# Merion West > Timeless reading in a fleeting world. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About URL: https://www.merionwest.com/about/ Last updated: 2026-06-22T14:31:57.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/05/emblem-1.png) ### History *Merion West* is an independent publication founded in 2016\. Learn more about our mission and membership [here](https://www.merionwest.com/join/). Our work has been featured by publications such as *The New York Times*, *RealClearPolitics,* and *The Hill*, as well as institutions including the Atlantic Council, Harvard University, the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and the United States House of Representatives. ### Submissions We accept original submissions. Please visit the [Submit](https://www.merionwest.com/submit/) page for guidance. ### Team **Erich J. Prince** is the editor-in-chief of *Merion West*. With a background in journalism and media criticism, he has contributed to newspapers such as *The Philadelphia Inquirer* and *The News & Observer*, as well as to online outlets including *Quillette* and *The Hill*. Erich has also spoken at various conferences and events about his work in journalism. He studied political science at Yale University. Contact Erich at erich@merionwest.com. **Henri Mattila** is the publisher of *Merion West*. He was born in Helsinki, Finland and is an army reservist there. His professional experience is in the pharmaceutical industry and finance. After growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, Henri received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Contact Henri at henri@merionwest.com. **Jonathan Church** is a senior editor at *Merion West*. He is an economist with expertise in energy economics and inflation measurement. In addition to authoring numerous essays, he has published two books: *Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think about Racial Inequality* and *Virtue in an Age of Identity Politics: A Stoic Approach to Social Justice*. He holds an undergraduate degree in economics and philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in economics from Cornell University. Contact Jonathan at jonathan@merionwest.com. **Austin Allen James** is the editor of the Arts Section. An instructor of creative writing, Austin is a visiting professor at Texas Southern University. He has recently completed a collection of poems, which is expected to be published in 2026\. In addition to literary pursuits, Austin is a visual artist, sculptor, and designer of furniture, lighting, and decor. He completed his undergraduate studies at Southwestern University and received his Master of Fine Arts in Poetics from Naropa University, as well as his Master of Business Administration from the University of Dallas. Contact Austin at austin@merionwest.com. ### Legal This website and related *Merion West* properties are wholly owned by MW Publishing LLC. You can navigate to Terms of Use and Privacy Policy by following the links [here](https://www.merionwest.com/terms-of-service/), and [here](https://www.merionwest.com/privacy-policy/), respectively. --- Publishing since 2016 ### Arts Section URL: https://www.merionwest.com/arts-section/ Last updated: 2025-10-16T12:52:09.000Z Welcome to Merion West's collection of contemporary poetry, essays, and poetry criticism. Explore the Section by following the links below: [Poetry](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry) [Essays](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry-essays/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/07/IMG_E5C67E5093B9-1-1.jpeg) Sunset by Caspar David Friedrich The Arts Section is edited by Austin Allen James. To make a submission, please visit the [submission guidelines](https://www.merionwest.com/submission-guidelines-arts/). ### Submission Guidelines - Arts Section URL: https://www.merionwest.com/submission-guidelines-arts/ Last updated: 2026-06-03T17:14:08.000Z ## *You can submit poetry and essays through our submission manager* [*Duosuma by Duotrope*](https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/merion-west-0dU9u?ref=merionwest.com)*. Before submitting, please review the guidelines below.* You are invited to send up to three poems to the Arts Editor at *Merion West* in a Microsoft Word document. Please adhere to the guidelines below. **Fiction:** We look for well-constructed and considered pieces. *Merion West* craves fiction with design, dialogue, tone, character, and setting that engage our readers and us. The *Merion West* team wants to feel words float off the page as we read. We prefer submissions under 10,000 words. **Poetry:** *Merion West* only publishes first serial rights. We do not publish poems that have appeared elsewhere, including on websites and social media. After publication, rights revert to the poet. *Merion West* requires that you credit our magazine with the first serial publication of the poem in future publications or books. Whether the verse is formal, experimental, or “free verse,” we appreciate poetry that adeptly uses a poetic line and stanza and explores the tension that exists between the sentence and the line. A poem is an artifact—a made thing—wrought from words and separate from everyday speech. Colloquial speech, of course, appears in many great poems, but somehow it is exalted into something memorable to human sensibilities. It is wholly possible to make a cliché fresh—just not easy by any measure. At *Merion West*, we believe that form precedes content. *Merion West* welcomes a vast range of themes. We have a keen appreciation for skill with prosody—*i.e*., the music of a poem—whether that music is sweet or hard and clashing. The use of consonance, assonance, alliteration, enjambment, and a feel for the drama of the sentence broken by the line is encouraged. We believe that poetry is written first with the ear, second with the eye. We enjoy a balance of imagery versus rhetoric, with pride of place going to sharp, memorable images. When a poem is discursive, one hopes the discourse is subtle. Even outrage may be sung—thus, opera. Poems ideally are serious but not self-serious. As such, we invite wit and satire. We do not stipulate length—just ensure the poem is as long or as short as it needs to be. One to three poems per submission is about right. Please provide a short bio. For a greater sense of the magazine’s stance on poetics, please read some of Austin Allen James’s essays on poetry in *Merion West*, as well as those of our guest poetry essayists and former arts editor Johnny Payne. We are contributing to an international conversation about poetry. Please also refer to the poetry that *Merion West* has published. Give us your best! We welcome translations of poetry into English from any language. Please provide the original text in the source language if possible. Publishing with us no more than once per year is the norm. While we permit simultaneous submissions, please inform us if your work is accepted elsewhere. At that point, please decide which publication you desire your work to appear in. If it is somewhere other than *Merion West*, please withdraw your work from us in Duotrope and notify us. The literary world runs on good etiquette. **Poetry Essays:** The Arts section of *Merion West* invites essays about poetry, to be titled “A Fresh Look at \_\_\_\_,” the blank representing a poet and one of her or his poems—for example, “A Fresh Look at Lydia Huntley Sigourney’s ‘Death of an Infant.’” The poem may be taken from any tradition within world culture and any era up through the end of the 20th century. The poet may be famous or one needing to be “rescued from history.” The essay may also consider the elements of poetry—for example, “A Fresh Look at Syntax.” Please read essays by contributing authors, by the Arts Editor of *Merion West*, Austin Allen James, or former arts editor Johnny Payne. Essays will typically fall within the 1,200–1,500-word range. We appreciate erudition and style. At the same time, we welcome a voice that invites a discerning general audience to explore poetry. ### imgs URL: https://www.merionwest.com/imgs/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T12:39:27.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/bookreview.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/04/yang-1.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/quill-1-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/04/spring.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/snowstorm-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/08/image-19-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/10/collectionii-1.png) 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[Join Now](#/portal/signup) $3/month Free If unable to pay, [click here](https://www.merionwest.com/complimentary/). ### What membership means: - Access to all articles - Engagement with our community - Support the twin pillars of our vision, discussed below ## Cultivate thoughful writing. As a growing number of media platforms seek to serve bite-sized content delivered in mass quantities, we continue to celebrate the best of the written word tradition, from original journalism to poetry. ## Editorial independence. Since our founding in 2016 by two old friends, the magazine has held firm to its original vision of a better media. Thanks to our loyal readership and the founders' long-term outlook, *MW* today is in the best position in its history to publish with integrity. Hover to read more A legacy of challenging the consensus ### Introducing a new kind of presidential candidate Our April, 2017 profile of a compelling, but entirely unknown, Universal Basic Income proponent marked the first interview with Andrew Yang when he was presidential candidate. ### Publishing dissenting voice, and paying the price Amid ongoing COVID-policy debates in the spring of 2020, we published an article by a physician arguing against severe lockdown measures. This decision led Google to label the magazine as a source of misinformation, erasing nearly all traffic gains made in four years. ...while engaging with the country's leaders. ### Capturing an elder Vice President's advice for the younger generations In one of the former Vice President's final interviews, Mr. Mondale shared with us insights from a lifetime of public service, as well as counsel for political officeholders serving today. He emphasized the importance of doing, rather than just talking about doing. ### Sitting Down with an Independently-Minded Governor One of then-Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp's first interviews when seeking the governorship was with *Merion West*. He joined us for various conversations as Governor, discussing the rural-urban divide, his independent vision for his state, and how he became a popular Republican leader in a purple state. ### Complimentary Access URL: https://www.merionwest.com/complimentary/ Last updated: 2026-02-25T12:47:10.000Z ### Complimentary Access While we have strived to keep membership costs low, we do not want financial considerations to be a reason why someone cannot read *Merion West.* If this describes you, please send an email to [members@merionwest.com](mailto:members@merionwest.com) with the subject line "Request for Complimentary Access." ### Editorial Guidelines URL: https://www.merionwest.com/editorial-guidelines/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T04:19:36.000Z ## Mission Statement This publication was founded in 2016 to bring a new and independent voice to the current media landscape. *Merion West* is non-partisan and publishes journalism, commentary, and in-depth interviews. As a publication, we serve the interests of the public, rather than any particular political party or interest group, financial or ideological. Read more on the [About](https://www.merionwest.com/about) page. ## Ethics Policy *Merion West* is an online magazine committed to bringing different perspectives to our readers on the relevant issues of the day. Our ethics policy follows the Society of Professional Journalists’ [Code of Ethics](https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp?ref=merionwest.com), with independence, transparency, and a commitment to impartiality. ## Free Speech While *Merion West* is committed to being a magazine where a variety of perspectives can be shared, this should not be understood as the magazine welcoming the publication of any and all possible views. Broadly stated, this means that the magazine does not welcome opinions that are considered libelous, inciting violence, or are otherwise harmful, as determined by the editors. One can find our Principles for Discourse [here](https://merionwest.com/principles/?ref=merionwest.com). Other than with regard to these exceptions, pieces are evaluated on their merits, and they are either accepted or rejected for publication based not on their capacity to offend but on the quality and style of the argument made. ## Conflicts of Interest *Merion West* aims to avoid conflicts of interest, including not permitting any coverage by writers of subjects with whom they have a personal, financial, or political relationship. ## Corrections Policy Whenever our editorial team becomes aware of any errors or misstatements in our reporting or commentary, we work promptly to revise said errors, and we then include a prominently placed editor’s note informing readers of the correction and of the error in the previous version of the article. ## Pseudonyms *Merion West* does not accept pseudonymous submissions. ## Article Removal Articles published in the pages of *Merion West* are considered to be part of the historical record. As such, the magazine maintains a firm policy of not removing, modifying, or deleting works that have been previously published. ## Plagiarism Works submitted to *Merion West* must be the work of the author’s, and plagiarism is not tolerated. Those found to have committed plagiarism will not be permitted to collaborate with *Merion West* again, and any such submission will be prominently noted as being plagiaristic. ## The Use of Artificial Intelligence *Merion West* values the originality and unique approach that authors bring to bear on their own works. For any piece that we publish, the team at *Merion West* appreciates the effort that underlies the diligent, methodical research, and the scrupulous care involved in refining the craft of one’s poetry or prose. Just as plagiarism is unacceptable, we do not accept submissions that reflect the output, not of the author’s own effort and care but, rather, of artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, and others. We increasingly recognize that artificial intelligence continues to permeate society, and it is likely to become a tool that complements the work of writers as it does the work of many others. For example, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, and others, like reading books, can be a useful way to generate ideas and gather material for research. But if someone submits an article that reflects verbatim the output of ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, or similar tools, he is not authoring a piece. This constitutes intellectual dishonesty because it does not represent the authentic and independent effort of an author to craft an original work, reflecting his own creative spirit. Instead, it reflects the generic and robotic generation of a machine and, thus, misrepresents the author’s ability and effort. *Merion West* seeks to be a space for disciplined authors to display their work to the reading public. As such, it celebrates the creative enterprise of living humans and turns away from the generic output of machines. ## Verification Standards *Merion West* works diligently to ensure that all claims are properly fact-checked and examined for accuracy. Our editorial team conducts a line-by-line review of each article to ensure that each claim is correct and properly sourced and/or hyperlinked. In the event of a dubious claim being made by an interviewee, a *Merion West* interviewer will either press the interview guest for further explanation or will seek to clarify said claim after the interview’s completion. ## Unnamed Sources *Merion West* believes strongly in refraining from publishing content that is based on speculation or rumors. As such, the publication avoids the use of unnamed or anonymous sources. In the uncommon event that such sources might need to be used, their accounts would be checked against other corroborating sources that are willing to go on the record. And such sources would need to have a very compelling reason for their need to remain anonymous. ## **Feedback from Readers** We welcome feedback on all content produced and published at *Merion West*. Readers can email the editor-in-chief, Erich J. Prince, directly at erich@merionwest.com or the publisher, Henri Mattila, at henri@merionwest.com. ## Ownership *Merion West* is owned and operated by MW Publishing LLC, a Wyoming-based corporation. ### Privacy Policy URL: https://www.merionwest.com/privacy-policy/ Last updated: 2025-05-31T20:04:47.000Z _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Essays URL: https://www.merionwest.com/essays/ Last updated: 2024-02-22T19:00:02.000Z Older posts _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Terms of Service URL: https://www.merionwest.com/terms-of-service/ Last updated: 2025-05-31T20:05:42.000Z _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Submit URL: https://www.merionwest.com/submit/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T12:23:58.000Z Original articles and creative submissions are welcome. Please send completed works or pitches to **submit@merionwest.com** with the subject line “Submission” to be considered for publication. If submitting poetry or fiction, please do so through [Duosuma by Duotrope.](https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/merion-west-0dU9u?ref=merionwest.com) Before submitting, please review [the arts submission guidelines](https://www.merionwest.com/submission-guidelines-arts/). Please make clear if a submission is simultaneously being offered to other publications, and please include hyperlinks in the text to specific claims, facts, and figures. Interview requests can also be sent to the above email address. **Disclosure of First Appearance:** While we allow authors to repost articles first published at *Merion West* on other websites