Doppelganger

The Faustian bargain of the digital age – free or cheap digital conveniences in exchange for our data – was only ever explained to us after it was already a done deal. And it represents an enormous and radical shift not only in how we live but also, far more importantly, in what our lives are for. We are all mine sites now, data mine sites, and despite the intimacy and import of what is being mined, the mining process remains utterly obscure and the mine operators wholly unaccountable.

Calm is not a replacement for righteous rage or fury at injustice, both of which are powerful drivers for necessary change. But calm is the precondition for focus, for the capacity to prioritise. If shock induced a loss of identity, then calm is the condition under which we return to ourselves. [John] Berger helped me to see that the search for calm is why I write: to tame the chaos in my surroundings, in my own mind, and – I hope – in the minds of my readers as well. The information is almost always distressing and, to many, shocking – but in my view, the goal should never be to put readers into a state of shock. It should be to pull them out of it.

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[...] The effect of conspiracy culture is the opposite of calm; it is to spread panic.

For me, the reason to study and read and write about economic and social systems, and to attempt to identify their underlying patterns, is precisely because it is stabilising. This kind of system-based work is akin to laying a strong foundation for a building: once it is in place, everything that follows will be sturdier; without it, nothing will be safe from a strong gust of wind. Yes, our world is still confusing after we understand this – but it is not incomprehensible. There are always systemic forces at play, and a great many of them have to do with the core capitalist imperative to expand and grow by seeking out new frontiers to enclose.

That imperative certainly explains a lot about the kinds of doubling discussed so far. The accelerated need for growth has made our economic lives more precarious, leading to the drive to brand and commodify our identities, to optimise our selves, our bodies, and our kids. That same imperative set the rules (or lack thereof) that allowed a group of profoundly underwhelming tech bros to take over our entire information ecology and build a new economy off our attention and outrage. It’s also the logic behind the offloading of Covid response onto the individual (wear your mask, get your jab), to the exclusion of those bigger-ticket investments in strengthening public schools, hospitals, and transit systems. Elites who benefit greatly from these priorities are the same ones who bankroll political and media projects devoted to pitting non-rich people against one another based on race, ethnicity, and gender expression – making them less likely to unite based on common economic and class interests.

There is, of course, a difference between a system doing what it was designed to do, no matter the human costs, and secret cabals of nefarious individuals interfering with an otherwise fair and just democracy. That, I have always believed, is one of the core reasons for the left to exist: to provide a structural analysis of wealth and power that brings order and rigour to the prevailing (and correct) sense that society is rigged against the majority, and that important truths are being hidden behind pat political rhetoric. Because we cannot change what we do not understand. And because the system is rigged, and most people are indeed getting screwed – but without a firm understanding of capitalism’s drive to find new profit sources to enclose and extract, many will imagine there is a cabal of uniquely nefarious individuals pulling the strings.