Cobb

From Liberal To Conservative To Neither

Many people with whom I engage online have come to know me because of the work that I did as a black conservative. It is often difficult for them to see me in any other context. A question I answered on Quora may help those with genunie curiosity. 

Q. What turned you from liberal to conservative?

A. Seeds were planted all through my life. I noticed contradictions and lapses in Left politics. Having grown up with both my parents as cultural Marxists and social workers, I was right in the middle of the vanguard.

The first blow to that thinking came in the form of the work by Thomas Sowell whom I read in college. This was about the same time as the second Reagan presidency lead the country out of inflation. So by the mid 80s I was definitely pro-business and while not a supply-sider, definitely mindful of all economic aspects of political thinking. Having worked in a bank in the early 80s, I understood that people could not game the market and had no misgivings that capitalism was rigged against the people.

The second thing that happened was I came to understand the limits of Affirmative Action, having written the algorithms of the Balanced Workforce Model of Xerox Corporation that won awards from the Business Roundtable as the most progessive organization. From that I started to understand the actual supply and demand as well as the impact of political thought on meritocracy. Basically Affirmative Action is little more than a planned economy. In that way, it can never work and never not be controversial.

Thirdly, I came to recognize the ego-driven mendacity of the ‘activist’ world. I did so by participating in that smushy landscape of performance poetry and bohemian self-righteousness. It was fun, but it was not productive. Around that same time I began to sense that which was best described by David Graeber (the man who coined ‘we are the 99%’) as the ‘bullshit economy’. I ran from it and started taking money more seriously. Well because I got married and had kids, quickly. I moved to the South from NYC.

Then in quick succession several things happened to me that pushed me over the edge. Of course there was 9/11. Then I finally read some real history about the Soviet Union and learned (in my 40s!) how evil Stalin was. Enron collapsed and cost thousands of people their jobs, but Stalin murdered that many people every week. I had a fairly large payday and started to personally experience how it felt to be envied and hated for being rich. I found myself shopping at Walmart and immediately recognized the actual diversity of people that low prices and competitive capitalism serves. I completely lost all contempt for the working class. I found out that only about 3,000 people were ever lynched in the entire history of the post-civil war era.

So ultimately I saw where I came from as childish and self-serving and I was determined to grow up. I decided to understand the Right as well as I understood the Left. It was very surprising how much intellectual depth I found. It was right in front of me all the time but I never paid much attention or took it seriously. It took several years for all of this to gel, and ultimately I abandoned political conservatism but I came to respect a way of thinking that I had never participated in. I walked the miles in conservative shoes.

After I tired of political conservatism (it took about 8 years), I began engaging in what I call my ‘martial education’. At the same time as I recognized the divergence between Progressivism and standard Liberalism, I recognized how Identity Politics as well as a fanatic ideological puritanism struck Conservatism in the mainstream. So I see a wide variety of threads in these ideologies, few of which have clarity to their participants and partisans. I gradually adopted Stoicism which ultimately was fairly simple. These days I am fascinated (still) by history, and newly by psychology which as a computer science guy is fairly rare. Also behavioral economics and Taleb’s Incerto is fascinating to me and I really hope to square the circle by understanding the philosophy of religion. I expect big things from Aquinas, Nuemann, Jung, Spinoza and a few others.

I think the biggest matter of political philosophy that faces Western Civilization is that of relativism and shallow atheism. There is an essential lack of discipline of thought that only a certain element of ruin will adjust. Our ruling classes are currently not threatened by the nihilism they tolerate and are easily able to retain power in a lazy way. It seems to me that on certain conservatives perceive this threat, while the rest appear content to Let It Be. It’s not worth it to me to pledge any fidelity to any cadre of political philosophers. My way is to be Stoic and let things fall apart, but with a stubborn streak of public engagement of this sort in Quora. Now I really have to get back to work…

Turning Japanese

My relationship with the Japan in my mind started in college when I read Nathan’s biography of Mishima. I did read ‘Patriotism’ in high school and I understood its beauty. His idea of the ‘unity of pen and sword’ appealed greatly to me.