or on personal blogs, the reprint must state prominently at the top that the article first appeared at *Merion West*, along with the date of original publication. **Use of Artificial Intelligence:** As we increasingly recognize the prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) in media, we affirm that *Merion West* only publishes pieces entirely crafted by human beings. While it may be permissible to consult AI for research or for identifying typographical errors, by submitting to *Merion West*, the submitter guarantees that every single word of his submission was written by himself. *Merion West's* complete editorial guidelines can be found [here](https://www.merionwest.com/editorial-guidelines/). ### Erich J. Prince URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bio-erichjprince/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T19:15:31.000Z Erich J. Prince is the editor-in-chief of Merion West. With a background in journalism and media criticism, he has contributed to newspapers such as *The Philadelphia Inquirer* and *The News & Observer*, as well as to online outlets including *Quillette* and *The Hill*. Erich has also spoken at various conferences and events about his work in journalism. He studied political science at Yale University. ### Archive URL: https://www.merionwest.com/archive/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T21:22:11.000Z _This page is for paying subscribers only._ ### For Institutions URL: https://www.merionwest.com/for-institutions/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T22:52:19.000Z _This page is for paying subscribers only._ ### Jonathan Church URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bio-jonathan/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T19:24:20.000Z Jonathan Church is a senior editor at Merion West. He is an economist with expertise in energy economics and inflation measurement. In addition to authoring numerous essays, he has published two books: *Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think about Racial Inequality* and *Virtue in an Age of Identity Politics: A Stoic Approach to Social Justice*. He holds an undergraduate degree in economics and philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in economics from Cornell University. ### Simon Maass — Biography URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bio-simon-maass/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T02:45:02.000Z Simon Maass is a writer living in Germany. He holds a degree in international relations from the University of St Andrews and writes on various topics in politics, religion, and literature. Biographical details as published on [September 5, 2026](https://www.merionwest.com/nathan-cofnas-and-the-policing-of-academic-thought/). ### Austin Allen James — Biography URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bio-austin/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T02:46:07.000Z Austin Allen James is the editor of the Arts Section. An instructor of creative writing, Austin is a visiting professor at Texas Southern University. He has recently completed a collection of poems, which is expected to be published in 2026\. In addition to literary pursuits, Austin is a visual artist, sculptor, and designer of furniture, lighting, and decor. He completed his undergraduate studies at Southwestern University and received his Master of Fine Arts in Poetics from Naropa University, as well as his Master of Business Administration from the University of Dallas. From the [About page](https://www.merionwest.com/about/) of *Merion West*. ### Jane Blanchard — Biography URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bio-jane-blanchard/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T02:46:07.000Z A native Virginian, Jane Blanchard lives and writes in Georgia. Her work has recently appeared in The Lyric and The French Literary Review. Her latest collection is [Metes and Bounds](https://kelsaybooks.com/products/metes-and-bounds?ref=merionwest.com). Biographical details as published on [January 28, 2025](https://www.merionwest.com/villa-351/). ### Rachel Canter — Biography URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bio-rachel/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T02:46:47.000Z [Rachel Canter](https://www.progressivepolicy.org/people/rachel-canter/?ref=merionwest.com) is the Director of Education Policy for the Reinventing America’s Schools project at the Progressive Policy Institute. She founded and led Mississippi First for sixteen years. Biographical details as published on [August 27, 2026](https://www.merionwest.com/when-education-reform-loses-touch-with-reality/). ### Katie Trexler — Biography URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bio-katie/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T02:46:48.000Z Katie Trexler is an Emmy-winning former television journalist turned public relations professional. She is the author of *What* [*Do I Tell My Daughter?*](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/What-Do-I-Tell-My-Daughter/Katie-Trexler/9798896361640?ref=merionwest.com), a debut memoir exploring career and motherhood, set for release in October 2026 by Simon & Schuster. Biographical details as published on [August 26, 2026](https://www.merionwest.com/the-choices-we-make-for-family/). ## Posts ### Where a Day Lives URL: https://www.merionwest.com/where-a-day-lives/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T16:12:58.000Z > Does a day begin in charcoal edges of dawn, the dazzle > of high noon, or when the evening first star bleeds through? > > Does it speak quickly with its empty hands? > Does its expression wear too thin to read? > > Do its words leave ink stains on our fingers? > Do we wink at a day hoping it winks back? > > Do we lose a day by not reading the overgrowth > of the backyard, the kitchen counter, the desk? > > Do we find a day by ignoring all that overgrowth > in favor of a green heron lifting from a puddle? > > Do we forget a day by letting loose the old dog > of ecstatic yearning or weary worries? > > Or has a day always just been an archway? ### [Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg](https://www.carynmirriamgoldberg.com/?ref=merionwest.com), Ph.D., the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, is the author of over two dozen books, including the forthcoming Back on Earth (poetry) and recently The Magic Eye: A Story of Saving a Life and a Place in the Age of Anxiety. Founder of Transformative Language Arts, she offers writing workshops, coaching, and collaborative projects. ### The Last Poem Nashipai Gave Me: The Cost of Child Marriage in East Africa URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-last-poem-nashipai-gave-me-the-cost-of-child-marriage-in-east-africa/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T02:39:55.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 12 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) My first teaching job after college was on the opposite side of Mount Kenya from my village. Mount Kenya, Africa’s second-highest mountain following Kilimanjaro, stands between two ethnic communities: the Samburu on the leeward side and my own people, the Gikuyu, on the windward side. The land of the Samburu constitutes endless savanna, perfect for pastoralism. The windward side is characterized by heavy rainfall, dense forests, and high-quality agricultural land. We, Gikuyu, are tillers of the soil. Children on my side of the mountain grow up hearing wild tales of the people who live on the other side. They hear about how the Samburu only eat [cattle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkAqdGV%5FvPU&ref=merionwest.com) blood mixed with milk; how a young man has to kill a lion to prove himself as a true warrior; how they move often with their livestock, chasing after the rains. I was always fascinated by these stories. So, years later, when I learned about a one-year teaching contract in the Samburu land, I accepted it right away. I believe closely experiencing another culture is among the highest honors there are. ## “She handed it to me on a Friday, but on Monday she did not show up to school.” The [Samburu](https://www.siyabona.com/samburu-tribe-kenya-culture.html?ref=merionwest.com) people are a proud people, who have clung to their culture despite “civilization” arising all around them. They also tend to be a very attractive people, and I found their women typically quite graceful and beautiful. Most of the teachers in the school, and in the entire Samburu land, came from my side of the mountain. This is because [literacy rates](https://www.knbs.or.ke/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Kenya-DHS-2022-Main-Report-Volume-1.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) are considerably lower where the Samburu live. In Samburu County, a majority of women and a substantial minority of men cannot read a whole sentence, while literacy rates are around ninety-seven percent in Gikuyu areas such as Nyeri and Murang’a. ![Black-and-white brush-and-ink illustration of a hen with its head bowed.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/09/hen-v1.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What the Cofnas Controversy Reveals About Academia URL: https://www.merionwest.com/nathan-cofnas-and-the-policing-of-academic-thought/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T03:04:31.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 7 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) On July twenty-first, Nathan Cofnas, an American philosopher employed at Belgium’s Ghent University, set off a scandal that would reverberate through higher education. In a judiciously researched[ post](https://ncofnas.com/p/dei-fraud-and-cover-up-at-cambridge?ref=merionwest.com) on Substack, Cofnas documented numerous instances of plagiarism by Jason Arday, a professor at Cambridge University. Even Arday’s non-plagiarized work, he showed, was not up to normal standards of scholarship. Cofnas's reporting was all the more significant because Arday had been[ fêted](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/feb/23/jason-arday-to-become-youngest-ever-black-professor-at-cambridge?ref=merionwest.com) as the youngest black professor in Cambridge history. This led Cofnas to cast him, not unjustly, as an exemplar of DEI—“diversity, equity, and inclusion,” or the suspension of meritocracy in favor of promoting persons from certain minority backgrounds. On the heels of Cofnas’s exposé—itself based on the testimony of an anonymous whistleblower—international media picked up the story, churning out a[ tidal](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/24/cambridges-diversity-poster-boy-in-plagiarism-row/?ref=merionwest.com)[ wave](https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/aug/01/playbooks-plagiarism-pigs-head-new-claims-surrounding-cambridge-professor-jason-arday?ref=merionwest.com)[ of](https://www.euronews.com/culture/2026/08/10/the-jason-arday-controversy-explaining-the-university-of-cambridge-scandal-rocking-british?ref=merionwest.com)[ articles](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e146jw618o?ref=merionwest.com) on Arday’s and Cambridge University’s misdeeds. The flurry of news coverage was followed by Arday’s resignation and his subsequent[ death](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1j1ye6n30no?ref=merionwest.com), widely[ attributed](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/08/jason-arday-death-lies-delusion/688311/?ref=merionwest.com) to suicide. Arday’s death has widely been described as “tragic.” This is correct in the full sense of the word. True to the genre which the Greeks dubbed “tragedy,” Arday’s downfall was a predictable outcome of his flaws, as well as those of the leftist academic environment that promoted him. However, instead of confronting their own role in creating the conditions for Arday’s rise, proponents of DEI have been more than happy to [scapegoat](https://wsjfreeexpression.substack.com/p/how-i-became-the-scapegoat-in-the) Cofnas. The international left’s rage against this irksome gadfly looks to have been the reason for Cofnas’s[ suspension](https://www.reuters.com/world/academic-who-raised-concerns-over-jason-arday-suspended-by-ghent-university-2026-08-20/?ref=merionwest.com) from his job at Ghent University on August twentieth. At the time, Cofnas wrote that he would “almost certainly” be fired. Yet, on August twenty-eighth, it[ emerged](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/08/28/arday-accuser-nathan-cofnas-says-he-will-not-be-fired?ref=merionwest.com) that Cofnas would be allowed to keep his job after all. The reversal [appeared](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/08/28/arday-accuser-nathan-cofnas-says-he-will-not-be-fired?ref=merionwest.com) to be due at least in part to the[ efforts](https://thehill.com/policy/international/6044102-ghent-university-jason-arday-us-bill-white/?ref=merionwest.com) of Bill White, the United States ambassador to Belgium. This is a heartening victory for academic freedom and much to the United States government’s credit. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Epistemology URL: https://www.merionwest.com/epistemology/ Last updated: 2026-09-04T15:55:24.000Z > Everyone in that > house > was asleep— > save me > downstairs, standing > in a doorway > where my host said > she used a piano wire > right about, oh > here > tapped the lintel > between kitchen and hallway: > must have used a spike nail > to bear her weight. > Yes– > but I felt no roughness to the plaster. > Well, he explained, that > was sixty years ago > Yes but— > and one night I was downstairs > reading. All of a sudden: > horrid crashing > upstairs, bookshelves falling > one against another, so I rush > up and find everything > undisturbed. > And? > Made my skin crawl. > > All this I recalled > in what light there was and felt the plaster > once again, my mind turning on a word: > *epistemology* > allowing *epistemology* > to float there, swinging > back > and forth > on the neck > of a shadow, > traveling one way > then another; > like a Grecian > bucksaw > working its way down > through a windfall > in speculation’s forest: > *epistemology* > all those serrate syllables! > with Aristotle tugging > at one end and Plato > at the other, tugging back, > the pair of them producing > a dogged sound > yet soothing in its regularity > there amid > the weird > thingy-things > drifting > so aimlessly up > and down in the half > light > of that eternal > dusk. > > Then > > Plato hears something > and stops. He > abandons his post > to enter the hemlocks > and climb a black hill > among the stars. > > But Aristotle, my man, > keeps going > working that insatiable word > with its empty handle > at the other end > always > retreating as > he reaches > and reaching > as he retreats. ### [Jennifer Marysia Landretti](https://jenniferlandretti.com/?ref=merionwest.com) writes poetry and essays. Her themes are nature, place, and spirit–and in recent years, gender, which has served as a vector to explore the latter three. ### When Education Reform Loses Touch With Reality URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-education-reform-loses-touch-with-reality/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T03:04:32.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 7 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) For the past twenty years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about—and advocating for—accountability in public education. I wrote about some of that experience in my recent paper, [*Inside the Mississippi Marathon*](https://www.progressivepolicy.org/inside-the-mississippi-marathon/?ref=merionwest.com), in which I chronicle Mississippi’s twenty-year climb from worst to first, when adjusting for demographics, in reading and math outcomes. Education advocates like me frequently talk about what adults in schools and positions of leadership should be doing (or not doing), and how we should hold them accountable for it. We rarely talk about what accountability means for most of the people generating education policy ideas. Now that I have joined the ranks of national education reformers, I am thinking more and more about that question. ## "The farther advocates move away from the children we seek to serve, the more misaligned the incentives become." I have strong feelings about the responsibilities of policy wonks for good reason. Years ago, I was working on a major piece of education legislation in Mississippi, one of the many I worked on over the course of my career. A person from a national organization came down from Washington, D.C.—we will call this person “The Snob”—and met with several policymakers about the bill. I do not recall exactly how I came to be in this particular private meeting between The Snob and Mississippi Senate Education Chair Gray Tollison, but I do recall that it was not quite clear to me why The Snob had come down. She did not represent any constituency that was critical to the passage of the bill, nor did she have the standing in Mississippi to matter too much one way or another. And though she was on our side of the debate, we also did not need any more “experts” from D.C. I had already mastered the ins and outs of the legislation after spending years reading all the credible research and talking to other specialists and practitioners. All of this would have been news to The Snob, though, who clearly felt her opinions were of the utmost importance. The meeting went off the rails almost immediately after finishing the usual niceties. “I totally disagree,” The Snob emphatically declared when we explained why one section of the bill did not exactly match the theoretical ideal that she believed in. We tried, very diplomatically, to explain again that this was an aspect of the bill that had been a source of enormous trouble and that it had taken significant work to find a solution palatable to everyone involved. “Well, I get to say whatever I want because I’m not from here,” she sniffed. “I can go back to D.C.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### To The Girl After Me URL: https://www.merionwest.com/to-the-girl-after-me/ Last updated: 2026-08-29T16:16:01.000Z > After he splits my head in half > with his > *where have you been*s > & *where are you going dressed like that*s > & *i need to feel respected*s*,* > I bleed. Lie around on various floors of my > apartment, feel sorry for myself & my > open maw of a cranium. Then I sew > > it back up. My mother never taught me, > so I learn from a book: *Sewing Skulls* > *For Dummies.