Doppelganger, page 43
“He who builds children palaces”: Quoted in Kamatovic.
“Vienna had become a crucible of ideas”: Edith Sheffer, Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018), 38.
As Silberman documents: Silberman, Neurotribes, 87–88.
“‘family welfare’ under the Nazis”: Kamatovic, “How Vienna’s Socialist City Hall Put Children at the Heart of the Welfare State.”
“unworthy of life”: This phrase is commonly attributed to the Nazi Party, which probably borrowed it from the German attorney Karl Binding and the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche. See Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, Permitting the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life: Its Measure and Form, trans. Cristina Modak (Greenwood, Wis.: Suzeteo Enterprises, 2012), originally published in German in 1920. See also Howard Brody and M. Wayne Cooper, “Binding and Hoche’s ‘Life Unworthy of Life’: A Historical and Ethical Analysis,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 57, no. 4 (2014): 500–511.
“There are as many approaches”: Quoted in Sheffer, Asperger’s Children, 214.
“transmission of diseased hereditary material”: Quoted in Herwig Czech, “Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and ‘Race Hygiene’ in Nazi-Era Vienna,” Molecular Autism 9, no. 1 (2018): 13.
“autistic psychopaths”: Quoted in Sheffer, Asperger’s Children, 214.
“poverty of Gemüt”: Quoted in Sheffer, 157.
“roam the streets as ‘originals’”: Quoted in Sheffer, 179.
“little professors”: Silberman, Neurotribes, 6.
“We know how many of our former children”: Quoted in Czech, “Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and ‘Race Hygiene’ in Nazi-Era Vienna,” 16.
Recent research has shown: Czech, 20.
“It was up to Nazi child psychiatrists”: Sheffer, Asperger’s Children, 67.
“My heart goes out to you”: Philip Roth, Operation Shylock: A Confession (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 62–63.
“The Germans have proved”: Roth, Operation Shylock, 63.
“double-sided character of Asperger’s actions”: Sheffer, Asperger’s Children, 17.
“I am interested in the underlying ideology”: Anna N. de Hooge, “Binary Boys: Autism, Aspie Supremacy and Post/Humanist Normativity,” Disability Studies Quarterly 39, no. 1 (2019).
11. Calm, Conspiracy … Capitalism
“displaces the real threats”: Rodrigo Nunes, “Are We in Denial About Denial?,” Public Books, November 25, 2020.
“Hence, calm is a form of resistance”: John Berger, blurb, “Advance Praise,” The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (website), accessed November 8, 2022.
“shockingly shocking” … “petrifying”: Steve Bannon, host, “Naomi Wolf: The Lies of Pfizer,” War Room: Pandemic (podcast), May 4, 2022, at 0:41, posted on Rumble; Paul Elias Alexander, “Dr. Wolf: Twitter Ban—Menstrual Dysregualtion [sic] and Serious Fertility Issues After COVID Injection,” July 30, 2022, at 11:42, posted on Rumble.
“I don’t want to use inflated language”: Naomi Wolf, interview by Steve Bannon, War Room: Pandemic (podcast), episode 1,076, July 6, 2021, at 27:17–27:35.
“the belief that certain events”: “Identifying Conspiracy Theories,” European Commission, accessed November 8, 2022.
“Somehow, somewhere, someone”: Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women (1990; repr. New York: Perennial, 2002), 66.
she saw a plot and a “war”: Naomi Wolf, “The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy,” The Guardian, November 25, 2011.
“I believe in equipping women”: Katharine Viner, “Stitched Up,” The Guardian, September 1, 2001.
“a child of the narrative”: Alexander, “Dr. Wolf: Twitter Ban,” at 16:29.
“Liberal investments in individualism”: Jack Bratich, email to author, October 26, 2022.
“There is no such thing as society”: Margaret Thatcher, September 23, 1987, transcript of an interview by Douglas Key for Woman’s Own, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
“If Covid was really serious”: Nikou Asgari, “‘A Form of Brainwashing’: Why Trump Voters Are Refusing to Have a Vaccine,” Financial Times, July 20 2021.
