Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World

by Naomi Klein

A Struggle Between Care and Uncare The question I am left with is not the one I hear so frequently about her: How did a person like that turn into a person like this? But: What kind of system is most likely to light up the best parts of all of us—and sustain the fire beyond a protest, or a summer uprising, or a presidential campaign? “I believe the starting point for building a more caring society,” writes Sally Weintrobe, a psychoanalyst who specializes in the climate crisis, “is never forgetting that care and uncare are inherent parts of us all, and that each seeks expression and dominance over the other.” In other words, we (not just those evil others) are all in a perpetual struggle with our that-and-thisness. The trouble is, we live in a society that encourages and rewards the uncaring parts of ourselves, while making it hard to care for others outside our immediate family (and often within it) in any sustained way. So, Weintrobe, argues, if we want more people to make better choices—not to shop for useless stuff as a source of solace, not to spread disinformation for clicks and clout, not to see other people’s vulnerability and need as a threat to our own interests—we need better structures and systems. Personally, and to no one’s surprise, I think the jury is in on capitalism: it lights up our most uncaring, competitive parts and is failing us on every front that matters. What we need are systems that light up our better selves, the parts of ourselves that want to l...