* It’s not a half-bad job, > > & my new wig covers it perfectly well. > Then I stumble over his Instagram profile > just like dashing my foot against a stone > > & the stitches begin to weaken, loosen. > He’s grinning so big it looks like he > might swallow the whole earth. I pull > > the last trailing stitch out, bring the stapler > down on my skull instead. Much faster. Oh, > but then—I catch a whiff of *Daisy* and I know > > you’re close. He always loved that perfume. > Next girl, I fear that you may have become > something of a meteoroid, hurling yourself > > around the inescapable gravity of his star. > Got to be fun. Until you get motion sickness. > My head must be festering, swollen with disease, > > because my staples are popping out at sickening > speed; one nearly takes out a lady’s eye. Nothing for > it—hands clasped to my head, I stagger to the “Arts” > > & “Crafts” store, pay one-handed. I catch sight > of your smug & elusive profile. You’re texting > him about all the sexy “crafts” in your basket. > > But in the end, we both know this: you’re in his DMs. > I’m holding the two halves of my skull together > with kindergarten glue. We are exactly the same. ### Amy DeBellis is the author of the novels [*All Our Tomorrows*](https://www.merionwest.com/when-education-reform-loses-touch-with-reality/), [*Methuselah*](https://www.amydebellis.com/methuselah?ref=merionwest.com), and [*The Widening Gyre*](https://www.amydebellis.com/the-widening-gyre?ref=merionwest.com). ### The Choices We Make for Family URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-choices-we-make-for-family/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T11:45:11.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 6 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) When I was a new mom in my late thirties, I thought I just might be one of those remarkable women who could *have it all—*a fulfilling career and happy life at home with my husband and children. After nearly a decade of paying my dues in television news, I landed my dream job as a morning anchor in my hometown of Denver. A couple of years later, after struggling through infertility, my husband and I welcomed healthy twins, a boy and a girl. For several years as a young mom, I was convinced I might have the nearly perfect life I desired. ## "Turns out, flexibility and balance also had costs." It was often painful waking up after two o'clock in the morning to get to the station for my shift. And I felt guilty that I was not there when my children woke up. Instead, it was their dad or the nanny. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Things of Nature URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-things-of-nature/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T17:20:35.000Z > *And up from the ocean stream* > *And down from heaven far* > *The rays that blend in dream* > *The abysm and the star.* > > *Herman Melville,* “The Haglets” > > > We were born apart in blood and tears > Gasping for a name, a word, a sign > > Blinking back at us from passing stars > To light a path back to the dark earth > Slowly crawling over itself, folding > > Over the fire at the heart of all things, > This world the womb and tomb of time > A mind measures as it becomes one > And not another—something of the sea > Coughed out of cold depths, impossible > > Anywhere else, and even here unlikely, > Unloved, unable to do much but be beautiful > And patient for a while: coming together > In so many separate currents, thrashing > Toward a moment of silence and resolve > Naked in its implacable grief, that none > Should follow without knowing no one > > Lasts alone for long; one sip, wet lips > Staining the skin with quivering cold, > Until a hand reaches out for rescue > And grasps at rain in rage and desperation > For some angelic alter ego, a puppet perhaps > But no less divine than real, however private > That must remain behind the veil of phonemes > Spit from the twisted instructions cased > In flesh—to be content in this condition, > > To know it means nothing but its making, > Missing where memory leaves a darker mark. ### Gary Keenan lives in Tunia, Cauca, a village of eighteen hundred in the Colombian Andes. His poems have been published in the United States, Ireland, England, Denmark, Germany, India and Australia since 1979\. His book [*Rotary Devotion*](https://fordhampress.com/rotary-devotion-pb.html?ref=merionwest.com) won the 2016 Poets Out Loud Award and is available from [Fordham University Press](https://fordhampress.com/?ref=merionwest.com). ### A Photograph of Fading Memories URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-photograph-of-fading-memories/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T17:20:52.000Z ![Black-and-white 1938 family photograph of six siblings posed in two rows](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/08/Unknown.jpg) This photo is my mother’s siblings, all but Uncle Eddie, who died when he was one month old, a “blue baby,” bad heart. All the others now dead, too, of course, the photo taken nineteen-thirty-eight. Uncle Tom was first to go, the uncle I didn’t really know at all, never even met his first wife or their four kids, though I knew his second wife and their two boys, but only after he was dead. Slipped into a coma having a pacemaker replaced. Never regained consciousness. My only memory of him sleeping on the eyelash of death, my mother talking to her older brother as if he could hear. Maybe he could. Evelyn, my mother, was the next to go. A difficult marriage; four kids, all boys; she finally found fulfillment as a teacher, special ed, trainable retarded was the term back then; not allowed to use that term today, but she used it, and she loved them. Cancer killed her. A kind of cancer only smokers and drinkers ever get, though she herself had never smoked or had one drop of liquor. Go figure. The others made it to the 21st century, though Uncle Vince just barely got there. Worked for Joe the Motorist’s Friend only to get cheated of his pension when the company went bust. I never heard him whine about it; just went out and got another job, and worked until his heart gave out driving on an interstate highway, my cousin Kathy saving her own life and her mother’s, grabbing the wheel, managing to get the car off the road without colliding with a tractor-trailer. Florence went next. Another bad heart, perhaps. During the 2nd World War, she’d met and married an army air corps pilot who stayed in for thirty years, then had a new career with Merrill Lynch. I stayed with them in Birmingham on my way from New Orleans to Farmingdale to do a poetry reading for 50 bucks. And one more time in Alpharetta years later, doing interviews and research for a book called *Ordinary Lives*. I’m not sure what killed Alvera. Maybe a failing heart, clearly a family defect, killed her, too. She lived in Dundalk, a modest rowhouse, husband worked for Social Security, I think. Grandma Conti lived with them when I was in the Corps. I went to visit once, but Vera kept her distance from her siblings, didn’t come to Thanksgiving family gatherings, some sort of tension that I never understood, and no one ever talked about. Something, perhaps, to do with Aunt Alberta, who married a man who became a career army chaplain, and they traveled the world. Bert’s house had souvenirs and knick-knacks from Germany, Korea, and everywhere Vera had never gone and never would. I tried to give Aunt Bert a copy of my first book of poems: *A Generation of Peace*, but she told me she didn’t need to read about war, she knew about war, her husband had been in two of them. But as she aged, she mellowed, becoming more attentive, more receptive. By the time she died at ninety-eight, I’d gotten very fond of her. So there they are: my mother and her siblings. All of them now dead and buried, Together, they had twenty children, some I know, some I haven’t seen in decades, some I’ve never even met. And so the generations go, one upon the next, and one day no one living will know a thing about the people in this photo. Not even their names. ### W. D. Ehrhart's most recent books are a 2025 collection of poems, [*Smart Fish Don't Bite*](https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/ehrhart-w-d-smart-fish-don-t-bite/YD2QGAXXBUFHBNEM4K6HS6AF?cs=true&cst=custom&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-%5FW-lL6cwwW8bsQANmJwm3MsSw-S42Z2xGh0k2oeotYQjMZaBNz9DqAOukdKP95CuNaM19QsZuXdCh2rJglFzD6U6sG4g&%5Fhsmi=380810861&utm%5Fcontent=380810861&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail) from Moonstone Arts, and [*Getting Shot At: Essays on War, Conflict & Culture Clash*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476658625?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback&ref=merionwest.com)*,* which was released this year with McFarland & Company, Inc. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales at Swansea and taught English and history at The Haverford School from 2001 to 2019. ### Respite URL: https://www.merionwest.com/respite/ Last updated: 2026-08-25T16:56:29.000Z > Of all the places to end up > I find myself here, > in this house with this yard. > > My best years were given away > to someone whose name > I refuse to Google. > > I consider hanging the flag > upside down but would rather > not make a thing of it. > > Sunlight on the grass catches an insect > glittering like nail polish, a tiny > emerald roving and purposeful. > > I photograph it > and the Internet informs me > it’s a six-spotted tiger beetle. > > As soon as I learn what it is > its wings snap open > and I never see it again. ### Dan Wiencek is a poet, critic, and humorist who lives in Minneapolis. His first collection of poems, [*Routes Between Raindrops*](https://www.firstmatterpress.org/routes-between-raindops.html?ref=merionwest.com), is available from First Matter Press. ### Is the Inner Monologue Gap a Relationship Dealbreaker? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/is-the-inner-monologue-gap-a-relationship-dealbreaker/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T03:08:28.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 11 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) I have an ever-present internal monologue. Even as I wrote that sentence, I “spoke” it back to myself in my mind to see how it sounded. Then I “spoke” it back while being self-aware of “speaking” it back. For a few moments, a sort of infinite regress was initiated. Then, still comically self-aware that I was speaking to myself to myself speaking, I moved along to the next sentence. And now here we are (me and all the voices in my head) at last at the end of this paragraph. Moment to moment, this is how I experience reality. I only recently became aware that some people report going through life without any such internal monologue. It was a mind-boggling realization. Even after having read about this phenomenon and listened to a number of [interviews](https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=47&v=u69YSh-cFXY&feature=youtu.be&ref=merionwest.com) with people who have no internal monologue, it still strikes me as utterly bizarre. It gives me an unsettling sense that a huge portion of the population is living in a reality I simply cannot comprehend, let alone relate to. Initially, I found comfort in knowing that the people closest to me shared my experience of reality. My wife certainly has an internal monologue. I have confirmed this with her, but I really did not need to ask. It is the most obvious thing in the world, a central aspect of how she describes events in her day. I also had a [long discussion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4HCSvEnD10&ref=merionwest.com) about internal monologues with my friend Devon on our podcast. He, too, shares my mental life. ![Two impressionistic birds on a branch, one beneath a single looping brushstroke](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/08/inner-monologue-birds-v2.png) For several months, I settled into the simplistic assumption that people naturally coalesce into groups depending on whether or not they have an internal monologue. The self-talkers (like me!) are the writers, the book-lovers, the psychologists, the lawyers, the philosophers. And the non-self-talkers (the aliens, really!) are all the visual artists, the engineers, the doctors, the mathematicians. On either side of the divide, we all go about our business, offering different things to society but never fully engaging with one another—certainly never forming close friendships or romantic partnerships. Imagine marrying someone who had an entirely different mental experience? It would be a disaster! _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Dying Is Linear URL: https://www.merionwest.com/dying-is-linear/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T17:22:04.000Z > when she says *your mother should buy you an Easter dress* > I know that in some silent moment she forgot her daughter > her eyes were green in every shade I can’t remember one > > who told you the truth about the final weeks—never dying less > always traveling toward the inevitable however long cannot be hopeful > without being something else > > you need only see drowning above water once to know its name > you can only say goodbye once having said it over and over > > her eyes became fisheyes floating in algae and foam > until they closed for a week before the breath that breaks > > is it the everlasting dream the clock moving only minutes > that time before death an eternity my daughter and I the passengers > black dome of sky without stars if this goes on forever > if this is heaven > if this is all there is and death is a straight line drawn across a map > then the only way we can get there is flying ### Alice George earned a degree in English literature and spent seventeen years in the pharmaceutical industry. In 2023, she resigned to care for her mother, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She now works as a teacher’s aide. ### The Man Who Dreamed of Rocket Ships URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-man-who-dreamed-of-rocket-ships/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T03:08:29.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 18 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) *From an interview with Randolph Brightman, March 2052* I used to dream of being an astronaut when I was young. Read almost nothing but science fiction of the pulpiest kind, spent countless hours in front of the television taking in every iteration of *Star Trek*, and watched all the NASA launches as if witnessing the resurrection of Christ. I was twelve years old when the Challenger exploded on live TV, and though it had left me shaken, it had not shaken my dream of traveling in a rocket ship someday. A dream is all it remained, however. A poor kid from a backwater southern town who had trouble passing his math classes, I had not been able to attend college and right after high school took a job cleaning bathrooms at a manufacturing plant. It paid enough for a cheap apartment and a used car that ran more on hope than gasoline. I settled in and that became my life. I switched jobs a few times. Janitor to bag boy to cashier at a convenience store then finally a security guard at a textile plant. That was the one that took. One year became two became ten. I never forgot my dreams of being an astronaut, even though that dream faded so far into the distance that I could only wave at it on occasion. Sometimes at night I would sit out on my little balcony and look up at the stars, naming the constellations to myself, remembering when I had once wanted to walk among them. The nostalgia was tinged with sadness, and I may have shed a few tears out on the balcony though I would never admit that to anyone. At least not until now. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Keep Quiet, Girl URL: https://www.merionwest.com/keep-quiet-girl/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:04:08.000Z > Keep your mouth shut and sit still > Our leader is speaking right now > Well, maybe not speaking > He’s rambling to reporters > There’s some truth buried in his nonsense > Keep quiet, girl, keep quiet > he’s speaking and we need to hear his plan > on where we’re heading next > > Press those pretty lips together > no one needs them to open right now > nothing you say will fall on anyone’s ears > Your job isn’t to speak your mind > shut up for the time being and hide in the corner > We’re getting ready for a war > though we have no idea what we’re fighting for > > Keep quiet, girl. It’s not time to talk. > You can’t stop him from making up his mind > keep those lips shut and pretend to give a damn > about a madman ranting on your TV screen > Keep quiet, girl. You’ll get a second to speak > then you can ramble all you want > Keep quiet, your time is coming > Keep quiet > Quiet, girl > Be quiet > Shut your mouth > and keep quiet. > Quiet, girl. > Quiet… ### Cithara Patra currently lives in North Carolina, spending much of their time writing and studying languages. ### COLLECTION VI Is Here URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-vi-is-here/ Last updated: 2026-08-28T21:56:19.000Z | *Merion West* · Est. 2016 Just in time for the weekend Twenty essays and interviews, many new poems, and the debut of our fiction section. [ *Merion West* · July 2026 Collection VI 17 Essays · 3 Interviews · 5 Stories · 5 Poems ](https://www.merionwest.com/) [ Read Collection VI ](https://www.merionwest.com/) Dear Friends & Readers, All institutions intended to last require periods dedicated to renewal. This Collection coincides roughly with the one-year anniversary of *Merion West*’s second chapter, and its sharpened focus on celebrating the written word in all its forms. In the age of AI, this mission rings especially true. In practice that has condensed into a simple question: “Do we love this piece of writing?” If the answer is anything but yes, it is more than likely not to be found here. In this issue [In Defense of Zoos](https://www.merionwest.com/in-defense-of-zoos/) Erich J. Prince [Preventing Apocalypse or a Political Power Grab?](https://www.merionwest.com/preventing-apocalypse-or-a-political-power-grab-speaking-with-ai-safety-expert-david-krueger/) An interview with David Krueger [A Message from a Lifelong Dog Lover: Pit Bulls Are Dangerous](https://www.merionwest.com/a-message-from-a-lifelong-dog-lover/) Karen M. Prince [The Many Lives of Thomas More](https://www.merionwest.com/the-many-lives-of-thomas-more/) Andrew Hadfield [Farewell, Beanie](https://www.merionwest.com/farewell-beanie/) W. D. Ehrhart [Aging into Acceptance](https://www.merionwest.com/aging-into-acceptance/) Robin Greene …and fifteen more, with the full letter, the fiction debut and the poetry selection, at [merionwest.com](https://www.merionwest.com/). Sincerely, ![Henri Mattila and Erich J. Prince](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/sigs-new-5.png) Henri Mattila & Erich J. Prince *Merion West* \| Established 2016 | MW Publishing LLC © 2026 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------ | ### COLLECTION VI URL: https://www.merionwest.com/latest-collection/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:28:55.000Z Menu [Spotlight](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/featured/)◆ [Essays](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/essays/)◆ [Interviews](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/interviews/)◆ [Arts](https://www.merionwest.com/arts-section/)◆ [About](https://www.merionwest.com/about/) Collapse all [Letter](#letter) [Spotlight](#spotlight) [Interviews](#interviews) [Essays](#essays) [Fiction](#fiction) [Poetry](#poetry) [More](#coda) VI ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/dodo.