“sovereign citizens”: “Sovereign Citizens Movement,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed November 8, 2022.
popularized by leftists in Turkey: Ryan Gingeras, “How the Deep State Came to America,” War on the Rocks, February 4, 2019.
“People of the same trade”: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776; repr. London: David Campbell Publishers, 1991), 116.
“the ruling class showing class solidarity”: Mark Fisher, “Exiting the Vampire Castle,” Open Democracy, November 24, 2013. Republished with permission from The North Star (original publication date November 22, 2013).
“Abuse of power begets conspiracy”: Marcus Gilroy-Ware, After the Fact? The Truth About Fake News (London: Repeater Books, 2020), 169. Italics in the original.
impunity for real conspiracies: Sarah Kendzior, They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent (New York: Flatiron Books, 2022).
“Does anyone really think”: Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Zero Books, 2009), 68.
“wholly unjustified and brutal invasion”: “George W. Bush Confuses Iraq with Ukraine in Gaffe,” Associated Press channel on YouTube, May 19, 2022.
“Conspiracy theories are a misfiring”: Gilroy-Ware, After the Fact?, 169.
“You are stuck in your body”: Daisy Hildyard, “The Second Body,” The Learned Pig, November 15, 2017. Excerpt from Daisy Hildyard, The Second Body (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017).
“There is no document of civilization”: Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt (London: Bodley Head, 2015), 248.
“It goes without saying”: James Baldwin, “The Creative Process,” in The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948–1985 (New York: St. Martin’s/Marek, 1985), 317.
“When you are on a former battlefield”: Deena Metzger, La Vieja: A Journal of Fire (Topanga, Calif.: Hand to Hand, 2022), 1.
12. No Way Out but Back
“Someday all of our kids”: Naomi Wolf, “I’m Not ‘Brave’; You’re Just a P—y,” Outspoken with Dr Naomi Wolf, Substack, March 2, 2022.
“atlas of human suffering”: “IPCC Adaptation Report ‘a Damning Indictment of Failed Global Leadership on Climate,’” UN News, February 28, 2022.
“So on Day 3”: Wolf, “I’m Not ‘Brave.’”
“the takeaway”: Wolf, “I’m Not ‘Brave.’”
had already announced: Eric Adams @NYCMayor, tweet, February 27, 2022, Twitter.
Just a few days later: “As COVID Cases Plummet and Vaccination Rates Reach New Heights, Mayor Adams Announces Next Phase of Pandemic Response,” NYC: Official Website of the City of New York, March 4, 2022.
“forced separate accommodations”: Wolf, “I’m Not ‘Brave.’”
enough of an admirer: Ann Gerhart, “Who’s Afraid of Naomi Wolf? The List Is Growing Fast Since the ‘Promiscuities’ Author Turned Gore Adviser,” Washington Post, November 5, 1999.
“as if we were all living”: Naomi Wolf, “A Lost Small Town,” Outspoken with Dr Naomi Wolf, Substack, October 26, 2022.
a teaching assistant … “I am representing Rosa Parks”: Ryan Clarke, “Newberg School Staffer Shows Up in Blackface, Fired from Position,” Newberg Graphic, September 20, 2021; Lars Larson, host, “Lauren Pefferle—NW School Worker Shows Up to Protest Vaccine Mandate … in Blackface,” The Lars Larson Show, September 23, 2021, at 3:18, posted on SoundCloud.
Let Them Breathe: Tania Thorne, “The Woman Behind Let Them Breathe; the Fight Against School Mask Mandates,” KPBS, October 20, 2021.
“We have been enslaved by our government”: Eoin Higgins, “Fresh Off Twitter Ban, Naomi Wolf to Headline Anti-Vax ‘Juneteenth’ Event,” The Flashpoint, Substack, June 8, 2021.
“A lot of people in this nation’s history” … “absolutely discrimination”: Naomi Wolf @DrNaomiRWolf, Gettr post (video), June 30, 2022, at 2:01 and 3:58.
“an important moment in this nation’s history”: Wolf, Gettr post, June 30, 2022, at 3:11.
