Klein looks calm and curious as she delivers this message. She has a ready laugh. But then, she had the same unruffled, buoyant delivery when I interviewed her on stage in Manchester for Doppelgänger, her 2023 book in which she described how the digital world is destroying our connection to reality, and one another. In 1999, when her breakthrough work No Logo was published, she seemed exhilaratingly certain, at 29, that neoliberalism was bringing harm that we couldn’t yet even see the extent of, and nonetheless appeared centred and happy in the world. Somehow she manages to maintain this attitude, even though the news she delivers is always so convincingly, unbelievably bad.
End Times Fascism describes the world we’re in, where the components of authoritarianism are modelled everywhere you look: anarcho-libertarian economics in Argentina, the destruction of a free press in Russia, the erosion of democratic institutions in Hungary (until Viktor Orbán was deposed), “anti-immigrant neofascism” in Italy, the weaponisation of trans identity by Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Islamophobia in Modi’s India. But this is fascism with a difference. Its proponents are actively willing an apocalypse, or a wave of interconnected apocalypses brought forth by climate change and financial chaos, to hasten us towards a post-democratic world in which only a rich few survive to prosper.
This book started as an article in the Guardian, “which went totally viral,” Klein says. “Astra and I knew there was a lot more reporting to do, but on a personal level, did we want to spend the next year in the minds of these people, in these cultures? Then Astra said, ‘I’m down the rabbit hole, I’m gonna be listening to these guys anyway. So I may as well feel like I’m doing something about it.’ This is the reason it’s the first book I’ve co-written. When you go to dark, scary places, it’s nice to bring a friend.” Astra Taylor is also a writer, activist and documentary maker, and founded the Debt Collective, a fascinating experiment in building structured, quasi-unionised solidarity around personal debt, with the long term goals of abolishing student tuition fees, nationalising healthcare and building tenant power.
Naomi Klein is a badass
What the fuck are you talking about? Stop bringing up random unmentioned people. I am talking about Naomi Klein. Can you at least stay on topic if you’re going to be a smarmy replyguy?
Read this: https://hexbear.net/post/9646594 in case you want to know what actual leftists think of this shitty author. Notice how actual socialists nearly-universally shit on her. A learning moment for you.
That link doesn’t really demonstrate what you say it does.
Burying your head in the sand when faced with direct evidence is certainly one way to handle criticism.
The entire thread is leftists dunking on your beloved liberal, Zionist author. Cope harder.
Try as you might, you can’t dismiss the quality of her work or how lucidly she frames issues with capitalism just because you don’t agree with all of her politics.
There isn’t a whole lot of trying involved here because you’ve assembled such a feeble premise.
You have some fixation with this author. Perhaps she was formative for you. But me calling her liberal slop is not only accurate, it’s charitable.
I’ve just linked you a hexbear thread full of socialists. Your favorite author was panned across the entire thread, but you seem to not care. I could quote each comment in the thread highlighting the various criticisms these socialists have with her work, if that would help? I see easily 10 in-depth analyses criticizing her.
You saw irrefutable evidence that leftists see it my way, and you ignored it because it goes against your preconceived notion that this author isn’t liberal slop. You’re not prepared to argue with materialists.
I could recommend that you study some Marxism so you don’t keep digging yourself into these unwinnable liberal hellholes of idealistic, wishful arguing with no serious interest in reconciliation of thought.
Edit: I thought so.