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/flag2.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/image.png) Est. 2016 · July 2026 # CollectionVI **17** Essays **3** Interviews **5** Stories **5** Poems In this issue [In Defense of ZoosErich J. Prince · Spotlight](#spotlight) [Preventing Apocalypse—or a Power Grab?David Krueger · Featured Interview](#spotlight) [Pit Bulls Are DangerousKaren M. Prince · Essay](#essays) [The Many Lives of Thomas MoreAndrew Hadfield · Essay](#essays) [Farewell, BeanieW. D. Ehrhart · Essay](#essays) Letter from the Editor and Publisher Dear Friends & Readers, It is a well-observed fact that all institutions intended to last—whether marriages, universities, or countries—require periods dedicated to renewal. A decade on from its founding, we believe the same principle applies to online magazines. As many of you know, this Collection coincides roughly with the one-year anniversary of *Merion West*’s second chapter, with its sharpened focus on our mission to celebrate the written-word tradition in all its forms—from journalism to poetry—and to promote the good, the true, and the beautiful through these pages. From our perch as the editor and publisher, these ideals have in practice been condensed into a simple question: “Do we love this piece of writing?” If the answer is anything but yes, it is more than likely not to be found here. One manifestation of this is a focus on the issues we believe matter most and are not given their proper due in other corners of media. From questioning the increasingly rampant sky-is-falling doomerism in an interview with a leading AI-safety expert, to a teacher in Tanzania providing a first-hand account of the repression roiling that country while the West looks away—it is safe to say this issue has delivered. Our other area of priority is centering the human person and his God-given value, reflected in a poignant article on the tragic beauty of aging by Robin Greene, and in the poet Dr. Ehrhart’s reflective eulogy to Beanie, his family’s cat of twenty-two years. These are but a few examples out of twenty essays and interviews published since our last issue, on April 20. Given our missional promise to celebrate the totality of the written word, we are immensely proud of the poetry section we launched in 2024\. In this issue, we feature five of our favorite new poems, selected by our own Austin Allen James. Times of renewal also call for re-examining prior stances. Championed by our all-star editors Austin Allen James and Jonathan Church, *Merion West* has launched a new section dedicated to fiction. It debuts here with five short stories that have made us laugh and made us weep. As always, thank you for your continued friendship. Sincerely, ![Henri Mattila and Erich J. Prince](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/sigs-new-5.png) ![Merion West](https://www.merionwest.com/assets/images/merion-west-logo.svg) ![Spotlight](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/08/spotlight-3.svg) [Main siteSite ↗](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/featured/) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/dodo.png) Erich J. Prince ### [In Defense of Zoos](https://www.merionwest.com/in-defense-of-zoos/) Erich J. Prince argues that critics of zoos too often mistake today’s conservation-minded institutions for the barren cages of the past, overlooking the species modern zoos and aquariums have helped save from extinction and their role in fostering a love of animals. [ Featured Interview Preventing Apocalypse or a Political Power Grab? Speaking with AI Safety Expert David Krueger ](https://www.merionwest.com/preventing-apocalypse-or-a-political-power-grab-speaking-with-ai-safety-expert-david-krueger/) ![Interviews](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/01/image-3-1.png) [Main siteSite ↗](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/interviews/) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/granthavers.png) Grant Havers What Marshall McLuhan Still Has to Teach Us Grant Havers, the author of a recent book on the life and thought of Marshall McLuhan, joins Erich J. Prince to discuss McLuhan’s key insights about media and what they might reveal about today’s age of social media and artificial intelligence. Interviewed by Erich J. Prince ](https://www.merionwest.com/what-marshall-mcluhan-still-has-to-teach-us-a-conversation-with-grant-havers/) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/06/image-2-1.png) Patricia Martin In the Digital Age, the Need to Remain Human Is Stronger Than Ever Patricia Martin joins Jonathan Church to discuss her new book that brings Jung’s ideas about the self and the persona into the age of social media and AI. Although concerned about technology’s toll on personal identity, she argues that AI may yet have a liberating power. Interviewed by Jonathan Church ](https://www.merionwest.com/in-the-digital-age-the-need-to-remain-human-is-stronger-than-ever/) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/image.png) David Krueger Preventing Apocalypse or a Political Power Grab? Absent a change of course on AI safety by governments worldwide, former Cambridge professor and leading AI-safety expert David Krueger believes that human extinction is “more likely than not.” He makes the case to our own Henri Mattila, a skeptic of both doomsday scenarios and political overreach. Interviewed by Henri Mattila ](https://www.merionwest.com/preventing-apocalypse-or-a-political-power-grab-speaking-with-ai-safety-expert-david-krueger/) ![Essays](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/07/essays_new.png) [Main siteSite ↗](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/essays/) [ A Message from a Lifelong Dog Lover: Pit Bulls Are Dangerous Karen M. Prince, who grew up in a family that frequently rescued dogs, argues that compassion for unwanted animals should not blind us to the dangers posed by pit bulls, a breed responsible for far too many severe and fatal attacks, particularly against children. Karen M. Prince ](https://www.merionwest.com/a-message-from-a-lifelong-dog-lover/) [ Aging into Acceptance Channeling Tolstoy’s 1886 novella, Robin Greene, who has now turned seventy-one, reflects on aging, mortality, and meaning. Robin Greene ](https://www.merionwest.com/aging-into-acceptance/) [ Farewell, Beanie W. D. Ehrhart, a frequent contributor to this magazine’s poetry section, reflects on grief and loss following the death of Beanie, his family’s beloved cat of nearly twenty-two years. W. D. Ehrhart ](https://www.merionwest.com/farewell-beanie/) > “As I type this, I am sitting here crying again.” W. D. Ehrhart · “Farewell, Beanie” Reputations [ The Many Lives of Thomas More Scholars Andrew Hadfield and Joanne Paul examine the many competing interpretations of Thomas More, a historical figure of remarkable complexity and enduring interest, nearly five centuries after his death. Andrew Hadfield ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-many-lives-of-thomas-more/) [ The Cambridge Five: Stalin’s Men at the Heart of Britain Allen M. Hornblum, author of *The Invisible Harry Gold*, reviews Antonia Senior’s new book on the Cambridge Five, examining how a group of privileged Cambridge graduates came to betray their country—and why the British government was so slow to hold them accountable. Allen M. Hornblum ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-cambridge-five-stalins-men-at-the-heart-of-britain/) [ Pericles the Eccentric Pericles is remembered as Athens’ great democratic statesman and orator. But as Cambridge University classicist Paul Cartledge argues, his private life—especially his relationship with Aspasia—also reveals him as one of antiquity’s most distinctive, even eccentric, figures. Paul Cartledge ](https://www.merionwest.com/pericles-the-eccentric/) [ The Dead Hand of Austria-Hungary Simon Maass traces the enduring influence of Austria-Hungary on modern intellectual life, arguing that the empire’s admirers have often drawn precisely the wrong lessons from its history. Simon Maass ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-dead-hand-of-austria-hungary/) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/flag2.png) “Only in America”: Civic Memory at 250 Bruno Manno reflects on Fourth of July celebrations at his grandparents’ Italian tavern in Cleveland in the 1960s—and on the need for a renewed, reflective patriotism as America marks its 250th birthday. To combat growing disengagement among the citizenry, he proposes a new civic compact. Bruno V. Manno ](https://www.merionwest.com/only-in-america-civic-memory-at-250/) [ Constitutional Distortion and America’s National Debt As America’s debt nears $39 trillion, policymakers debate spending while ignoring a deeper question: Is much of modern federal spending constitutionally authorized? William J. Watkins, Jr. argues expansive readings of the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses helped create today’s crisis. William J. Watkins, Jr. ](https://www.merionwest.com/constitutional-distortion-and-ameri-national-debt/) [ The Social Wealth Men Without College Degrees Need Bruno V. Manno argues that men without college degrees need more than job training or credentials. They need “social wealth”: relationships, mentors, institutions, and pathways that help them build stable, connected lives rather than be left behind. Bruno V. Manno ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-social-wealth-men-without-college-degrees-need/) [ Also in this issue Confronting the Honesty Crisis Christian Miller, a Wake Forest professor and director of the inter-university Honesty Project, urges us to rediscover the virtue of honesty at a time when it is increasingly imperiled by artificial intelligence, online infidelity, and other temptations to deceive. Christian Miller ](https://www.merionwest.com/confronting-the-honesty-crisis/) [ Even in the Matrix, You Still Have to Pay Your Debts Jimmy Alfonso Licon ](https://www.merionwest.com/even-in-the-matrix-you-still-have-to-pay-your-debts/) [ We Need to Talk About Spelling Danny Bate ](https://www.merionwest.com/we-need-to-talk-about-spelling/) [ It Was Not Trump Who Started the Iran War Walter E. Block & Frank Tipler ](https://www.merionwest.com/it-was-not-trump-who-started-the-iran-war/) [ Repression in Tanzania Demands the World’s Attention Tony Njoroge ](https://www.merionwest.com/repression-in-demands-the-worlds-attention/) ![](https://www.merionwest.com/assets/images/fiction_break.png) ## Arts ## Fiction [Main siteSite ↗](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/arts-fiction/) [01The Unexpected HarteJS Apsley](https://www.merionwest.com/the-unexpected-harte/) [02Unicorn SummerJohanna Elattar](https://www.merionwest.com/unicorn-summer/) [03GodsendDavor Mondom](https://www.merionwest.com/godsend/) [04The Best Laid PlansRobert Jakucs](https://www.merionwest.com/the-best-laid-plans/) [05The BubblePhilip Dean Walker](https://www.merionwest.com/the-bubble/) ## Poetry [Main siteSite ↗](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry/) > Not that the friendship’s like a fairy; but > the flutter feels like the return of light. James B. Nicola · “A Return” [Chimes at MidnightW. D. Ehrhart](https://www.merionwest.com/chimes-at-midnight/) [A ReturnJames B. Nicola](https://www.merionwest.com/a-return/) [The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage (1874) by Edgar DegasDeidre Cavazzi](https://www.merionwest.com/the-rehearsal-of-the-ballet-onstage-1874-by-edgar-degas/) [Lady Lazarus Worries MeDrema Drudge](https://www.merionwest.com/lady-lazarus-worries-me/) [Discovered CriesDouglas Jones](https://www.merionwest.com/discovered-cries/) The Arts section is edited by **Austin Allen James**. [Arts Submission Guidelines](https://www.merionwest.com/submission-guidelines-arts/) ## More [Main siteSite ↗](https://www.merionwest.com/) [The Oldest New Idea](https://www.merionwest.com/the-oldest-new-idea/) [Gad Saad’s “The Parasitic Mind”](https://www.merionwest.com/gad-saads-the-parasitic-mind-a-reasonable-premise-gone-awry/) [America “Un-tied”](https://www.merionwest.com/america-un-tied/) [Mondale on the Democratic Party](https://www.merionwest.com/interview-vice-president-mondale-on-2019s-democratic-party/) [All poetry](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry/) [All fiction](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/arts-fiction/) [◂ Read Collection V](https://www.merionwest.com/collection-v/) *Merion West* | Established 2016 | MW Publishing LLC © 2026 ### What Marshall McLuhan Still Has to Teach Us: A Conversation with Grant Havers URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-marshall-mcluhan-still-has-to-teach-us-a-conversation-with-grant-havers/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:55:41.000Z Few academics enjoyed the degree of attention in the popular culture as the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan did in the late 1960s. A fixture on the television circuit of the period, McLuhan laid out his view that "the medium is the message" on television programs such as *NBC Experiment in Television* and was interviewed by hosts including [Dick Cavett](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwqXD3Mgfhk&ref=merionwest.com) and [David Frost](https://marshall-mcluhan-speaks.com/interviews/the-planet-as-art-form?ref=merionwest.com). Although McLuhan's thinking was derided at times by fellow academics, his insights on media proved widely influential and shaped the thinking of those in the next generation of media theorists, including Neil Postman. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/granthavers.png) It was McLuhan who argued for what are now considered key tenets of media studies, such as the idea that one can only appreciate a particular period of technological change after it has passed or that electric media tend to move a society away from a contemplative and deliberative culture based on the primacy of the written word. The type of medium, McLuhan famously argued, is more fundamental than the content transmitted through said medium. Although McLuhan's celebrity waned in the years preceding [his death in 1980](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/01/obituaries/marshall-mcluhan-author-dies-declared-medium-is-the-message.html?ref=merionwest.com), in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and TikTok, there is reason to believe that McLuhan's ideas about the transformative power of new types of media deserve re-examination. As such, in September of last year, [Grant Havers](https://www.twu.ca/profile/grant-havers?ref=merionwest.com), the chair of Trinity Western University's department of philosophy, released [his book](https://cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501783661/the-medium-is-still-the-message/?ref=merionwest.com) *The Medium Is Still the Message: Marshall McLuhan for Our Time*. In it, Havers provides key biographical insights about McLuhan from his upbringing to his conversion to Catholicism to his views on certain political matters of the day before exploring McLuhan's essential insights. New media, Havers explains through McLuhan, tend to have profound impacts on society—and not always for the better. In the following conversation with *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince, Havers discusses fundamental concepts in McLuhan's work such as "the medium is the message," the impact of the televised 1960 presidential debate on politics, and the distinction between "hot" and "cool" media. Crucially, they discuss the potential impacts of artificial intelligence and other new technologies on society, including our increased dependence on them. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Return URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-return/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T17:21:44.000Z > To hear from, say, a friend you might have loved > from whom you have not heard in quite a while > and you know something of their *drang* and *sturm* > so that you were beginning to worry, > brings back the first play that you ever saw > when the audience clapped for Peter Pan > and brought the dying fairy Tinker Bell— > onstage, a blinking flashlight—back to life. > Not that the friendship’s like a fairy; but > the flutter feels like the return of light. ### **James B. Nicola's nonfiction book** [***Playing the Audience*** ](https://www.cyberwit.net/authors/james-b-nicola?ref=merionwest.com)**won a *Choice Magazine* award. A graduate of Yale, he has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, and the Storyteller's People's Choice award.** ### Farewell, Beanie URL: https://www.merionwest.com/farewell-beanie/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:34:43.