for me it contaminated and and nullified some of the identity politics going on on our
00:42:09
side but there's a way so if we see okay in the mirror identity politics looks like nationalism which are myths and Supremacy
00:42:21
and but how do we then my impulse as as soon as I see it is okay so we got to stop doing identity Politics on our side because look what it look how the the
00:42:33
healthier response is is [Music] what H [Music] um well I mean I think there are there
00:42:48
there there's a lot to learn from why their form of nationalism is so dangerous um and I think it's because it
00:43:00
is um it's just kind of it's It's a supremacist version of nationalism right like it's not about Pride you know pride in place I think you can have pride in place pride in Community Pride and
00:43:12
culture um without it being a supremacist I uh um idea that my culture is better than your culture which you know Begins the slippery slope down to
00:43:25
and or I can you know annihilate your culture and and um and so yeah I think I think I think identity politics can you
00:43:37
know to quote Al taiu it can be it can be a bridge um of connection of of you know experiences and histories of Oppression is connective tissue in this
00:43:52
world right or it can be a wall it's a choice whether or not it is a bridge uh to un to to of connection between people which is not to say that it that that
00:44:04
bridge um erases difference just because I have a bridge just because I can connect with you just because I I can identify with an experience just because I can empathize doesn't mean that I'm saying it's the same that I am you that
00:44:17
my experience is the same as yours right that we're going to all come together in some mushy uh sameness right um but it but but it's it's but it is different than the kind of proprietary trauma
00:44:30
right that I try to Grapple with in the in the section of the book around Israel Palestine around like you know I of you know I look at Israel as an example of of um what Carolyn Rooney is
00:44:43
a British uh scholar of the Middle East calls um doppelganger politics right where you define yourself against the other where you have this sort of um foundational division of not them me
00:44:55
because we are not them right um and of course there's these deep kind of um uh psychos social mimicries going on right by an oppressed people the Jews who have
00:45:09
experienced that all over Europe um being the other and uh and and being the evil twin of Christianity uh uh being uh you know the the the the the the the
00:45:22
devil to to to The Godly right I mean that a and and then getting this sliver of land where this gets to be reenacted on another people um and but I did you know I've
00:45:35
been returning to these themes you know my all my writing life and I tried to write it in a different way I tried to write it in a way that has more self a little more self-compassion
00:45:49
like um because I think that I have in the past been more just in denci ation mode and I I'm not saying there's no room for that but I'm just saying I'm just trying a different register and
00:46:02
seeing if it lands a little bit uh with with some people who maybe wouldn't have been able to hear a denunciation right but it ends up being more revealing more personally revealing and exposing which
00:46:14
is the the the I mean the Triumph of the book is to prove that look if you go here it ends up better you know if you're willing to actually do glad you
00:46:27
see that you know what I mean you showed up you showed up in a different way for this and in a way that I'm I do in my talks and I'm often scared to in my writing to actually show up and and
00:46:39
wrestle out loud and reveal the actual thoughts as they the the the devil and angel on the shoulders and the actual conversation as it happens but then to do it and it's like and we end up okay
00:46:51
at the end of it to me is the healing power of the book it's like no no this actually is going to be okay don't don't do don't do what they're doing in other words to drawing the line
00:47:04
but it's so hard I mean it's demanding right like what this this moment Demands a lot from all of us right and and that you know to come back to what you were saying at the start around like is it is
00:47:16
it a distraction from the fires or is it another way into them right and yeah I I I feel like and you know you you wrote this to me personally
00:47:30
about this the sort of the need to to use the whole kind of Arsenal of the Arts but also of of of the of personal experience and and these sort of painful I don't know if they're confessions or
00:47:43
what you how you want to describe them but I don't think you can ask people to do hard things if you're not willing to do them yourself you know like I think that I I think I I am trying to model
00:47:57
a vulnerability a self-criticism um I I what I what I'm trying to not do is is be outside and wagging my finger and saying you people out there just worried about your
00:48:09
personal Brands just worried about you know you're clout you're this you're that we're all in it we're in it you know um and and and and and I don't think we can
00:48:22
hear it if it if we're hearing it if if it's somebody pretending they're not in it if it's somebody pretending they're outside of it and better than it um right because it's too hard to be implicated in these in in in these um
00:48:36
you know absolutely horrific systems like we you know that that all everything we're talking about is a way of not looking is a way of of not looking at what it means to be alive today when the the the the the crimes of
00:48:51
the foundational crimes of our countries are being unveiled when the crimes of our futures that we are personally implicated in in this very moment in the energy that we're consuming having this
00:49:03
conversation you know in what we are wearing and what we eat like we are in it we are in these systems and Co I think you know those coid years those plague years where the the
00:49:15
