Jonathan Chait Disects Naomi Klein
Pour yourself the late Sunday night coffee or glass of wine, get comfortable, and go and read Jonathan Chait’s brilliant deconstruction of one of the left’s saddest cases: Canada’s own Naomi Klein.
But Klein was intellectually unfazed. Rather than re-think the economicist premises of her recent radicalism, she set out to synthesize her old worldview with the post-9/11 world. “I felt it emotionally,” she told The New York Times, “before I understood it factually.” Doggedly connecting the dots, she discovered that the Iraq war was–guess what?–part of the same economic tissue that connected Nike and the World Trade Organization. Klein is nothing if not a totalistic thinker. Everything always adds up, and darkly. the new republic
What has always struck me about Ms. Klein is that her world view admits no possibility of doubt, much less error. She knows the truth and sets out to find the facts that back her up. Chait, a rather more nuanced thinker, finds more than a few facts which shoot her down. Not that it matters: to the sort of people who read Klein, “truthiness” is more important than actual fact. And much more interesting.
Written by jay on July 20th, 2008 with
5 comments.
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#1. July 20th, 2008, at 6:44 PM.
What has always struck me about Naomi Klein is her poor choice of husband. Avi Lewis, major pukealoid dweazel.