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 5 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) Last Friday was a very sad day for me, my wife Anne, and my daughter Leela. We had to euthanize our cat Beanie, who had been with us for nearly twenty-two years. That is almost half of our forty-five years of marriage. And, as anyone who has ever loved a pet knows, Beanie was a member of our family. She was not *like* a family member; she *was* a family member. Our daughter Leela and her then-boyfriend found Beanie in the boyfriend’s yard one cold November night when Beanie was maybe five weeks old and weighed barely a pound. Beanie had gotten separated from her mother somehow and probably would not have survived the night. But she ended up surviving longer than any previous cat either my wife or I had ever had, and we both have had cats all of our lives. ## "Maybe if I had started crying for my father, I might never have stopped. I don’t know." I suppose because Beanie was being handled by people so early in her life, she was friendly with everyone and very tactile. She was completely comfortable being touched. She even seemed to enjoy having her tummy rubbed, which many cats object to and let their humans know it. She often sat with us and on us and regularly slept under the covers with us. I have known and had some very affectionate cats, but Beanie was in a class by herself. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Preventing Apocalypse or a Political Power Grab? Speaking with AI Safety Expert David Krueger URL: https://www.merionwest.com/preventing-apocalypse-or-a-political-power-grab-speaking-with-ai-safety-expert-david-krueger/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:57:52.000Z In early 2024, David Krueger left the organization he had spent six months helping to establish: the United Kingdom’s [AI Safety Institute](https://www.aisi.gov.uk/?ref=merionwest.com). The American computer scientist was among a growing number of researchers who believed that the technology behind the hugely popular app ChatGPT might prove to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In his view, large language models and other rapidly advancing forms of artificial intelligence (AI) pose an under-appreciated threat to civilization itself, even one of apocalyptic proportions. Yet most governments, including that of the United States, have tended to appear more concerned with maintaining their lead in the race for AI technical capability. Krueger found a more receptive audience in the United Kingdom, where he helped to establish one of the world’s first government institutes devoted to studying the risks posed by advanced AI and advising officials on how to prepare for worst-case scenarios. Since leaving, however, Krueger has suggested that many of the methods are inadequate to the scale of the challenge, [describing](https://therealartificialintelligence.substack.com/p/inkhaven-a-menu) them as "silly" and "BS." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/image.png) He is now among the most vocal advocates of a far more muscular and internationally coordinated response. Through his new organization, [Evitable](https://evitable.com/?ref=merionwest.com), Krueger wants to “put an end to the reckless race to develop superintelligence,” with enforcement resting primarily with governments—above all, those of the United States and China. He has called for “enforceable, international limits on AI capabilities” and suggested that the most robust way to stop the race would be to cease producing advanced AI chips. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Aging into Acceptance URL: https://www.merionwest.com/aging-into-acceptance/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:34:44.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 6 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) In chapter six of Leo Tolstoy’s [1886 novella](https://web.stanford.edu/~jsabol/existentialism/materials/tolstoy%5Fdeath%5Filyich.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) *The Death of Ivan Ilych*, Ivan recalls a classic syllogism learned during his school days: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal." Yet, he is entirely unable to apply this logic to himself. The disconnect between the abstract idea of death and his own personal death is too great to bridge. Instead, Ivan’s thoughts shift back to himself as little Vanya, to the smell of his striped leather ball and the rustle of his mother’s silk dress, and to the thought: "And it cannot be that I should die. It would be too terrible." Now, at seventy-one, I find myself caught in that same disconnect between abstract reasoning and personal knowing. Perhaps, when contemplating our own mortality, we all are. ## "Before I got dressed, I glanced down at my naked, sagging body and thought: So what?" I am no stranger to death. Few of us in our seventies are. We have watched parents, siblings, and loved ones pass. We have read memoirs and novels, listened to podcasts, and watched movies about death. We have done our share of weeping over real and fictional losses. Yet, the disconnect continues—even when our own aging faces greet us in the mirror, demanding that we confront loose flesh, age spots, and wrinkles. In response, we might find ourselves turning to gym memberships, cosmetic procedures, or supplements to manage the visible effects of aging. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### In Defense of Zoos URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-defense-of-zoos/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:34:45.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 12 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) Perhaps in acknowledgment of how frustratingly all-consuming politics has become in the United States, despite my serving as the editor-in-chief of a magazine dealing in current events and still writing about political issues from time to time, I rarely discuss politics at the proverbial dinner table or at social events. I have found that seldom are minds changed, and far too many otherwise pleasant evenings have been ruined by the highlighting of intractable political differences. So I often find myself talking about other things, whether that be music, the outdoors, or things to do in a particular city or travel destination. But, on the latter point, I have found—on at least three occasions—that should I mention that I happened to visit a zoo on a given trip, the negative reaction has been perhaps even greater than if I noted I had just made the maximum allowable campaign contribution to my friend or acquaintance's most reviled politician. The argument presented to me, usually with a healthy dose of vitriol for my having taken part in such perceived barbarity, goes something like this: Wild animals are just that (i.e., *wild* animals) and to restrict their freedom of movement is to take away the essence of their existence, and, furthermore, the enclosures on offer at zoos tend to be cruel. In most cases, the zoo-haters and I share an underlying commitment: We both love animals and want what is best for them. I believe their concern tends to be genuine and coming from a good place. However, I do see the issue quite differently. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/dodo.png) I will confess that I have perhaps been inculcated from an early age to have an affection for zoos, having been brought to the Philadelphia Zoo frequently as a child. (The Philadelphia Zoo was even the site of my parents’ very first date.) And on family trips, zoos and aquariums were frequent destinations: St. Thomas’s Coral World and Artis in Amsterdam stand out particularly in my memory. Frequently when traveling outside of the United States, we would stop in to see how the foreign zoos compared to the ones at home.[1](#%5Fftn) But I think my parents’ motivation lay in their deep appreciation for animals and, if you asked them today, a belief that zoos are the most effective way to introduce people, children in particular, to animals they otherwise would have to travel thousands of miles to see.[2](#%5Fftn) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Chimes at Midnight URL: https://www.merionwest.com/chimes-at-midnight/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T20:32:07.000Z > This must happen to anyone who lives > a long time, looking back across the years > and decades to the days when we were young > and the world stretched out before us > like an endless highway or an ocean > we would never reach the other side. > > But now we hear the chimes at midnight > as I lie beside you with my mind too full > of our mortality, and my heart breaking > at the memory of the times I failed you, > treated you unkindly, made so many > selfish choices that I can’t undo. > > My life’s companion, truest friend, > it’s no cliché to say that you deserved > far better than you got while I got > more than I deserved. You’ll disagree, > but that’s because I really did > get more than I ever deserved. > > And though I still can’t make myself believe, > I think I finally understand why > people want to think there really is > a heaven. As our lives draw ever closer > to their end, I can’t avoid my sadness > at the thought of all eternity without you. ### W. D. Ehrhart's most recent books are a 2025 collection of poems, [*Smart Fish Don't Bite*](https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/ehrhart-w-d-smart-fish-don-t-bite/YD2QGAXXBUFHBNEM4K6HS6AF?cs=true&cst=custom&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-%5FW-lL6cwwW8bsQANmJwm3MsSw-S42Z2xGh0k2oeotYQjMZaBNz9DqAOukdKP95CuNaM19QsZuXdCh2rJglFzD6U6sG4g&%5Fhsmi=380810861&utm%5Fcontent=380810861&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail) from Moonstone Arts, and [*Getting Shot At: Essays on War, Conflict & Culture Clash*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476658625?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback&ref=merionwest.com)*,* which was released this year with McFarland & Company, Inc. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales at Swansea and taught English and history at The Haverford School from 2001 to 2019. ### The Dead Hand of Austria-Hungary URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-dead-hand-of-austria-hungary/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:45:26.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 22 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) The Austro-Hungarian Empire may seem like a distant memory, but its intellectual legacy remains with us. There is much in that legacy that deserves gratitude, as the Empire suffered no shortage of brilliant minds, from physicists Ludwig Boltzmann and Erwin Schrödinger to the economist Joseph Schumpeter to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Not all such influence, however, has been benign. In particular, we have inherited from the Habsburg order various sociopolitical ideas which continue to confuse us, fostering opposition to the model of the nation-state, blinding us to national distinctiveness, and promoting an undue aversion to popular rule. As such, the Habsburg Empire survives intellectually as a model invoked by anti-nationalists, Austrian economists, and anti-democratic thinkers—often for the wrong reasons. **Habsburg Austria and the Anti-Nationalists** Critics of nationalism have long been inspired by Austria-Hungary, regarded by these critics as a prime example of a flourishing multinational state. The Modernist paradigm, which contends that nationalism is a recent invention, rather than a millennia-old expression of human nature, may be considered an example of this. Promulgated by thinkers such as Ernest Gellner, Eric Hobsbawm, and Benedict Anderson, Modernism is currently the dominant outlook in the academic study of nationalism. Significantly, columnist Aris Roussinos has [suggested](https://unherd.com/2022/05/what-putin-and-liberals-have-in-common/?ref=merionwest.com) that Modernism is “imperialist”: It looks back nostalgically on the sprawling, diverse empires of yesteryear and understands nationalism as that nefarious, deceitful ideology which destroyed them. The biographies of its proponents offer some confirmation of this idea: “Both Hobsbawm and Gellner were born in the wreckage of the multiethnic Habsburg Empire, and both preferred it to what followed,” Roussinos writes. Another example is that of the late [Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn](https://mises.org/profile/erik-von-kuehnelt-leddihn?ref=merionwest.com), an Austrian nobleman by birth and longtime contributor to *National Review*. With his blend of traditionalism and cosmopolitanism, Kuehnelt-Leddihn has been [described](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/erik-von-kuehnelt-leddihn-explained/?ref=merionwest.com) as “a liberty-minded monarchist; a multilingual anti-nationalist; a free-market aristocrat.” Although the classical liberal firebrand supported kingship as a matter of general principle, he wrote with a special admiration of that monarchy into which he had been born. Libertarian author Jørn K. Baltzersen hits the nail on the head with his admiring [characterization](https://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/07/jrn-k-baltzersen/the-centennial-of-erik-von-kuehnelt-leddihn/?ref=merionwest.com) of Kuehnelt-Leddihn as “the last knight of the Habsburg Empire.” It is hard not to think of this background when Kuehnelt-Leddihn [writes](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/erik-von-kuehnelt-leddihn-explained/?ref=merionwest.com): “The patriot is a ‘diversitarian’; he is pleased, indeed proud of the variety within the borders of his country; he looks for loyalty from all citizens.” Precisely these words could have been addressed to the many groups who once wished to escape Vienna’s rule. ## "The dead hand of Austria-Hungary still steers our politics, and it is high time we pried its fingers loose." Clearly, Austria-Hungary has been a major inspiration for critiques of nationalism. In truth, however, the Habsburg Empire’s multinational character is anything but a viable model for emulation. As historian Azar Gat argues in his 2013 treatise [*Nations*](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/nations/15A0C502D17FD36C38A52449CDBA7757?ref=merionwest.com), human societies are almost universally based on ethnic ties, and the larger ones are no exception. Thus, virtually every empire throughout history has relied on one clearly dominant ethnic group to maintain its integrity, the Habsburg Empire being a singular outlier. He explains that, throughout history, an empire has generally relied on a single “dominant imperial people” preeminent in numbers and/or fighting prowess. The Habsburg Empire, meanwhile, was exceptional in that “the core German lands of Austria and its periphery” enjoyed neither of these advantages. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Message from a Lifelong Dog Lover: Pit Bulls Are Dangerous URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-message-from-a-lifelong-dog-lover/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:37:56.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 7 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) On June 15th in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, a two-year-old little girl was [attacked](https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/rocky-mount-dog-attack-kills-2-year-old-child/83-adad18c1-198c-4332-8615-3eae4bf46b03?ref=merionwest.com) by two pit bulls and ultimately died, despite a quick emergency response. This is a tragedy to be certain, and it is one that is occurring with disturbing frequency. Children under the age of ten, regrettably, represent a high share of pit bull-related fatalities. In fact, between 2005 and 2017, over [four in ten](https://www.dogsbite.org/reports/13-years-us-dog-bite-fatalities-2005-2017-dogsbite.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) victims of fatal pit bull attacks were children under the age of ten. ## "There is good reason why owning pit bulls is illegal in Norway." To this point, I am convinced that seven-year-old Leelan Lokie’s family of Gunnison, Colorado would [reconsider](https://www.montrosepress.com/free%5Faccess/dog-that-killed-7-year-old-gunnison-boy-showed-aggressive-behavior-and-was-days-from/article%5F3d2ecee2-f7b3-458e-bd31-b2f5260af503.html?ref=merionwest.com) owning a pit bull knowing that precious Leelan would still be alive had his parents not decided to accept a pit bull rescue dog into their home. Leelan, who died this February after being attacked by his family's pit bull, was a child with a [fierce](https://www.gunnisontimes.com/stories/leelan-axel-lokie,34821?ref=merionwest.com) love for his family and friends, whose community is left reeling from the horrific death he suffered. And, last November, in Oklahoma City, two-year-old Locklynn McGuire was mauled to death by her family’s pit bull, [according](https://freepressokc.com/2-year-old-was-hurt-by-same-dog-weeks-before-fatal-mauling/?ref=merionwest.com) to the *Oklahoma City Free Press*. Shockingly and incomprehensibly, Locklynn had been severely bitten by the dog just two weeks prior to her death. The previous attack resulted in disfigurement and required plastic surgery, yet the dog remained in the home to fatally attack her. Both parents were [arrested](https://okcfox.com/news/local/oklahoma-parents-facing-additional-charges-in-mauling-death-of-2-year-old?ref=merionwest.com) and charged with “one count of first-degree murder or second-degree murder in the alternative,” with prosecutors citing their alleged knowledge of the dog’s dangerous behavior. While I fully recognize that there are well-trained dogs of this breed and similar breeds whose families invest time, effort, and commitment to their socialization and training, there are far too many instances where pit bulls are poorly trained or under-supervised. Of course, pit bulls are not the only breed that has caused injury and even death, but in one Level I trauma-center [study](https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-studies-level-1-trauma-table-2011-present.php?ref=merionwest.com), pit bull-type dogs accounted for seventy-one percent of mauling injuries, defined as three or more bites across two or more regional anatomical areas. They are also [responsible](https://www.dogsbite.org/dog-bite-statistics-studies-level-1-trauma-table-2011-present.php?ref=merionwest.com) for two-thirds of all human fatalities from dog attacks. