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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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Hannibal Lectern
#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.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Alan
#2. July 20th, 2008, at 7:34 PM.

That is just sad, not nearly silly. Even if you do not agree with Klein - who does? - it is not different than a hundred similar voices on the right, elsewhere the left or thousands for any other position. I love the “…and darkly”: 1975-worthy Marvel comic book thought hits the NYT. Klein surely = death cult, right?

More “Gotcha” yawnery.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com jay
#3. July 20th, 2008, at 7:58 PM.

Hannibal, I’ve often suspected it was an arranged marriage.

Ah, Alan, you may well be right, but as Chait points out this drivel has earned her huge sales and the reputation as one of the seminal thinkers of the current age…the new Noam Chomsky for Gawd’s sake…..sigh.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Rod Blaine
#4. July 21st, 2008, at 5:02 AM.

Klein’s advantage is that she’s one of the few prominent women on the Left who is photogenic.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Rod Blaine
#5. July 21st, 2008, at 5:01 PM.

IOW, if Naomi didn’t look something like Jennifer Grey after a few dozen milkshakes, No Logo would have been remaindered in 1999 rather than 2001. [*]

And a Klein-Lewis marriage? Would’ve been a fun ceremony to watch. Most brides worry that hubby won’t be able to recite his vows from memory, but Avi’s smackdown interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali fills me with confidence that this intelligent young fellow’s life specialty is repeating, verbatim, words written by other people.

[*] Yes, I am commenting on her appearance. No, I am not trying to pull a Kinsella (”Kathy Shaidle weighs more than 70 kg, ergo whatever she says is rubbbish”) Gambit here. Just seeking an empirical explanation for why NK got so very much more coverage than other fellow-travellers in purple dreadlocks.

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