“We’ve had over 150 fake one-star reviews”: April Ehrlich, “Salem Restaurant Buried in Fake Reviews, Hateful Comments Following Naomi Wolf Incident,” Oregon Public Broadcasting, August 1, 2022.
“I’m sorry that you’re centering yourself”: Wolf, Gettr post, June 30, 2022, at 3:32.
“the Dream”: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015).
“These collective efforts”: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “American Racism and the Buffalo Shooting,” New Yorker, May 15, 2022.
“shadow banned”: Naomi Wolf @DrNaomiRWolf, Gettr post, April 14, 2022.
three years old: “Remains of Children of Kamloops Residential School Discovered,” press release, Kamloops Indian Band, May 21, 2021.
“cultural genocide”: Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015), 1.
at least 150,000: Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, 3.
forced to attend: Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, 53.
the names of 3,201 children … updated to 4,117: Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials: The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, vol. 4 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 15; “Concerted National Action Overdue for All the Children Who Never Came Home from Residential Schools,” joint news release, National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at UBC, June 2, 2021.
closer to 25,000: “Murray Sinclair on the Deaths of Children in Residential Schools, and What Must Be Done to Help Survivors,” The Current, CBC Radio, June 2, 2021, at 5:57–6:23.
over two thousand suspected unmarked graves: Carina Xue Luo, “Missing Children of Indian Residential Schools,” Academic Data Centre, Leddy Library, University of Windsor, September 6, 2022.
“kill the Indian in the child”: “Residential Schools in Canada: Education Guide,” Historica Canada, 9, accessed January 3, 2023.
“Yes, it’s a genocide”: Ka’nhehsí:io Deer, “Pope Says Genocide Took Place at Canada’s Residential Schools,” CBC News, July 30, 2022.
unanimously passed: Sean Kilpatrick, “Motion to Call Residential Schools Genocide Backed Unanimously,” Globe and Mail, October 28, 2022.
“Hunger is both the first and last thing”: George Manuel and Michael Posluns, The Fourth World: An Indian Reality (Don Mills, Ontario: Collier-Macmillan Canada, 1974), 65.
“They stole the children”: Naomi Klein, “Stealing Children to Steal the Land,” The Intercept, June 16, 2021.
“be honest with ourselves about our history”: Justin Trudeau, “Trudeau Says Canadians ‘Must Be Honest’ About Country’s History in Canada Day Message,” Global News channel on YouTube, July 1, 2021, at 1:15.
“Nations themselves are narrations”: Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), xiii.
“An invented past can never be used”: James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: Franklin Watts, 1963), 95.
“If I told the same story”: Melissa Tait, “Healing Through Drums,” Globe and Mail, September 29, 2022.
“those little ones that had gone missing”: Mike Otto, “An Idea Turned into a Trucking Convoy for a Cause,” Over the Road Legend (podcast), July 14, 2021, at 7:16.
King is an open racist: Shannon Proudfoot, “Tamara Lich vs. Pat King: A Tale of Two Convoy Protest Leaders,” Globe and Mail, November 4, 2022.
“It’s called depopulation”: Pat King, “Trudeau Is Going to Catch a Bullet … Only Way This Ends Is with Bullets,” video posted on Streamable, at 0:56.
“not only infiltrate”: David Bauder, “What Is White Replacement Theory? Police Probe Conspiracy’s Role in Buffalo Shooting,” Global News, May 16, 2022.
reported that virtually every: “The ‘Freedom Convoy’ Is Nothing but a Vehicle for the Far Right,” Canadian Anti-Hate Network, January 27, 2022.
“Diagolon is increasingly becoming”: Peter Smith, “A Holocaust Denier Is Travelling Across Canada Building Up the Country’s Newest Far-Right Militia Movement,” Canadian Anti-Hate Network, January 11, 2022.
“not a coincidence”: Jesse Wente @JesseWente, tweet, February 17, 2022. Account has been deleted. Quoted with permission.
“Canada Day times a thousand”: “Ottawa Occupation Was ‘Canada Day Times 1000’: Lianne Rood Conservative MP,” Women in Canadian Politics channel on YouTube, March 2, 2022, at 0:18.
orange sweatshirts: Matthew Remski, “Oppression Fantasies of White Anti-Vax Moms,” The Conspirituality Report, Medium, June 1, 2021.