unveiling of the lockdown classes dependency on you know who are actually sacrificial workers um you know it was just everything was just
00:49:30
pulled back and we and our implications like like in this in this necropolitics right we couldn't hide from it anymore right and so I think that that moment where you have the the
00:49:43
the racial justice reckonings of 2020 you have climate change becoming now not future you have the pandemic unveiling all of these inequalities and not not being able to hide from them
00:49:56
anymore it is no wonder that a whole bunch of people decided to run into fantasy land and say no I am not looking at that I'm going to look at anything but that but it's way too easy to say well we're the ones who are just
00:50:09
looking at it all the time because a lot of us are just looking at Barbie you know like a lot of us are just watching streaming television so like let's be honest that it's hard for all of us and there's lots of different ways to look
00:50:21
away and and so um I don't think you can have a I don't think you can talk about something like that unless you're willing to just really lay yourself a little bear right right which then makes the
00:50:36
critique of the other whoever's on the other side of the mirror uh more valid I mean it's it's I was concerned that people might think when you write about dppo ganger that one of
00:50:48
two things could happen either what I said before that people will think oh this is a hitpiece on Naomi wolf or worse that people will think you're saying there's good people on both sides it's just a mirror and we on the left
00:50:59
have to remember that they're human beings you know in the mirror land and let's let's be I mean we should be I am sympathetic or empathetic or something
00:51:11
whatever the right word is I'm I have compassion I was there at the moment that I've always thought was the moment that sent Naomi down down wolf down the wrong yeah I was wondering if you were GNA share yeah I mean I think I talked
00:51:24
about it with you once and it was it was and I've told the readers about this moment but not that she was involved in it it was at John Brockman the agent's house where um Richard Dawkins and other scientists materialist scientists of his
00:51:37
ilk are arguing with Naomi and Naomi wolf is saying that she thinks that materialism doesn't can't explain the entirety of our reality and that's fine I mean vonstein and many of philosophers have brought us there human beings have
00:51:50
systems of meaning materialism is an assumption there could be you don't have to go you you know uh uh into into science fiction or craziness to think that there's stuff here that can't be explained by a purely materialistic
00:52:02
determinist lens and they were laughing at her and I tried to defend her and that's why I was the one who brought up binstein terribly it really didn't work at all um but they laughed at us they called me a moralist they called her
00:52:15
superstitious her own husband was there not even defending her in that in that moment and it was so I was red-faced she was red faced it was so humiliating to have important you know the leading
00:52:29
World scientists say that we were idiots and if you don't have room if consensus culture doesn't have any room wiggle room for those who see a little
00:52:44
differently who go there's something else there's a little there's maybe humans are invested with soul maybe Consciousness did prede matter maybe we don't know everything that's going on if you don't have room for that where is it
00:52:57
going to go it's going to find allies Among The Crazies you know in the in the worst of places you know so when when we have a a I tried to write a piece on medium just saying there's reasons why
00:53:10
people might this is before coid there's reasons why people might be concerned about their kids having vaccines and if we don't at least acknowledge those concerns we're going to push them further into conspiracy which of course
00:53:22
is what happened so in some ways I feel like she's the uh also a victim and I have a lot of friends I'm sure you do too who went qinon who went over and you also wrote a piece that had a big impact
00:53:35
on me when I when I was doing this research around the role of addiction like social media addiction right so I think it's I think that's one piece of it um of just being kind of shut down
00:53:49
and shut out um and having all of these unsayable subjects and then where it really gets toxic is when you have um
00:54:01
you know really deep need for those dopamine hits um so I think especially when it comes to like the the leading figures here
00:54:14
right because we're here we're talking about like industrial scale misinforms and there's a distinction there's the people who are really leading the misinformation and then are the people who are just consuming it mainly right um and the reason why it's effective is
00:54:26
because there's millions of people who are just consuming it who who who are clicking who are buying who are subscribing right because this is filling something in them they're not necessarily getting the attention right
00:54:38
and and those are I think very very different incentive structures um that that we need to unpack but I think when it comes to the people I'm writing about who are the the who who are getting a lot of
00:54:51
traction a lot of followers like getting their follower counts tripled quadrupled you know um it's it's an addiction there that there is something that's going on there I I mean I don't like to
00:55:03
psychoanalyze but that maybe you could talk a little bit more about about what you Ober you know it's a feedback loop if nothing else you know you kind of Sur you you you surmise something you go
00:55:15
well I bet that if you get the vaccine I bet you shed vaccine poisons everywhere you go so if the vaccine makes you sterile and vulnerable to 5G and then
00:55:30
you're teaching in a classroom and speaking the vaccines getting off coming off you and going on to the kids you know and when you do say that it ends up some school board or whatever or running