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Cambridge Five: Stalin’s Men at the Heart of Britain URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-cambridge-five-stalins-men-at-the-heart-of-britain/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:41:21.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 14 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) Secret agents come in just about all sizes, genders, races, and ages. Few, as history informs us, resemble the handsome, broad-shouldered James Bond. In reality, most spies are rather ordinary. Atomic spy Harry Gold, for example, was utterly unmemorable: Short, round, and decidedly working class. He was easily dismissed at first sight, presuming one took the time to observe him at all. ![Illustration of Stalin's Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/bookreview.png) [Stalin’s Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire ](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/antonia-senior/stalins-apostles/9781541704381/?lens=publicaffairs&ref=merionwest.com) by Antonia Senior PublicAffairs, 2026, 480 pages Other covert operatives may prove visible but with unassailable pedigrees. Such privilege comes with its own Achilles heel, however, as it did with several members of an elite university club, the Apostles. Britain's most notorious spies for the Soviet Union, the Cambridge Five, thought of themselves as exceptional and even impervious to being outed. How could such an elite group of young men ever be suspected? But now their disturbing tale of treachery and hubris is being retold by journalist and podcaster [Antonia Senior](https://antoniasenior.com/?ref=merionwest.com). A former student of Cambridge historian and British intelligence expert Christopher Andrew, Senior is certainly not the first to tackle this embarrassing and controversial chapter of British history. There are numerous articles, books, and films on the subject, including a well-received [2014 Ben Macintyre biography](https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Among-Friends-Philby-Betrayal/dp/0804136637?ref=merionwest.com) on Kim Philby, one of the Five. This was followed by [a popular recent television series ](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15565872/?ref=merionwest.com)based on Macintyre's Philby book. In addition to exploring these previous works as well as the spies’ own commentaries, Senior’s investigation took her to both American and British National Archives to examine newly released material and similar repositories in Poland, Lithuania, and Albania. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Even in the Matrix, You Still Have to Pay Your Debts URL: https://www.merionwest.com/even-in-the-matrix-you-still-have-to-pay-your-debts/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:41:23.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 7 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) René Descartes' [*Meditations on First Philosophy*](https://personal.lse.ac.uk/ROBERT49/teaching/ph103/pdf/Descartes%5F1641Meditations.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) begins with a radical question: What, if anything, can survive doubt? First published in 1641, the work set out to rebuild knowledge on a foundation nothing could shake. Descartes' method was designed as a shortcut because it would be impossible to examine the truth of each and every individual belief that one could have. Descartes resolved to reject any belief for which he could find some reason for doubt. Many of our beliefs come from the senses, and the senses sometimes deceive us. Therefore, those beliefs can be doubted. Sometimes we dream so vividly that we realize only upon waking that it had all been a dream. This suggests we could be dreaming even now (while we believe we are awake) without knowing it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/descartes-illustration-v5.png) Worse, perhaps an evil demon, "supremely powerful and cunning," has deceived us about the sky, the earth, and our own bodies. Descartes meant this exercise as a thought experiment to evaluate the quality of our knowledge. But these scenarios carry moral and political implications too, and those have been mostly ignored when scholars assess the writings and philosophy of Descartes. This oversight matters because if we discovered that one of these skeptical scenarios were true, it would matter a great deal for our moral and political claims. Consider dream skepticism, from the beginning of the *Meditations*. In this scenario, the world I experience is taking place only within my mind, and my actions there are devoid of moral consequences in the real world. If I merely dream that I rob a bank or cheat on my taxes, there are no consequences in the external world; upon waking, the wrong has not actually taken place. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “Only in America”: Civic Memory at 250 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/only-in-america-civic-memory-at-250/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:41:24.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 8 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) This Fourth of July brings back childhood memories. Every year, my extended immigrant family of more than two dozen relatives would gather to celebrate Independence Day at my grandparents' Italian tavern, the Golden Gate Inn, on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. It sat in an Italian-American neighborhood called Collinwood. I have five vivid memories of those gatherings, from when I was very young to the mid-1960s, when I left for college. The first thing I remember is that it was always hot and humid, with no air conditioning. Eventually, Dad would plug in a big square electric box fan in the kitchen to spew its version of cool air on anyone lucky to be close to it. Sooner or later, we kids gathered in the graveled backyard and sprayed each other with the green garden hose to cool off. Second, food was everywhere. Most of it was *cucina Americana*: hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, coleslaw, butter pecan ice cream, and lemon meringue pie. Italian homemade favorites abounded, including meatballs and red sauce, sausage and peppers, and Dad's Italian wine, into which he sliced ripe peaches from the local farmer's market. Everyone, kids included, had peaches and red wine, the amount depending on age. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/07/flag2.png) Third, there were always fireworks. The afternoon display of rockets, cherry bombs, firecrackers, and sparklers, all illegal, took place up the street by another Italian tavern called Mirabile's. In the evening, we saw the legal fireworks from the neighboring suburbs, visible from our driveway because no tall buildings blocked the view. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### We Need to Talk About Spelling URL: https://www.merionwest.com/we-need-to-talk-about-spelling/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:45:27.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 9 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) The other day, I got stuck spelling a word. Seeking to describe an event for which guests required a ticket, I typed out “*ticketted*” and was immediately confronted by the red squiggly line of error. Was it really *ticketed*, with only two Ts? That did not look right. But no: Two-T *ticketed* is correct. English’s decentralized authorities (for example, dictionaries like Merriam-Webster’s) have certified it. Behind their approval, I see greater, subtler forces at work. In brief, I suggest that written English is silently, gradually, and accidentally becoming a bit more Chinese-like. No, it has nothing to do with emojis. What furrowed my brow in this case was that *ticketed* seemed to fly in the face of English’s successful system of "Magic E," whereby a final mute E assists in the sound of the vowel two places to its left—note the difference between *van* and *vane*, *sit* and *site*, *not* and *note*. ## "...drifting speech and innovative symbolism are, I posit, making written English today accidentally closer to the venerable system of Chinese writing, with its vast cast of characters." To counteract the effects of E, English spelling can double its consonants: Hear the U in *mute* and *mutter*. My intuition was that *ticketted* fit the pronunciation best, correctly signaling that *ticketed* does not rhyme with *deleted*. I have had the same problem with "*developped*"; a learner might wrongly rhyme the approved spelling *developed* with *eloped*. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Unexpected Harte URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-unexpected-harte/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:41:25.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 25 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) The gentle whoosh of the windshield wipers was her only accompaniment. She thought briefly of putting the radio on, to listen to the drive-time news. She thought of asking Siri to play her favorite podcast. Then she thought better of it. What she needed now was the one gift a person might truly give themselves: the gift of peace and calming solitude. She needed a clear mind, to empty it of all else, even if only for a short drive to the prison. The thrum of the rain on the car was helpful. It reminded her of holidays in her parents’ caravan. That took her mind away from the car crash her life had become. An unfortunate idiom, she thought, switching lanes. Oh, she could have sent a junior lawyer to get the consent signed, but if she didn’t get away from the office she might have screamed. Her destination on this short drive out of the city was HMP Barlinnie; her reason was to see the firm’s client Pat Wallace, the infamous Glasgow hardman whose decades of criminal rule had finally caught up with him. She would meet him in the interview rooms, convince him to sign the consent for the pub’s license, and be on her way. She was now on the M8, the motorway that scythed its way through Glasgow city center like a killing blow. She looked up to Minerva, standing atop the Mitchell Library, peering across the city in her constant search for wisdom. She thought of her mother then, and her constantly kind overtures to have her daughter seek out knowledge from an early age. The Mitchell had been a special place for them. Then the hate rose. She tried to force the thought of her mother out of the car as if casting it from the window to tumble and toss around those others making their own drives to here and there. She realized, with such hurt that her chest physically shook, that she would much rather confront the gangster than her own mum. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Lady Lazarus Worries Me URL: https://www.merionwest.com/lady-lazarus-worries-me/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:43.000Z > *after Sylvia Plath* > Her poem’s zigzagging lines. > Its shout buried > in soap and > fury. > The admission > of having tried it > twice before, > though it didn’t stick > should have warned us. > God, I wish someone > had read it closer. > Had *known*. > Had said, > > *Girl,* > get your head > out of the > oven. > *Please.* ### [Drema Drudge](https://www.merionwest.com/the-unexpected-harte/) is a novelist and poet in Indiana. ### The Many Lives of Thomas More URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-many-lives-of-thomas-more/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:46:36.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 7 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) Thomas More, in critiquing the historical work of a contemporary, [wrote](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300223378/the-essential-works-of-thomas-more/?ref=merionwest.com), > "Let historians begin to show either prejudice or favoritism, and who will there be to lend any credence at all to histories?" This admonition could apply to most words written about More himself, whose legacy has for five centuries been the source of significant debate and even conflict. For many Catholics, More is the martyred saint who had the courage to stand up to the tyrannical [King Henry VIII](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-VIII-king-of-England?ref=merionwest.com), while the Church was being fatally divided during the Reformation. He was the man for all seasons who was executed for refusing to violate his conscience. For Protestants, and many admirers [of Hilary Mantel](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2020/07/17/hilary-mantels-case-against-st-thomas-more/?ref=merionwest.com), he is a grubby and compromising figure whose pious support for the established church enabled him to justify the killing of brave men and women who wanted the word of God to reach the masses. Additionally, More's most famous work, [*Utopia*](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2130?ref=merionwest.com), which was published in 1516, inspires equally impassioned argument. For some readers, it is interpreted as a communist text showing the benefits of a society without personal property. For other readers, this complex work represents something of a nightmare: a police state in which individual freedom is severely limited, proper religious faith is unknown, and reason is deployed to justify oppression. Complexity is the keyword here. More is as enigmatic and contradictory as his best-known work; however, the answer is not to take one side or another or to carve him up into easily digestible morsels. It is to accept the deeply contradictory nature of a human being living in tumultuous times. Even brilliant, otherwise rational minds can be driven—primarily by fear—to positions of hatred, violence, and obstinacy. Our vantage point of the twenty-first century invites us to sort historical figures into camps of "good" or "bad," "hero" or "villain," but that is as pernicious to our perspective on the present as it is on the past, as Thomas More himself pointed out, some 500 years ago. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Discovered Cries URL: https://www.merionwest.com/discovered-cries/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:44.000Z > I thought my favorite sound was classical > guitar: thin rosewood shaping pitches warm, > round, bright. But yesterday a seagull called, > quite loud, its high staccato song, forlorn, > > a tragic promise, hungry but resigned. > My body opened, lightness spread through me, > through chest, limbs, face, with muscles loosened; > I rose with easy breathing, longing for the sea. > > Though often hated, seagulls have good sense, > and know, like me, they can’t live far from coasts. > We need relentless surf, stern sand, green depths > salt breezes, crumbling cliffs, shrimp feasts. > > If roving too far inland, thick with trees > or static lakes, we find it hard to breathe. ### Douglas Jones teaches high school literature at The Cambridge School in San Diego. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Idaho and a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Southern California. ### ### Träumerei URL: https://www.merionwest.com/traumerei/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:44.000Z Ramya Yandava _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Confronting the Honesty Crisis URL: https://www.merionwest.com/confronting-the-honesty-crisis/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:46:38.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 7 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) ChatGPT was [released to the public in 2022](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/november-30/chatgpt-released-openai?ref=merionwest.com). Within one year of this release, disturbing survey findings were already emerging. One found [that](https://tytonpartners.com/app/uploads/2023/10/GenAI-IN-HIGHER-EDUCATION-FALL-2023-UPDATE-TIME-FOR-CLASS-STUDY.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) three-fourths of students who had learned how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help with assignments indicated that even if their professor banned the use of AI, they would continue to use it. Similarly, in early 2024, *The Guardian* cited a British [survey](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/01/more-than-half-uk-undergraduates-ai-essays-artificial-intelligence?ref=merionwest.com), which found that over half of British undergraduates admitted to employing AI for graded schoolwork. Students, of course, cheated long before generative AI. But thanks to these tools, cheating is far easier to get away with than in the past. Using one of these systems can save students hours of work while still producing a paper or block of code likely to receive a good grade. As such, it is clear that we are confronting an honesty crisis in education today. An “honesty crisis” is a label I developed to refer to a disturbing scenario: when we see a sudden increase in dishonest behavior caused by at least two factors. For whatever reason, dishonest actions have become harder to detect, so people deem them easier to get away with than previously. At the same time, dishonest behavior has become more tempting than it was in the past. When we find ourselves in the midst of such a crisis, dishonesty accelerates around us. In my new book, [*The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World*](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-honesty-crisis-9780197840801?cc=us&lang=en&&ref=merionwest.com)*,* I explore other areas in addition to education that are facing an honesty crisis. These include deepfakes, pornography and infidelity websites like Ashley Madison, fake news, celebrity culture, and dishonesty among religious leaders, including the plagiarism of sermons. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage (1874) by Edgar Degas URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-rehearsal-of-the-ballet-onstage-1874-by-edgar-degas/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:45.000Z > The young girls are like linen hanging out to dry, > breeze-buffeted and slightly see-through. They pose, > wait with awkwardly clasped hands, rehearse their steps. > > Upstage, just off-center, a ginger-haired ballerina pulls > her hair away from the nape of her neck, perhaps > caught mid-yawn or breathless from practice. The light > lifts her towards the viewer: the soft skin of her upper arms, > her mouth ecstatic and open. Pearls shimmer > at her ears and her corseted dress plunges low. > > Just offstage, two men in tuxedos watch rehearsal. > One man reclines in his chair, hands in pockets, legs > stretched out. He is a man who always gets what he wants, > takes what he wants. He watches the ginger-haired ballerina > bathed in light. His hunting is casual. > Her movements choreographed for him. > > The other man wears a shiny top hat. He has spun > the chair around and straddled it, leaning aggressively > forward from the shadows. His gaze holds another > red-tressed ballerina, this one downstage in the limelight; > her hands are also clasped to her neck, perhaps retying a necklace, > and she is angled towards him, sunk into a deep curtsy: shoulders > hunched forward, bosom cleaved. A glint of gold from the gifted > bracelet on her right wrist, long-lashed eyes like a songbird’s wing. > He has already claimed her, already imagined the capture: > arrogant, looming, hungry. > > This rehearsal is also a performance. ### Deidre Cavazzi holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Dominican University of California and a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of California, Irvine. She has been an artist-in-residence with The Arctic Circle in Svalbard and the Fish Factory Creative Centre in Iceland, as well as a guest artist at the University of Galway in Ireland. ## The painting can be found [here](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436155?ref=merionwest.com). ### Showstopper URL: https://www.merionwest.com/showstopper/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:45.000Z > There I was > torn chiffon & tarnished silk, > the spotlight froze it all– > dust settling from the warm light, > eyes of serpents or fox or both, > mouths agape & the announcer’s stuttering words. > one hand over my breast, > the other holding the remains of my gown; > I still feel ashamed. > heat rising across my body, > flushed cheeks & that lump in my throat: > nothing weighs more than judgement > but nothing weighs less than pity. > their hatred presses on my tongue as they say, > How dare you ruin this! > it’s not a question– > just the beginning of rock bottom. > & it’s my Sunday best. ### Madi Maiola is a poet in Connecticut. She is a former two-time apprentice at the Nook Farms Collaborative. ### Mood Swings URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mood-swings/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:46.000Z > A tear > (drop) > through my eye lands > on the machinery of my cheek > > And sparks shoot off of my crackling face > > The mask distorts in unnatural twitch > > A pole in my brain spins > and spits ribbons of storm > > as a > giant > flying carousel > rises from the top of my head > (the kind at the fair, with swings on chains) > and I ride on each seat > a l l a t o n c e ### Bianca Ambrosino is a poet from Richmond, Virginia. ### Unicorn Summer URL: https://www.merionwest.com/unicorn-summer/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:46:39.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 4 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) The television in our living room showed a unicorn that summer—a pearlescent creature with a single, spiraling horn—destined for Madison Square Garden. I was eleven, and unlike the adults around me, I still believed in the possibility of a miracle. I didn't know about surgical grafts or the grim theater of animal acts. I only knew that I wanted to see it. My father's youngest brother was staying with us then, the youngest of my grandmother's five sons. When I asked him to take me, he answered without thinking. He was lost in his own thoughts. "Yeah, okay. I'll get the tickets," he said. A week passed. The circus was moving closer, the ads getting louder. "Did you get them?" I asked. "They're in the mail," he told me, his voice flat and practiced. "Any day now." That was the start of the ritual. Every afternoon, I'd leave the apartment and head for the lobby. The Brooklyn heat was a physical weight, smelling of hot asphalt and the briny ghost of the harbor. I'd stand before the bank of dented metal mailboxes, my small key slick with sweat. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Best Laid Plans URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-best-laid-plans/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:46:40.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 23 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) On a dry, dusty afternoon, two men stood inside the exit gate at the California Men’s Prison in Corcoran, California, a large, foreboding complex surrounded by high, chain-link fencing with bands of concertina wire at its apex. Ominous-looking concrete silos, with Plexiglas guard shacks manned by rifle-toting guards, stood like silent sentinels around the complex’s perimeter. One of the men, a prison guard supervisor, was a short, thick Hispanic in his late thirties with a high-and-tight military haircut, pressed khaki shirt, black tie, mirrored sunglasses and forest green trousers with a razor-sharp crease. Squinting into the bright sunlight next to him was a tall, muscular black man with a shaved head and thick mustache. He was dressed in an ill-fitting, standard-issue, civilian blue shirt, dark pants, white socks and tennis shoes. The second man was Billy De Wine, but everyone in the prison yard and on the streets of South-Central Los Angeles knew him by his nickname “High Time.” He’d just finished three years of a five-year sentence for armed robbery, and the state prison board had granted him his release with a two-year parole. Just before the supervisor signaled for the gate to open, he turned to Billy. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Godsend URL: https://www.merionwest.com/godsend/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:46:41.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 36 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) “The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?” Ben hadn’t seen another car for miles. Not since that van turned onto a private dirt road…an hour ago? An hour and a half? He couldn’t remember. The van had insisted on tailing him instead of just passing. The sameness of his surroundings — vast tracts of farmland dedicated to the cultivation of corn or soybeans, depending on the season, no man-made structures apart from barns or silos or fences, and, above all, breathtakingly flat — scrambled his perception of time. It was as though he were driving along an agrarian Möbius strip with no beginning and no end. Only occasional landmarks disrupted the monotony, like the farm on which a lone black buffalo resided. “The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?” Ben loosened up after the van turned off the road. He’d been paranoid about being followed ever since he’d started the return trip. The van had nearly sent him into a tailspin. What if they knew? Knew who he was, where he was going, what he had in the back of his pickup? Even inadvertent tailgaters like the van were a problem. He’d taken care to securely fasten the blue tarp over the pickup bed, but still, what if one of the cords came loose and the tarp flew into a field? The Prelate had stressed over and over how vital it was that no one saw what Ben was carrying in his truck. Ben had even filled up a half-dozen plastic gas cans and put them in the backseat so that he wouldn’t have to stop at a gas station on the way. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Social Wealth Men Without College Degrees Need URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-social-wealth-men-without-college-degrees-need/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:51:42.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 10 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) “So as the college degree has increasingly become the great sorting function in American life, men without degrees have increasingly found themselves sorted out,” write the authors of [*Nobody to Call*](https://nobodytocall.org/?ref=merionwest.com), a new report on friendship, community, and purpose among men without college degrees. These men did not become disconnected from work, friendship, and community all at once. That separation unfolded slowly, as they lost touch with the people and institutions that build a stable life. A man leaves high school without a clear next step. Daily routines vanish and friends scatter. As work becomes unstable, he finds no mentors to offer support and no community institutions to which he can turn. The young man who was once merely uncertain slowly becomes an adult man without connections. ## "Many describe purpose in relational terms: being fathers, uncles, mentors, neighbors, workers, and community members." _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Pericles the Eccentric URL: https://www.merionwest.com/pericles-the-eccentric/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:51:44.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 14 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) It has been a decade since the last major biographical treatment of Pericles's life, career, and times appeared in English. (Others have appeared in German, Italian, and French, as befits a major ancient Greek political figure.) Each of the three predecessor works considered below has its special emphases and strengths. None, noticeably, is as hagiographic as some of its forerunners. Pericles has long since ceased to be a hero of his nation, as he was represented in late Victorian times. The particular strength of [*Pericles of Athens*](https://www.amazon.com/Pericles-Athens-Vincent-Azoulay/dp/0691154597?ref=merionwest.com), which was released in 2014 by Paris-based scholar Vincent Azoulay, lies in its scrupulous attention to the reception of Pericles, how he has been variously conceived and portrayed, for praise and blame alike, over the ages since Thucydides’ fifth-century B.C. portrayal of Pericles in the [*History of the Peloponnesian War*](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h.htm?ref=merionwest.com). More traditional, because of its focus on politics, diplomacy, and war, is American Loren J. Samons II's 2015 [*Pericles and the Conquest of History*](https://www.amazon.com/Pericles-Conquest-History-Political-Biography/dp/1107526027?ref=merionwest.com). Also American-authored is [*Pericles: A Biography in Context*](https://www.amazon.com/Pericles-Biography-Professor-Thomas-Martin/dp/0521116457?ref=merionwest.com) by Thomas Martin, which appeared in 2016\. Martin's biography is the most similar in approach and scope to my own new book [*Pericles: Statesman, Demagogue, Eccentric*](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo266710005.html?ref=merionwest.com), especially as it correctly takes context in a plural sense to refer to family background, educational experience, and unorthodox domestic life, as well as the public institutions of democracy and empire and Pericles’ impact on those institutions and their impact on him. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/05/pericles.png) As to what I hope readers might take away from reading about "my" Pericles, I would stress two negative points first: There was no such thing as "Periclean" Greece, Athens, or democracy. As important as he was to each of these, he was not the major (let alone the sole) decisive influence in shaping them. Second, his partner in life for his last twenty years, Aspasia of Miletus, was just that: *his partner*. She was emphatically not his mistress. Positively, I hope readers will come to appreciate that Pericles was a strikingly remarkable individual, one of the most remarkable in all of ancient Greek and indeed world history. He was always at the dead center of Athens' and humanity's most considerable achievements, not least an unparalleled degree of direct democratic self-governance and an unequalled stream of top-notch dramatic (Aeschylus, Sophocles), literary (Thucydides) and artistic (Parthenon) productions that still influence us to this day. Of course, there were also downsides, with which Pericles was at least complicit: the inferior status and treatment of even free Athenian Greek women, as well as the enslavement of many thousands of mainly non-Greek persons. But balance is all. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### It Was Not Trump Who Started the Iran War URL: https://www.merionwest.com/it-was-not-trump-who-started-the-iran-war/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:51:45.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 6 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) It is by now well known that President Donald Trump and his administration have unleashed the American military on Iran, [initially through a February 28th attack](https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/inside-the-operation-that-killed-khamenei-03eebbad?ref=merionwest.com) that resulted in the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and top deputies. In the time since, the United States and its Israeli partners [have significantly diminished Iran's military capacity](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-can-only-confirm-about-third-irans-missile-arsenal-destroyed-sources-say-2026-03-27/?ref=merionwest.com). Many of President Trump's critics have weighed in, accusing him of violating his promise to promote peace while he was a candidate for this high office, both in 2024 and previously. [Former Vice President Kamala Harris declared:](https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/2027820065886777456/photo/1?ref=merionwest.com) “This is a dangerous and unnecessary gamble with American lives that also jeopardizes stability in the region and our standing in the world. What we are witnessing is not strength. It is recklessness dressed up as resolve.” Journalist Glenn Greenwald commented above a November 4, 2024 image posted by the Republican Party on X declaring then-candidates Trump and J.D. Vance "the pro-peace ticket," now [decrying their campaign](https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/2027703489334239613?ref=merionwest.com) "\[o\]ne of the most shamelessly fraudulent presidential campaigns in American history." Similarly, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene [inveighed](https://x.com/FmrRepMTG/status/2027758087680000021?ref=merionwest.com): “The Trump admin actually asked in a poll how many casualties voters were willing to accept in a war with Iran??? How about ZERO you bunch of sick f—liars. We voted for America First and ZERO wars." Criticism of the war in Iran also featured prominently in the significant support received by Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie from grassroots Republican donors and volunteers in his [recent primary defeat to Ed Gallrein](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/politics/thomas-massie-primary-kentucky.html?ref=merionwest.com). ## The aggressed upon country, the United States, is not required by international or any other law to respond immediately. The defensive nation may defend itself at the time of its choosing. To these critics' credit, it is indeed true that the Trump campaign strongly emphasized a peace platform, promising no more forever wars and winding down American entanglements abroad. Therefore, on a superficial reading, the American attack on Iran is seemingly incompatible with the President's promises on the campaign trail. More damaging, in the eyes of these critics, President Trump is guilty of hypocrisy, lying, and fraud. Is there any way to defend President Trump, without falling into the trap mentioned by George Orwell in his 1949 novel [*Nineteen Eighty-Four*](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nineteen-Eighty-four?ref=merionwest.com) that "WAR IS PEACE/FREEDOM IS SLAVERY/IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." Yes, there is. In November of 1979, Iranian militants seized the American embassy in Tehran, a grave violation of the inviolability of American diplomatic premises under international law. To add insult to injury, the Islamic Republic [kidnapped sixty-six American hostages and held them](https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/short-history/iraniancrises?ref=merionwest.com) for 444 days. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### In the Digital Age, the Need to Remain Human Is Stronger Than Ever URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-the-digital-age-the-need-to-remain-human-is-stronger-than-ever/ Last updated: 2026-06-20T00:00:18.000Z In a world in which everything we say and do can be recorded and posted online, it is only natural to treat likes, shares, and follower counts as primary sources of self-esteem. Yet the same conditioning makes it just as easy to forget the synthetic reality behind the blue screen. And the more power we cede to the algorithms, the more we risk losing the ability to shape our sense of self from within. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/05/image-2-1.png) According to Patricia Martin, author of [the new book](https://www.amazon.com/Will-Future-Like-You-Hyper-Reinvention/dp/1800133081?ref=merionwest.com) *Will the Future Like You?: Reflections on the Age of Hyper-Reinvention*, our increasingly digitalized lives will be accompanied by pain. As many have already discovered, there is a growing sense of unease and emptiness permeating society. At the same time, Martin gives reason for hope. Drawing on Carl Jung’s ideas about the self and the persona, Martin argues that artificial intelligence has the potential to free up precious time for the most human of pursuits: considering our nature and pondering the meaning of life. To rescue the self from the anomie of online life, we must once again make the case for being human. Below is a transcript of the conversation between Martin and *Merion West* senior editor Jonathan Church, edited for length and clarity. --- _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Sepulchress URL: https://www.merionwest.com/sepulchress/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:47.000Z > Digging beneath the dirt of my body is the only > way I know to escape it: its fatal birdcage, its sung > prison of bones. And as I labor You tell me of all the women > who failed to listen, how now they are enshrouded > in salt pillars & sunken in bogs & dissolved in lime. > Unwilling I learn of the river, the tower, the millstone, the grave— > & for a thousand miles around us the tall candles > of evening are burning me to the ground. > Anchoress me away. Blame the light for peering > into my internment, for making of itself an unholy ghost. > Place my (bird)cage where it will never open. Your voice > a spear in my unsanctified heart, I go below ground. > The insects are kinder than You ever were. Cruel god, > abbess me empty. I pack dirt in my mouth so I cannot pray. ### Amy DeBellis is the author of the novels *All Our Tomorrows*, *Methuselah*, and *The Widening Gyre*. ### The Bubble URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-bubble/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:51:46.