Like many Americans, I read James Clavell’s Shogun books during the 80s. Also the film Kagemusha was a big hit on the art house circuit. I wasn’t into it - I was kind of young, but I did remember. By the mid to late 80s, Americans like me were totally into Kurosawa films. Coming from Los Angeles as I did, I actually grew up with Japanese Nisei in the Crenshaw area. My friends and I were into Datsun mini trucks when they first came out. And the 510 was awesome.

The more I think about the subject, the more I remember. Part of the admiration came from the fact that in the 80s Japanese companies were buying American property. I seem to recall the Dai Ichi Kangyo was said to be the most powerful bank in the world. And of course everybody loved Nikon cameras more than American cameras.

Eating sushi was a big deal in LA. That too happened in the mid 80s for me. But it wasn’t until the late 80s when I finally realized how much I had been impressed with things Japanese. That is when I started studying Taoism, and also reading the Akira manga. Prior to that, a Japanese friend of mine was very much into the ‘cute’ and she introduced me to Han Gyodon. Ultimately I adopted Badtz Maru as my desk pet. But Otomo’s comic and the Tao kind of did it for me. When I read Shogun, I decided that I would run my house in such a way that my wife would make all of the financial decisions, so that I would be free of such concerns - money would not color my judgement. Unfortunately I turned out to be the one who was smarter with money.

At some for a short time I had a Japanese girlfriend. She came to the US because she liked the freedom and imagination of Americans. On the other hand I was attracted to Japan for its order, formality and traditional ways. I wanted to be able to think both ways, so it was important for me at the time.

I have never been to Japan, but I continued enjoying Kurosawa, with Ran being my favorite film for many years. But as I got older, I was not so fanatical about it. Today I am very comfortable with all things Japanese that make it over to the US.

I think most Americans simply enjoy Japanese food and consumer goods but don’t think very much about Japanese culture. Young people definitely enjoy Japanese videogames and heroic style.

 

Fall; or Dodge in Hell

Fall is a massive book that runs across multiple generations in two different planes of reality. In the world we are familiar with, characters we know from previous books by Stephenson appear, and we are pleased to be reunited with them, even though we don't remember much about them. In the alternative world we are entertained by an entirely coherent mythical universe that contains some of the same characters as they play into an epic struggle. The barrier between the two planes of existence is opaque but events in one affects the reality of the other.

What makes this book particularly brilliant is how well Stephenson's mythical universe dovetails with archetypes we all know. In that it is part sword and sorcery, part game of thrones, part creation story, part clash of the titans.

Allegorically, as is expected, Stephenson proposes answers to some eternal questions that vex us in contemporary American society. How bad can a post-reality internet get? What might be the consequences to an America subject to powerful schismatic cults? How far could a War of the Worlds level hoax be perpetrated on social media? But even more curious to fans of his fiction, what is really going on with Enoch Root? How can we live in virtual reality? What about the Singularity? And even, Why does God allow suffering in the world?

Where REAMDE was a giant action movie in book form and Seveneves was a hard science fiction, this is an extended study and romp into virtual reality. Moreover it proposes some questions about the nature of the human mind and what are the inevitable effects of is disembodiment? Nothing is so revealing as Stephenson's understanding that the limits of our imaginations are essentially nothing more or less than the human drama of dreams. More importantly that our dreams are of little value to us if they are not shared with other people. So whatever humans can be, they must dream it first, and guess what - practically all dreams are familiar, but being social creatures nothing quite defines humanity as 'make my dream come true and share it with you'. Well, the other side of the coin, which is 'I am your worst nightmare'.

There is something altogether familiar in science fiction that I think C. S. Lewis came to understand, Arthur C. Clarke explained famously and now that Stephenson understands. That is that science fiction and ultimately science is best understood as magic. Magic is nothing more than the wish fulfillments that defy the constraints of our knowledge of cause and effect in the physical universe. What humans will always want from science is predicted by science fiction which is nothing more or less than magic. Once you connect magic to science fiction, you inevitably connect it to fantasy, and human fantasy is, in that way, predictable. Fantasy tastes like mythology - in the end these are the stories we use to teach ourselves, and religion is how we discipline our mythologies and engrave it in memory and dreams. It's all connected.

So in that way, Stephenson knows that he is writing books that come full circle in mythology, in fantasy, in science fiction. In all of these, miraculous things happen. The only difference is the selection of machina, type of deus and the direction of ex. In Fall, they are executed in parallel between the two planes of existence, each an opaque reflection of the other.