00:55:43
a place in Florida will end up Banning teachers who uh who have been vaccinated right so the words have meaning even if they came about and I get it they do come about you you guess something you
00:55:56
add to the story just a little bit and a whole bunch of people comment yeah that's right it's like the ultimate yes and um you know improv actor improp the yes and is beautiful feeling inside
00:56:10
especially if you've been like Naomi was and a lot of people were kind of cast out from you know the chattering class culture you're not allowed to write for the Times oped anymore so all of a sudden Aon and his kids are are behind
00:56:24
you mhm MH yep and we've lost journalists to that though I mean I I remember what it's like to write something for a editor and they make you cut out those two paragraphs that are your favorite ones and they say no but
00:56:38
now what happens is they cut out those two paragraphs and you go fine I'm taking my ball and going on substack right and we've watched a lot of mutual friends go there too yeah I mean that's why like as in
00:56:51
earlier draft of the book I made like a list of a lot of the the the people who probably people are thinking of right now and I ended up taking it out just because I thought you know people are good people
00:57:03
everybody has their own version of this like if you're in the yoga and wellness world you have a different list than I have right um you know if you like if you're in the sort of alt spirituality world you have another list of people
00:57:16
who really really changed during Co you know because they started to get that kind of Magic Carpet Ride a digital Magic Carpet Ride when when they said particular things right um so in the end I didn't end up listing those names but
00:57:29
I'm sure that that that that your listeners and viewers are fill filling in the blanks themselves and yeah but it is not just about her right and nor is this doppelganger thing just about me I
00:57:42
mean this is like or I think in in the age of AI right um we I think I think probably everybody listening is going to have the experience of
00:57:56
watching a video of somebody who seems to be them saying something that is not them um and that that chill of the Doppel gang or only it'll be you know digitally produced yeah no a lot I've
00:58:09
been I've been saying you know first they came for the cab drivers and I said nothing because I'm not a cab driver right and they were basically getting doppo ganged first by you know autonomous vehicles which aren't really happening but and and it forces the
00:58:22
cabbie the London cabbie in particular say who knows the whole a to zed to think well what's the difference between me and that thing in Mirror world but right now I feel like AI it's not that
00:58:35
AI is coming for us all which it may be but I can't really attest to that quite yet it's it's still so pathetic but the the AI even as a thought experiment forces us to go are we creating a mirror
00:58:47
of the whole thing right yeah yeah and that's the part that is scariest because it is a mimicry machine right and so what are the implications for new thoughts um you
00:59:02
know and it gets marketed as oh it's going to solve all these things and and it's just the opposite we just are just it's just a remix culture it's just it's just it can't actually do anything new
00:59:13
and and um yeah I but but I think already artists are having that experience of having to compete with um a Doppel gang or AI Doppel or version of
00:59:25
themsel um right and then I mean then and the problem goes away if we're willing to again just challenge capital I have so many artists who are like oh no they could do this they could do that and I'm like you've got to challenge the
00:59:39
underlying assumption that your Artistry is a job that you're employed by the Art Market you know in other words Ai and if we could push through it it could become our Salvation in in the sense that we
00:59:52
realize oh this whole money system this whole thing this whole notion of employment and that art needs to be scarce in order to be valuable and we got to break the whole thing it's the
01:00:05
same with social dilemma and all those things where your students after watching the movie said God haven't these guys heard of capitalism you know the hard I mean this is why I the whole discourse and I you
01:00:17
know kind of just replicated it but I try to be judicious around like it is not the problem is not the machines the problem is not AI it is a particular business model that wants us to believe that it's just the machines that are
01:00:29
doing it on on their own um when it is a you know a handful of extractive companies that are just grabbing all of human creation and privatizing it behind you know new new new digital enclosures
01:00:43
and that's what we have to talk about right but it's funny though that that when you talk about you know AI as kind of the the civilizational level doppelganger you know there's all of our individuals and we have the man on the
01:00:56
train or you know the the the the various uh uh yungi and that you find your double and engaged with it that now when we do it on a civilization wide level when it's the fact that it's gone
01:01:08
uh uh that it's gone meta is kind of forcing us again to look at well what does it mean you know what does it mean to be human here uh you know at collectively and it reminded me I started to think about you know what
01:01:22
were the Aztecs and Incas thinking when the Kista doors came over and it's like they look like human beings they have two legs they speak out of their mouths but they're an entirely different thing
01:01:36
they're they're they're trying to do you know what I mean it's like that finally that we are experienc even the West we are experiencing ourselves as indigenous style beings with the emergence of a
01:01:50
