Welcome

Introduction, and a tribute to Mr. Anderson

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. I can trace this dream back to my 8th-grade English teacher, who was my guardian angel, and encouraged me (like many other closeted gay kids) to express myself through writing. With one fantasy romance novelette under my belt, by the time I moved for high school my career as an author was already in full swing.

During my junior year, I took AP English Language and Composition with Mr. Richard Anderson, which completely altered the trajectory of my nascent writing stint. Armed with a gruff, no-nonsense attitude and the Norton Reader (12th ed.), Mr. Anderson exposed me to some of the best nonfiction writing ever written, and certainly that I had ever read at that point. We read George Orwell and James Baldwin, Joan Didion and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. We read all of Consider the Lobster and The Elements of Style. Before I took Anderson’s course, I truly had no idea what an essay was. I was transformed — the fog had been lifted from a vast literary ocean, into which I intended on plunging headfirst, standardized tests be damned.

I’ll never forget our first lesson in Mr. Anderson’s class, in which he taught us the original meaning of the word “essay,” which comes from the Middle French essayer, to try or attempt. Michel de Montaigne’s Essais, written in the 16th century, encompassed a vast range of subjects about which he attempted to put his thoughts into words.¹ To essay is to embark upon a trial, which is how the word was first used in English. To share an essay is therefore to recount one’s discovery or destination — or at least one’s attempt to reach it.

Indeed, I was reminded of Mr. Anderson and inspired to write this inaugural blog post about him when I happened upon this passage in the introduction to How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell: “I came out of this book different than I went in. So, consider this not a closed transmission of information, but instead an open and extended essay, in the original sense of the word (a journey, an essaying forth). It’s less a lecture than an invitation to take a walk.” It is in this tradition that I hope to honor the art of the essay as it was taught to me.

It was around this time that I became seriously involved with the school newspaper, The Tattler. Inspired by Mr. Anderson’s class, I wrote an op-ed on behalf of the editorial board entitled “On Teaching Good Writing,” in which I voiced my qualms with the English curriculum. For context, I and many of my peers were in the throes of college applications, and being one of the 15 students in Anderson’s class had, from my perspective, given me a leg up. More importantly, I felt the urge to express an indignant rage on having been deprived of this prose for so long.² What pleasure the essay could now provide!

Even after finishing Mr. Anderson’s class and becoming The Tattler’s copy editor, writing was never something that I seriously entertained as anything beyond a hobby or a useful skill. Even after earning the senior superlative of “Most Likely to Win a Pulitzer Prize,” I unfortunately wrote off journalism in favor of more “realistic” career prospects as I headed off to Georgetown to study international affairs, ignoring the bright-eyed child who dreamed of being a writer.

Richard W. Anderson died on February 20, 2019, at age 75. I believe our AP Lang class was the last class he taught before retiring. I can honestly say that I don’t know where I would be without him, not just as a writer but as a member of society. If any of us made a comment in class that he thought was “bullshit,” he would tell us then and there, and he was usually right. He really was a pain in the ass a lot of the time, but he was brilliant and effusive because, in turn, he didn’t think we deserved any bullshit from him. Being able to develop and contribute coherent literary analysis is not something I take for granted, and it is a skill whose genesis was in Anderson’s classroom.

Mr. Anderson, from his obituary.

In my high school yearbook in 2016, Mr. Anderson wrote the following: “Casey – you are the real deal – thank you for being a chance taker – I’ve learned from you.” I don’t know that I have been able to fully live up to this. I stuck around to do a master’s degree in security studies after undergrad, while working a corporate job that would allow me to stay in D.C. where I had friends and a support network. Doing school and work full-time wasn’t easy, and I’m grateful to myself for sticking it out, but I never viewed it as risky, as taking a chance. If anything, it was a safe bet in many ways.