It comes as no surprise, and is a usefully instructive matter that Stephenson does not create a post-scarcity universe in either plane of reality. In fact, his illustration of the relativity of time and its relationship to energy and matter is spot on. I'll let you read that. His words do it best. That is best when you are wanting to please readers of science fiction. But in a cryptic ending, Stephenson gives us a surprise we have to leave as a mystery. It is either a massively hokey joke or the test condition of a recursive story. In the case of the former, it can be forgiven considering the scope of the tale. The very idea of history stopping is a hokey joke and Stephenson's best books are historical fictions. But there is a playground out there for alternate planes of reality that are not only turtles all the way down, but perhaps turtles all the way around. After all, which way is down?

Fall, does not induce dizzying nausea. It delivers some stunning moments that are exciting and dramatic in the way the best fantasy can be. Stephenson's characters are less well defined as a matter of course if you read the book as I did, which is to give equal weight to both analogues in both planes of reality, but it is easy to be enchanted by those on either side. Nevertheless Stephenson weighs more deeply on the fantasy side - as some fraction of the book plays interestingly with rather hackneyed stereotypes of extreme Americans. The heroes and villains are not so clear in our world.

My overall take is that this book is an ambitious attempt at something only a few writers are bold enough to try. I don't know any who have come close. I would like to say that Stephenson has been reading Gene Wolfe who is, to my reckoning, the absolute master of sword and sorcery fantasy writing. He remains intrigued by the probabilities of magical science and remains upbeat on the whole. Although Fall might have been made profoundly darker - all the elements were there - there is a happy ending. And in the end one must confess that in this rendering, Hell is a relative term. Where there might have been some Kafkaesque absurdity throughout, Stephenson's characters never lose their minds or abandon their purposes in confounding frustration. Where there might have been some great experimentation with the element of chaos, a fundamental building block of the fantastic plane of existence, it is only marginally mysterious and stochastic.

Since I cannot believe that Stephenson is finished with his characters or the fecund prospects of co-dependent universes, I must conclude that Dodge and his entourage must have more adventures in our future. Please.

How I Failed

Q: What is the hardest problem you ever faced as a student in highschool?

A: Motivation. And I failed.

I went to an exclusive prep school. I didn’t study, I was just smart. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I high passed all my standardized tests, but didn’t really care. Nothing was particularly interesting to me - until I started programming computers. I had no idea, seriously not a half of a shred of an idea how anybody on the planet could make money with computers. You just go work at IBM, right? In those days, most colleges didn’t even have Computer Science degree programs. It was all Electrical Engineering. Saying ‘software’ in those days was like saying ‘chip design’ today. Unless you know somebody who was actually doing that in one of the three or four giant corporations who do it, chances are.. no chance.

What we’re doing right now, was impossible. In fact, computer people absolutely hated programmers who used computers for text. Computer space was way way too expensive to waste on words, much less paragraphs and essays. Computer space was for numbers! And basically I hung around a bunch of Jesus freaks, hippies, stoners and political activists. I wanted to make some money, but I thought money was evil. Yeah. I was that stupid. I literally thought that the most wonderful thing I could do with a computer is put a million accountants out of work so that they could learn to write poetry and enjoy hiking in the woods. I was not alone. It was the 70s.

The inside of my head looked something like this:

Oh. Did I tell you, I had skipped a grade so I was 16 in my senior year. I got accepted to Electrical Engineering at USC on an early decision in January. So you couldn’t tell me shit. I basically daydreamed for my whole second semester (because I finished all my required classes) destroyed my GPA and chances for an academic scholarship. Not that I ever really tried after 10th grade.

So basically I had no motivation, and I didn’t care that I had no motivation. I was immature, arrogant and a little smart ass. I fit nowhere and didn’t really try that hard, and I didn’t really ask for any help, because I thought that I had already thought of everything. Which I probably did, but still wouldn’t listen to what other people told me. Like, “Maybe you should accept that 4 year scholarship, even though it’s not from USC.”

There’s a big long story in all that and maybe I’ll write a book about it. But the bottom line was, I could have had it all, but I didn’t really have faith in people, or the System or anything outside of my own existence. I should have just shutup and listen. The story has a happy ending. I rebuilt my life from scratch and finally made use of my talents. But I could have saved myself a lot of time and heartache if I had a bit more faith in my fellow man instead of so much in myself.

