Freud observed that when a person is confronted by their doppelganger, they become unfamiliar to themselves. On an individual level, that is deeply destabilizing, as I have learned. But I also know, as an activist who has lost herself in causes and crowds, that becoming unfamiliar to oneself need not be a horrifying experience; I have felt it to be transcendent. When we come together in movements working for the scale of change demanded by our times (which is less green juice than Global Green New Deal), it changes us, and we become people who are, if not unfamiliar, then certainly unexpected. Braver. More hopeful. More connected. More able to feel love toward people we barely know.

XREF: Parallels literature on collective effervescence (Durkheim) and identity transformation in social movements. SEED: Potential essay contrasting Freud's destabilizing doppelganger with movements' transcendent self-loss.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 1089