Last month, though, I quit my job and moved back home to recenter myself in the things that have brought me joy, among which the centerpiece has been allowing myself the space and time to read and write. I see this as the first time in a long time that I have taken a chance on myself, to honor my childhood dream and to honor what Mr. Anderson saw in me. I’ll be moving to Buenos Aires in September to further this self-exploration and (hopefully) allow myself to experience life in a way in which I haven’t previously. And, yes, this blog will play a part in this journey, this essaying forth, and I sincerely hope that you walk with me.

With that, here’s a preview of what’s to come.

• As I mentioned, I recently read How to Do Nothing by the artist Jenny Odell, which has profoundly impacted how I consider my place within the attention economy³ and capitalist notions of “value” and “productivity.” These same notions are challenged in books from different disciplines, such as political science and anthropology, that I have also incorporated into my perspective. Expect to see some meditations on these subjects, drawing heavily from the radiant authors whose works have recently transformed my worldview.

• In college, I was obsessed with corruption and institutions, which was the subject of my first academic publication. In my courses, I initially viewed corruption through the lens of international political economy and development. Later, however, my job as an investigator gave me first-hand experience with researching offshore entities and corrupt transnational networks, adding a practical layer to my understanding of corruption. On Corruption in America by Sarah Chayes is one of those books that blew my mind, urging me to draw my attention (attention, that precious resource!) toward our own backyard. This discussion will naturally tie into the previously-mentioned topics, questioning the premise of wealth accumulation and unending growth — which fuels these global networks of corruption and greed — as a net good.

• A look at illicit networks naturally offers space for me to flex the open-source research chops that were fundamental to my previous job. Although I no longer have the title and salary of an investigator, I now hope to utilize this skillset to tease apart some of the more insidious manifestations of corruption and capitalist incentives (now without the corporate overlords dictating where my energy would be (literally) spent). These blog posts will ideally be less philosophical than the above, and they will most likely be the clearest examples of the essay, the attempt to wrap my head around extremely and intentionally complex networks and present them cogently in writing, and hopefully convince you why they matter.

• Switching gears a bit, the best class that I took in graduate school was entitled “Domestic Terrorism,” and it primarily concerned white supremacy and far-right extremism (among other movements with terrorist tactics), tracing their origins back to the KKK. Not only was the professor of that course, Jerry Bjelopera, the best instructor I had since Mr. Anderson, but the coupling of academic papers and books with hard-hitting journalism, from Ida B. Wells to contemporary writers, inspired me greatly. The ever-evolving examples of white supremacy, as well as other manifestations of conservative mythologies of America, are some of the most pressing issues in U.S. politics. As a budding political writer, and more immediately now as a Guy With a Blog, these topics require my energy.

This is not a grocery list for the blog, but some helpful context about me and my interests that will set the terms for where I go from here — at least, to begin with. I expect and wholeheartedly hope that the process of essaying and essaying again will bring me down unexpected paths, offering me new insights that I may incorporate into subsequent writing. My journey to Argentina will no doubt present challenges and opportunities that I will be compelled to share as well. I sincerely hope that you will offer feedback and critiques wherever you have them, which can only serve to enrich us collectively.

I can only hope to have made Mr. Anderson proud with this tribute and what’s yet to come. I’m very excited to share my writing with you. With that, I’ll sign off.

1. Montaigne prefaced his essays with the following humility, which I believe is essential for an exercise such as this: “I am myself the matter of this book; you would be unreasonable to suspend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject.” Unreasonable, perhaps, but I do hope you join me.

2. Speaking of indignant rage, this op-ed provoked an unusual reaction from another English teacher at the school, who penned a bizarre letter to the editor under an anonymous email and pseudonym, although his identity was revealed through Google Docs’ edit history. In one of my prouder moments, I satirized this letter in our April Fool’s edition. Among other reasons, this English teacher did not return to teach the following year. Perhaps you could trace back the urge to start a blog to the thrill that this entire episode gave me. But I digress.

3. This is perhaps ironic for someone who is just starting a blog. We’ll get into it.