In that regard, I was just young and not as smart as I thought I was, and actually really afraid to fail or be embarrassed. I was fragile, and it made me a jerk. I couldn’t admit that I didn’t have all the answers. I just figured that I’d find out all the answers sooner or later. I did, but not the way I planned. You see by the next January I dropped out of college and ended up working at a store like Costco. So much for the power of genius.

—

So my advice is this:

• Don’t be brittle. Bounce back.
• You cannot cure yourself. Share your pain. Show your scars.
• Have faith in your fellow man.
• Shutup and listen.
• Make yourself useful. People will be grateful.
• Motivation is not about speeches, it’s about determination to grow.
• Let people tell you where you need to grow.
• Be generous with yourself.
• Be the friend that you wish you had.

So that’s the best advice I could give to arrogant little dramatic douches like I used to be. I’m not presuming that it’s your problem, but my biggest enemy was myself. And it wasn’t until I opened up as a person that I was able to overcome my shortcomings. A big part of that involves being open, honest with yourself and trusting others to help you when you are failing. It applies to every aspect of life. The sooner you learn that and experience it for yourself, the more fearless you will actually become.

I’m a much better person for all of that, and that’s really what makes life worthwhile, is being a better person. Success favors the emotionally prepared.

 

In This Moment

For the first time a couple weeks ago, I happened to grab some skin on my thigh and I was able to pinch more than ever. More than I've ever noticed before. It was kind of a shock, because I don't feel frail. But perhaps it's time to admit that I'm looking down one of the last tunnels. I think for the first time I'm beginning to think of looking to lower the river instead of building a mightier bridge. It's a weird notion, and almost foreign to me.

The first time I ever got laid off was in 2001. It was a landmark year for everyone. I was to turn 40 that year and was dealing with tax and custody problems. It was the first time in my life where I considered the possibility that my best days might be behind me. They weren't, but it took about three years of risk to get all the rewards. I began to recognize the kind of desperate ferocity that I saw in others as they pursued their careers. I looked towards my feet and saw the space below like the gaps in the floors of a fire escape to the hard pavement 10 floors down. I was at something of a dizzy height, not in absolute terms, but relative to where I had been before. Of course people say 40 is when you are 'over the hill', and that kind of joke has its currency for a while. But it was a fact that I had achieved technical mastery of the tools I had used to fuel my career, and now people were just building newer ones and calling them next generation. It's a different perspective when the leading edge moves away from you and you're not really impressed.

So many things have happened in the intervening 18 years. I feel greatly expanded. I feel capable of handling so much more bad news and so much more triumph. I have gone from a small balloon to a large one, where before I needed helium to rise, now I only need hot air. Where before, I could be popped by one prick (and I've met my share of pricks) now it takes a determined axe to take me down. Of course I'm a bigger target with large bright colors. Some might even say graceful and majestic. Some might say full of gas with no particular direction.

I think what I recognize this year that makes the most sense is that there is always a great deal more reality to face than we might like. It's always out there, and when you keep your head down with the assumption that your feet are headed in the right direction, there's always the chance that change has overtaken your attention. Yet you can always raise your head and adjust course. There are always landmarks you can identify. There are always distances you can measure. So long as you keep your boots on, you can get on a profitable trail.

I have the advantage of watching men and women who are senior to me, as well as those younger. It is pleasant to watch the young become bold as the old make accommodations for their shrinking ambitions. I have discovered how much I feel that I have lived a gratifying life and how that gratification leaves me disposed to be honest and reassuring. Several years ago I assumed the position of asshole who was not anti-social but anti-bullshit. I know how that can be inspiring. I know how that can be dangerous. The truth serves no one, except perhaps those whose appreciation is done at a distance. So often we end up rewarding courage posthumously. Who wants to take the time to raise their heads and try to be objective when the strategy, money, glory and patience is headed away from the truth? I suppose only the honest man who knows the value of honest work and is so dedicated. That is what I have been doing, with consistency. I am conscientious. But I am also open to new experience.