mirror double finally to make us go oh wait a minute you know that we may get to collectively have the experience that you got to describe on a personal level in the book well it's interesting I I I don't
01:02:04
know if you there there's um uh Nick cry and uh ulyses Mayas wrote this paper a bunch of years ago data colonialism um looking at the the these parallels and I think they've got a new book coming I
01:02:17
should probably have them on to talk about it but you know there I think there are lessons to be learned from anticolonial struggles like if we're understanding these as new enclosures and understanding the self as a new
01:02:28
extraction site um uh you know and this and the self as an extraction site is hardly new it's just a new form of extracting um self-identity Labor uh
01:02:43
imagination image um then then what is there to learn from successful anticolonial struggles because there have been many um uh about how to respond to A Moment Like This um and
01:02:57
maybe it isn't just well we all just need to kind of get with the times because that doesn't necessarily end well no no and then I mean finally where
01:03:09
where I've used your your hour here but I I don't even know how to say if I found myself a little bit sad after reading the book thinking if we lived in
01:03:24
a different time if there wasn't such an intense urgency to our predicament might Naomi Klein write a
01:03:36
novel you know I want to read a a novel I want to read a play I want to see I I so want to see you it almost brings tears to me I want to see you go there
01:03:48
because it's so you you are so you are so gifted in those those when the passages go personal when they go it's um I can't I can't imagine um and
01:04:01
there's time you're still young there's still time um would you see it as like would there need to be a break in the action for you to do something like that would there need to like capitalism get
01:04:14
solved and then would you see that way honestly no I think we desperately need art to to believe we are in the moment we're in you know I I I honestly feel like
01:04:28
we've hit a little bit of the a wall with argument and evidence I mean sure we still need to do it and don't tell my bosses at the University because the whole thing is edifice is built on this
01:04:40
idea that if we could just publish another paper proving that it really is you know a problem and that that that that maybe laws would change and maybe reality would change and that pipeline is busted you know um because this
01:04:54
moment demands so much change um and there are such powerful vested interests in preventing that change but there's also like a lot of hunger for that change I mean I think this was part of
01:05:08
the Heartbreak of the pandemic pivot from that first year when so many people were saying I want to change how I live I don't want to go back to what how I was living before I
01:05:20
want I like I I I finally have have time to think um you know those of us who were lucky enough to pause right um and yeah it was hard to have kids home and it was hard to juggle all of that and
01:05:34
there was so much pain in it but there was a slowing down and I believe that that slowing down is part of the reason why George Floyd's murder entered people's hearts in a different way
01:05:46
entered um uh people who were not black felt that in another way I and I think part of that was was just slowing down you know and and and and being able to
01:05:59
go into streets and protest that weren't filled with cars and all of you know all you know and and and all those sort of pandemic cliches of hearing Bird Song
01:06:09
and all of that like you know I I think I don't think it's going to be evidence that is going to shift us I think it's going to I think there's a huge role for
01:06:23
the Arts whether I am part of that whether I you know can push myself to you know to to go further I mean I would love to because um you know I I I think
01:06:35
I've lost a little bit of faith in in what I can do just with argument I think there's still a role for it but I don't think the problem is that we don't know how things are am I I think I'm
01:06:46
allowed to say that um I think that um I think I think things have gone so far off the rails that we don't actually believe in our own reality and what art
01:06:58
can do is slow it down enough to re-experience the the the sort of unbelievable realities of these intersecting and overlapping emergencies and to do it in rooms filled
01:07:11
with other humans is the greatest gift of that we can give people right and that's something that theater can do and and to a lesser extent you know fil film can do um but we need it like we we we
01:07:25
really do so yeah I I don't know maybe maybe I will try to push myself I means a lot to me Douglas that that that you feel that way about me I really did have fun writing this book I do and and and
01:07:38
probably even more gratifying too I feel that way in a renewed way about myself yeah you know what I mean I feel like it's okay it's I'm going to do I mean I've been people who listen to the show no threatening to do theater it's like
01:07:50
oh I get it we need it that's the doble ganger the most simple doppelganger you're sitting there and there's another human up on the stage we create the division we build a doppelganger situation for the learning
01:08:03
that takes place so yeah and it's embodied embodied yes I love it oh that that's exciting so be it the case closed thank you thank you thank you for writing this thank you for taking the
01:08:15
risk thank you for publishing it um it's it's it's meant the it's meant the world to me personally and and I assure every everybody who reads this just read the actual book not the article not the
01:08:28
interview not the thing read the ACT there's you can there's books that you could read the excerpt this is not that this is like say it's like what you're going to read the excerpt of making love with your your your partner for the
01:08:40
first time no don't read it actually do it you have to do it okay thank you thank you so much bye everyone
End of transcript