“Reviving a Merion West tradition, I present here a list, though not a ranking, of some of my favorite articles that Merion West has published this year.”
Reviving a Merion West tradition, I present here a list, though not a ranking, of some of my favorite articles that Merion West has published this year. Although a hopelessly subjective exercise, it provides an opportunity to highlight articles that advance the mission of Merion West as a space of commentary that welcomes ideas from across the political and cultural spectrum and is committed to independent thought, novel insight, and/or imaginative, inspiring writing.
“America’s Return to Industrial Policy”
In this article, Marc Fasteau and Ian Fletcher celebrate a revival of American industrial policy. Observing that, in the wake of President Joe Biden’s three high-profile legislative victories early in his term, “industrial policy—the deliberate and coordinated governmental support of industries—is coming back, even if it is not clear yet where it will end up.” They insist that this “is a very good thing.” In making their case, they provide an exemplary case of the kind of high-quality opinion piece that Merion West strives to publish. Perhaps presciently, and in the spirit of dialogue and reconciliation that Merion West has always championed, they write, “In these fractious, politically embittered times, industrial policy is emerging as a unique issue that not only bridges the partisan gap but also has the potential to help heal the country from political extremism by reducing some of the economic discontent that causes it.”
This piece is a beautifully crafted work of creative nonfiction that recounts the generational trauma of alcoholism in the author’s Irish-American family. The story is anchored hauntingly on a line that emerges in the beginning, the words of the author’s mother as she is dying of cancer: “Daddy wanted me to become an actress,” she said, placing a finger to her lips as if to silence any dissent. “And I would have been a good one, too.” The story gradually and subtly weaves its way through the story of a girlhood dream broken over many years by the pitfalls of unstable relationships wounded by alcohol. The shame of a family whose dreams and relationships succumbed to the destructive influences of alcoholic addiction shines through this profoundly sad but moving account of generational shame.
With liberalism under threat from many corners of the globe, and with authoritarian movements on the rise, Seamus Flaherty provides a multifaceted tour de force of the ideas of John Stuart Mill. Although Mill is commonly perceived as a consummate liberal, Flaherty argues that Mill “was neither a liberal (or conservative liberal), nor a socialist.” Instead, Mill was “what we might call an equiliberal, a proponent of balance, of harmony—balance in society and balance in the individual psyche.” Flaherty’s essay is itself a masterful work of balance in how it weighs and considers the many dimensions of Mill’s thought to arrive at a rich, if qualified, defense of the liberal tradition as it emerges in Mill’s oeuvre.
“Richard Dawkins Wins in the End”
In this article, Peter Clarke skillfully recounts his experience attending a public interview at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco between Skeptic publisher Michael Shermer and the iconic biologist, zoologist, and public intellectual Richard Dawkins, as part of a “Final Bow” tour in the long career of a legend. Clarke invokes his own journey from “growing up as a Christian” to losing his childhood convictions on religion in part due to the persuasive influence of books authored by Dawkins on evolution and religion. Acknowledging the controversies that have swirled about Dawkins’s battles with the Christian right (on evolution and atheism) and the “woke” Left (on trans activism and biological sex), Clarke warmly closes out his balanced and concise review of Dawkins’s appearance by summarizing Dawkins’s legacy as championing an “unabashed defense of scientific discovery.”
“The Hidden Obstacles of Parenting from Prison”
This article by Antoine E. Davis made me proud of Merion West as a publication willing to give a space for the expression of views and experiences that are uncomfortable, and even controversial, but not gratuitously so. It is not for shock value or for clickbait that we published this article about a man who stuns the reader with his opening sentence, “I have been a better father in prison than I ever was on the outside.” This simple and modest announcement shows that profoundly impactful writing is not in need of embellishment to achieve its purpose. Davis makes an important contribution to the larger literature on prison reform, drawing on his own experience to augment the research that finds positive results for society, in terms of such metrics as recidivism and relief of child anxiety, from narrowing the physical and emotional distance between prison inmates and their families. As he writes, “[m]ost parents in prison desperately want more contact with their kids, hoping to break the destructive cycles they have been caught in. We should be able to put aside political differences to do what everyone agrees is necessary—giving all children a chance to thrive.”