13. The Nazi in the Mirror
“The very existence of this film”: Exterminate All the Brutes, directed by Raoul Peck (HBO Original, April 7, 2021).
“The foundation of it all”: “Exterminate All the Brutes: Raoul Peck’s Statement of Intent,” HBO channel on YouTube, April 6, 2021.
“And if the inferior race must perish”: Joseph Conrad, The Rescue (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), 148.
“At some future period”: Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (London: John Murray, 1896), 1:156.
“the core of European thought”: Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes”: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide (London: Granta, 1997), 3.
“Concentration camps were not invented in Germany”: Quoted in Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (London: Little Brown, 2016), 6–7.
“mercy in a massacre”: Bedford Pim, The Negro and Jamaica (London: Trübner, 1866), 63.
world’s first eugenics-based law: Phillip Reilly, The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).
“gunned down the millions”: Quoted in James Q. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2017), 9.
“There is only one task”: Quoted in David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 303.
“In this business I shall go straight ahead”: Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944: His Private Conversations, trans. Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens (New York: Enigma, 2000), 69.
“We’ll supply the Ukrainians with scarves”: Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, 34.
“Auschwitz was the modern industrial application”: Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes,” 160.
“when what had been done in the heart of darkness”: Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes,” 172.
“There was no Nazi atrocity”: W. E. B. Du Bois, The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (New York: International Publishers, 1965), 23.
“Nazism before it was inflicted on them”: Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 36.
“Yes, it would be worthwhile”: Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 36.
“The idea of extermination”: Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes,” 9.
“The ideas forged in the plantation economy”: Rinaldo Walcott, On Property: Policing, Prisons, and the Call for Abolition (Windsor: Biblioasis, 2021), 13.
“the cruel persecution”: Nomi Kaltmann, “The Courage of William Cooper,” Tablet, January 26, 2021.
“Two events need not be identical”: Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes,” x.
“Forces opposed to justice”: Olúfmi O. Táíwò, Reconsidering Reparations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), 199.
“There is a resistance to memory”: Jacqueline Rose, Proust Among the Nations: From Dreyfus to the Middle East (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 120.
“the biggest fake news story”: Dana Kennedy, “‘Biggest Fake News Story in Canada’: Kamloops Mass Grave Debunked by Academics,” New York Post, May 27, 2022.
He left a long, rambling manifesto: Maxine Joselow, “Suspect in Buffalo Rampage Cited ‘Ecofascism’ to Justify Actions,” Washington Post, May 17, 2022.
“I’m struck by the similarity”: Julian Brave NoiseCat @jnoisecat, tweet, May 16, 2022, Twitter.
14. The Unshakable Ethnic Double
“At this point”: Jeet Heer @HeerJeet, tweet, March 20, 2021, Twitter.
“If one is attacked as a Jew”: Hannah Arendt, Essays in Understanding, 1930–1945, ed. Jerome Kohn (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1994), 12.
“WHY ARE YOU SENDING”: Omar Sakr @omarsakrpoet, tweet, March 29, 2022, Twitter.
“Some reproach me with being a Jew”: Quoted in Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951), 64.
“The Jew is one whom”: Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, trans. George J. Becker (1948; repr. New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 49. The original, in French, was written in 1944 and published in book form in 1946.
“double-consciousness”: W. E. B. Du Bois, “Strivings of the Negro People,” The Atlantic, August 1897.
“I plan to give you reasons for your jumpy fits”: June Jordan, “I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies,” in Things That I Do in the Dark: Selected Poetry (1977; repr. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981), 144.
“The face is the ultimate communication tool”: Grace Ebert, “I’m Not a Look-Alike: Hundreds of Unrelated Doppelgängers Sit for François Brunelle’s Uncanny Portraits,” Colossal, February 9, 2022.
“the socialism of fools”: Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 173.
bloody pogroms in 660 towns and cities: Robert Weinberg, “Workers, Pogroms, and the 1905 Revolution in Odessa,” Russian Review 46, no. 1 (January 1987): 53.