It is new experience that has added volume to my ballooning skin. Over the past three years I have dealt with chaos and frailty in my job and my family and finally in myself. Right now I am in the middle of a pace that doesn't feel like courage so much as it feels like facing that which I refused to deal with as I might have. A couple years ago I took pictures of myself after dental surgery, and didn't mind so much that I looked ridiculous. I few years ago I realized that 'good genes' were not enough to keep me going - when I found myself panting going up two flights of stairs. It was and remains difficult for me to distinguish between what I do to make myself useful and make myself happy. I realize those are both my responsibility and that I shouldn't abandon either as one reinforces the other even when I cannot prioritize either. That confusion has landed me in bed with anxiety and depression; two sides of the same black dog. Yet purpose remains. So in this moment, I have a kind of joyless purpose. It is joyless partly because of the medications I am taking and partly because I acknowledge that my purpose cannot end. I will die trying something. I will die trying something. And so I feel capacious. I can handle more pain without yelling. I can answer more questions without yelling. I can do a lot more without passion. It is good to be king, but it doesn't feel good. It feels like you must always say we, because you encompass more than just your own life. You must move forward and pull everyone forward with you, or at least shout out the direction. That right now is the meaning of my life.

My youngest is now in Spain, finishing off the last credits of her university education. My children are neither brilliant or impressively ambitious, but they are all good people. They're the kind of people you want to be around. They are the kind of people who appreciate life. Despite my inadvertent spoiling of them all, they get it. They are grateful and they are excellent company. I am impressed by their willpower. They are hardheaded bulldogs. So I have been giving myself credit for having done the father thing well, and it is, such as it is, that accomplishment for which I am completely satisfied to call my greatest. I know now that I am exactly human whereas I thought I might never be ordinary. I finally saw that dramatic presentation that convinced me that I would not abstract any good from denial of my earthly loves. Any terrorist brute could compromise any secret I know if my family were threatened. I'm OK with that, because I might survive to take revenge. I only pledge so much allegiance to any flag.

Today, having studied more psychology than I ever expected, I am accepting of the fact that I don't know myself as accurately as I expected to. That is because I am open to experiences I never expected to be. It has not been sufficient for me to remain true to one course in life. I have turned left and right; I have turned it up and calmed it down. I have gone full force. I have shutdown completely. I've always said that a little bit of everything adds up to a whole lot of nothing. I realize it is Buddha's Nothing, it is everything and nothing at once. So now I am almost ambivalently large. I am yet so satisfied to have the integrity of the moment and to string those moments together. That is how I remain myself, as contradictory as it seems. To allow myself to be open to the new and the different. It's not, as David Bowman said, "full of stars". It's full of humans. I'm sure that I know humans better than I know stars. So I'm well disposed to know all the humans I might become, depending upon what circumstances the planet and stars may throw my way.

What's changing about me is my willingness, yet again, to presume I have so much to tell people. I'm not carrying a message. I'm carrying, if anything, a habit of being perceptive and articulate. So I am carrying the context of myself, sloughing off my own skin as I am dragged through life. Perhaps not only should I stop writing 'objectively' but stop reading. After all, what is it that I really want to know? I want to do that which I think needs doing in my own field of endeavor, and I only need to know how. I am not challenged by the rest of life to name the passage in the Bible, or the stanza of Shakespeare, or the canto of Dante. I only have my worrisome curiosity and my expository habits. The arena is not noble or arcane. It is merely the stomping grounds of Fat Tony. I am not Maxiumus enslaved and I don't care if you are entertained. I'm just that pain in the ass who keeps parsing speech, making wry jokes, telling stories and analyzing. I can always stand a change of subject, but for now I don't seem to want to shut up. I'm still in the habit of free and mind-altering speech.

I watch violent fights. I read histories of battle. I immerse myself in the study of tragedy. I think I realize the bell tolls for me. Perhaps the random bomb will fall on my Bleak House, no matter how well I have fluffed the pillows and kindly tucked my charges into bed. I am stoic, perhaps properly Stoic, but I don't have or take every opportunity to show how. I merely live and leave this trail. I'm not sure if words are enough. So there will be video. Things I will be embarrassed to watch at some time in the future, perhaps. See me? That's my picture. Unlike the past two times, I am not in the dark. Life is a challenge at every level at all times for all days. I'm still standing. I suppose I may as well be poetic.