“The Triumph of Eros over Thanatos: The Imperishable Beauty of Holding the Man”
This article by Daniel Sharp retells the love story, Holding the Man, of John Caleo and Timothy Conigrave, from their blossoming of teen-age love during the 1970s, at an Australian Catholic all-boys school, where “their love was forbidden” to Conigrave’s death at the age of 34 from AIDS. “Although Holding the Man is relatively well known in Australia and the play and film have had global success,” Sharp writes, “I still feel that the story of Tim and John has not received the attention it should have. It is a tale of love’s paradoxical triumph over death, and it is universal, which makes it an antidote to the rigid and suffocating identity politics so prevalent today.” The article may make some readers uncomfortable with its raw, unadulterated descriptions of sex, but it is an essential part of romantic relationships that feeds into the tragic end of this story. Both men died of AIDS. Timothy agonizes over the realization that he was the one who likely transmitted HIV to John and does not hide from the fact, an especially painful fact because he had insisted on an open relationship. As Sharp writes beautifully, “Love transcends death, but love, in the form of sex, is what brings death, far too soon, to both men (and countless others).” But as the playwright Tommy Murphy, who “adapted the book for the stage and the screen,” notes, “the young lovers transcend even death.”
“These People All Know Each Other”
In this essay, Merion West editor-in-chief Erich Prince wonderfully captures the culture of friendly, but not entirely innocuous, favoritism that arises inevitably within literary circles in which writers all seem to know each other because they attend the same forums and events and often help advance each other’s careers with recommendations and favorable reviews. Prince remarks on how this collegiality may inhibit a serious and dispassionate assessment of “the ideas or the works of other members of the scene.” Moreover, if one, in deference to his own intellectual honesty, does write a critical review, “previously minor comments can be retroactively blown out of proportion and small things read into. The past isn’t always seen through rose-tinted glasses.” Perhaps we should heed the advice of Charles Krauthammer and renounce participation in these circles entirely. Indeed, there is something worthy and noble to be said, then, of those who “wander alone like a rhinoceros in the savanna, liberated from the considerations of the academy and his peers,” as George Santayana recommended, especially because genuine autonomy often comes at the expense of the recognition that would advances one’s opportunities. Wondering “about all the pieces passed on or projects never brought to completion because one does not know the right person,” Prince muses uneasily on the prospect that “the smartest people in the world aren’t in TIME magazine; they’re living on the sides of the mountains.”
“Irregular Beats: The Surprising Politics of Kerouac, Burroughs, and Ginsberg”
In his masterfully written reexamination of the renowned Beat writers, Robert Dean Lurie takes us on a journey through the life and times of the triumvirate of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. After notably writing, “The Beat Generation as it originally existed was hardly a generation or movement at all. It was the Venn Diagram overlap of three unlikely friends and aspiring writers,” Lurie brings to life the zany and charming character of the “Old Bull Lee,” Burroughs; the burst of talent embodied in Kerouac and his Beat-defining novel On the Road followed by his sad and rapid decline into a “physical and psychological wreck,” vividly displayed by his 1968 appearance on William F. Buckley’s television show The Firing Line; and the self-conscious, self-promoting, and controversial Ginsberg, who gave us some of the defining poems of the 20th century such as “Howl” and “Kaddish.” Even if it was “hardly a generation or movement at all,” Lurie leaves us with a portrait of three counterculture literary icons before there was a counterculture.
“The French Election and Europe’s Post-Historical Collapse”
In this essay written just after the French election result in July, Benedict Beckeld, who lived in Paris at various points during the early 2000s, bemoans what the City, France, and much of Europe have become. Unlike the United States, European nations have largely exited their “great historical phase,” and political debates within them have turned “placid, geopolitically irrelevant, and focused on the small.” Bemoaning how Paris, a city that has “given us some of the West’s finest achievements” has become marred by street crime perpetrated by Arab migrants and anti-Semitic demonstrations in the wake of October 7th, Beckeld calls for the United States to avoid becoming post-historical as well and thus failing to conserve what is most beautiful and noteworthy about Western civilization.
In this epic, lengthy essay, Michael Boughn explores the theme of integrity in American life through an incisive and deep analysis of two popular television shows: one, Succession, a “HBO streaming series about the travails of an ultra-wealthy family in New York that owns a right-wing media company” which critics have raved over, and Yellowstone, a show set in the wild west that is also about the “bad behavior of the super-rich,” and that “manipulates the viewer emotionally into the violent maelstrom of a world of actual value under continual threat,” but which critics have passed over even as a mass American audience has come to love it. Boughn explores the differences between the shows, expanding on such themes as melodrama but, in the process, thoughtfully and stirringly portrays how the two shows capture something essential about integrity, or lack thereof, in the history and culture of American life.
Jonathan Church is a contributing editor at Merion West.