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 29 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) When COVID hit, Nathan’s trivia team—“Tequila Mockingbird”—reconvened on the first official Friday night of the pandemic for a game night in one of the soon-to-be-coined “bubbles” but without one team member in attendance: Nathan himself. Nathan, the only member of Tequila Mockingbird without a spouse, lived two doors down from the team’s gay married couple, Sam and Leo, who were hosting the bubble that night. Nathan could overhear the team from his own balcony, picking up their conversation through their open sliding glass door across the courtyard. “Nathan is a slut,” Priscilla said. “He could give us all COVID. I don’t think we should invite him.” “But he lives right down the hall. His balcony literally faces ours,” said Sam. “You guys, he could be listening right now. You should really keep it down,” said Tate, Priscilla’s husband. Priscilla wasn’t wrong, Nathan thought. He *was* a slut. Without question. But as far as he knew, nobody was even hooking up (he certainly wasn’t) so he didn’t understand why he was being singled out and excluded from the group. To Nathan, it suddenly felt like everyone who was lucky enough to have already been paired up before the pandemic was now part of a united force field, deserving of special privileges such as bubbles and game nights, intent on keeping people—*sluts*—like Nathan out. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Roberta's Little Creatures URL: https://www.merionwest.com/robertas-little-creatures/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:47.000Z ## An ekphrastic of Roberta Hahn Edward's 2025 watercolor of a "Little Creature" > She started when still quite young, > creating little husks of life > on watercolor paper, bringing them > into being, wringing them from pores > in the sheet, bright and strange > little monsters, never mean or dirty > crippled by Nature’s twist, but happy > nonetheless, wisps of blue or tan, > perhaps part Man but mostly wrong, > three legs or eyes on top, curved > at the spine, limping, ragged > never meant to be hers, yours or mine > As she grew older, they stayed > always just a brush stroke away – > evolved, became larger, more articulate > some could not wait to speak her name > into her ear, when no one else was near -- > it was the oddest of notions, easiest > not to stop and give it thought > or reason, no matter time or season > just little friends, growing bigger > as she stood in the cold farmhouse > letting them live on the tabled page > she could not say when they started > riding on her hip, or in a pocket > or shoe, hanging from the nape just off > the collar of her shirt, maybe in hem > of skirt, never doing or meaning harm > just little friends, quite quiet, calm > and above all safe and warm > Did they come to speak to her? Oh, yes > in whispers at first, never to intrude > thoughtful, far from rude, observant > perhaps to offer warning or caution, > she came to learn there were some people > out there, intent to do her wrong, > staring her way a bit too long as she > walked on the street, scuffing feet, > speaking out loud to the invisible > painted little friends so near to her > She left one day, not a word to any > of her species, just disappeared, > none knew why or where, a knock > on her door but no one there, even though > her flesh and bone sat upright at table’s > edge, staring straight ahead, lips > just barely moving, breath in, breath out > sun rose and fell, no one home at all > but a small puddle of red, by the end > of her brush, drying slow on table’s top > nothing left to see or hear, or be said > no place to start, or pause, or stop ### Steve Sibra grew up on a small farm in eastern Montana. His work has appeared in numerous journals over the past fifteen years. Steve's full-length poetry book, [*Shoes For Baby*](https://www.amazon.com/Shoes-Baby-Steve-Sibra/dp/B0B11M3Q4Z?ref=merionwest.com), was published in 2022 by Swallow Press. ### The Oldest New Idea URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-oldest-new-idea/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T12:51:47.000Z **Listen to this article**AI narration · 26 min [Subscribe to listen](#/portal/signup)[Already a subscriber? Sign in](#/portal/signin) In 1545, the world’s Catholic bishops gathered at the Council of Trent in order to address the growing problem of the Protestant Reformation. Reformers had many objections against Catholicism, but there was one central point of contention that was at the heart of all others. *Sola scriptura* (Scripture alone) was the Protestant position on authority. Neither the whims of a local priest nor the consensus of the world’s bishops could supersede what was plainly written in the books of the Bible. Nor should any type of proclamation from the church ever be given the same standing as Scripture: that of being infallible and binding on all people. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/05/image-1.png) The principle of *sola scriptura* also implies that anyone can and should read the Bible for guidance directly. But this leads to a problem of interpretation. If Martin Luther and John Calvin both take guidance directly from the clear meaning of Scripture, they should both arrive at the same beliefs and practices. But they do not. As [Vincent of Lérins](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15439b.htm?ref=merionwest.com) had observed 1,100 years earlier, [Scripture is](https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm?ref=merionwest.com) "capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters." The text does not wear its meaning on its sleeve to be neutrally observed without any presuppositions. This is the argument accepted by the bishops at Trent against *sola scriptura*: Scripture cannot be the sole authority because of the nature of texts themselves: Texts do not interpret themselves. The words on the page do not come with built-in instructions for how to resolve their own ambiguities. Without a living tradition to adjudicate among competing readings, there is no plain meaning. So according to the Catholic argument, the sole authority of Scripture actually leads to no authority at all. By the time the [Council of Trent](https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/trent.htm?ref=merionwest.com) convened, Catholic theologians had long since digested the idea that reading a text is an inherently interpretive act, and there is no plain meaning outside of interpretation. At this point, one probably recognizes what the oldest new idea is. It has been wielded ad nauseam by American leftist political activists since around 2012\. Defending the 1619 Project against historians who disputed specific factual claims, Hannah-Jones [wrote](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11054663-while-history-is-what-happened-it-is-also-just-as?ref=merionwest.com): "while history is what happened, it is also, just as important, how we think about what happened and what we unearth and choose to remember about what happened." Instead of arguing that certain events did or did not objectively happen, she attacked the notion that the archives of history could ever offer up objective facts. Reading the archive is an act of interpretation, and Hannah-Jones was issuing her church’s interpretation, one whose legitimacy is based in the authority of the church, not some objective reality of what happened. “We” (*The New York Times*, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, New York University) “choose to remember” this interpretation. One's individual reading of history is as invalid to this *cathedral* as one's individual reading of the Bible is to the Vatican. Because the current cathedral of journalism and academia is committed to denouncing its predecessors, it does not realize that its favorite idea is merely one half of an old theological dispute. As far as it knows, the idea came from turtleneck and cigarette enthusiasts in 1960s Paris. It is one of the most important ideas in the history of Western thought. But almost nobody recognizes its recurrence for what it is. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Repression in Tanzania Demands the World’s Attention URL: https://www.merionwest.com/repression-in-demands-the-worlds-attention/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:41:40.000Z Tanzania was a beacon of stability in Africa for much of the second half of the twentieth century. When Uganda was suffering under the notorious dictator [Idi Amin](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Idi-Amin?ref=merionwest.com) between 1971 and 1979, it was the Tanzanian military that marched into Uganda and ousted him, forcing him to flee to Libya. When [the Rwandan Genocide](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506?ref=merionwest.com) tragically occurred in 1994, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in approximately 100 days, Tanzania [welcomed half a million Rwandan refugees](https://books.openedition.org/ifra/567?ref=merionwest.com). As such, this *hakuna matata* country, which is home to the world’s highest free-standing mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the [largest](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/southern-hemisphere-countries?ref=merionwest.com) population of a nation entirely in the Southern Hemisphere, has long been the sensible sibling on a chaotic continent. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/05/image.png) Sadly, this is no longer the case. Recent Tanzanian governments have implemented authoritarian policies. They [have suppressed the media](https://cpj.org/2024/10/tanzanias-regulator-bans-media-outlets-as-journalists-harassed/?ref=merionwest.com). Television stations [have been fined](https://cpj.org/2018/01/tanzania-slaps-fines-on-5-tv-stations-after-they-r/?ref=merionwest.com), newspapers have been banned for criticizing the government, and [websites such as X are blocked](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2e1y02w21o?ref=merionwest.com). Journalists have been targeted, and some, such as Azory Gwanda, [have disappeared](https://cpj.org/whereisazory/?ref=merionwest.com). Samia Suluhu Hassan, the current President of Tanzania, took office on March 19, 2021, [following the death of her predecessor](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56437852?ref=merionwest.com), John Pombe Magufuli, from heart complications. Having served as Magufuli’s vice president, Suluhu became the first female president in East Africa when she took office. Both domestic and international observers were optimistic about the country turning a new page under new leadership. However, the political situation has only further deteriorated. ## "Seeing an old friend thriving is a great joy. But that was the last time I saw him." On my most recent trip to the country, I encountered a palpable sense of fear. Unlike during visits in my younger years, Tanzanians increasingly operate under a "walls have ears" mentality. They frequently speak in hushed voices and in code, fearful that a plainclothes police officer might be eavesdropping. As in Soviet-era Eastern Europe, people are suspicious of their neighbors. No one knows who might be an informant and report them to the government for being something other than a *mzalendo*, or patriot. This extends to social media, and I can attest to watching Tanzanian friends rapidly leave WhatsApp groups if the conversation turns at all political. They fear the government’s long and vengeful hand. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Severed Hearts / Murdered Brains URL: https://www.merionwest.com/severed-hearts-murdered-brains/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:48.000Z Dave Church _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Constitutional Distortion and America's National Debt URL: https://www.merionwest.com/constitutional-distortion-and-ameri-national-debt/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:14.000Z The United States is drowning in a sea of red ink. The national debt currently stands at just shy of [$39 trillion](https://www.us-debt-clock.com/?ref=merionwest.com). To retire the debt, every American citizen would have to kick in over $115 thousand. Considering that fewer than half of American adults have enough emergency savings [to cover three months of expenses](https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-report/?ref=merionwest.com), a national assessment would be futile. Some dismiss high debt numbers by claiming we just owe it to ourselves, which means there is no need to worry. That is not true. Foreign countries [hold nearly twenty-three percent](https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-us-debt/?ref=merionwest.com) of American debt (Japan, the United Kingdom, and China [account for the top three](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2026/773732/ECTI%5FBRI%282026%29773732%5FEN.pdf?ref=merionwest.com)). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/04/debt.png) So how did we arrive in the present situation? The answer is clear: by ignoring the Constitution’s limits on the federal government’s powers. Social Security, healthcare, and welfare payments [account for six out of every ten dollars of federal spending](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/?ref=merionwest.com). Congress, however, has no delegated power authorizing it to spend on these matters. Rather, it has garnered additional power through inventive and dishonest interpretations of our fundamental law. The current situation has been a long time coming. The Anti-Federalists at the time of the Constitutional Convention worried that Congress’s power to tax and spend for the “general welfare” meant unlimited power. Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee, for example, [feared that those two words permitted Congress](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Debates%5Fin%5Fthe%5FSeveral%5FState%5FConventions/Volume%5F1/Chapter%5F23?ref=merionwest.com) “\[t\]o judge of what may be for the general welfare” and to pass laws “with every possible object of human legislation.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### an ode to Maybe URL: https://www.merionwest.com/an-ode-to-maybe-2/ Last updated: 2026-06-11T21:51:30.000Z > a Close Family Friend has an adage: > **never trade a definitive Yes** > **for a Maybe** > He never said a continuation for what I should do > when the potential *Maybe* > represents Everything I Want > not that I want to leave Everything and Everyone I know > for an Unknown > but that the flip side of that Coin feels worth every ache, every foggy morning, every sleepless night > as I chase Something that may never happen > because what if it’s not Nothing? what if the Unfolding is everything? > part of me believes that it is human nature to chase after uncertainty > if we always knew the outcome, we would never experience emotion > the thrill. > and grief. > the trembling in between. > > > I really, > truly > believe > > trying is the only way to make the Uncertain, Certain. > and yet, i have felt absolutely swarmed with questions of the unknown. they cling like gnats to skin, buzzing louder with every attempt to swat them away. and they’re pestering me with my own desire for control and knowledge. the more i fight, the more i spiral. i talk too fast, explain too much. and by the end, i’m just word vomiting to anyone who might understand will listen, why i’m leaving every possible *Yes* for one staggering, wild *Maybe.* > but in the hands of God, Fate, the Universe, My Own Fragile Free will or Whoever we chalk up life’s > grand unfolding to > I am certain that right now, I need to go. > And maybe, I will be lucky enough to understand why > And maybe, this Uncertainty will become a Definitive Yes. > or a quiet, echoing No. > both will be okay. in their own way. > because without trying it would have always remained > *Maybe* ### [Krista Phillips](https://www.instagram.com/acollectionofkp/?ref=merionwest.com), originally from Utah, is now based in the Pacific Northwest. ### COLLECTION V URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-v-link/ Last updated: 2026-07-31T15:35:16.000Z Dear Member, We are pleased to present to you the latest issue of our magazine. *Merion West*'s fifth Collection is available for your reading enjoyment by following the link below: [▷ Read COLLECTION V](https://www.merionwest.com/) Sincerely, Henri & Erich ### Ecdysis URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ecdysis/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:48.000Z Forester McClatchey _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### COLLECTION V URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-v/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:05:40.000Z > Dear Readers and Old Friends, > It has been an active start to the spring at *Merion West*. We have published articles touching on several topics of significant public interest, from the war in the Middle East to the ideological civil war being waged over the future of the GOP. This Collection also sheds light on issues that are worthy of more media attention than they currently receive, including a long-form exposé on the overlooked vulnerabilities of generic drugs by our very own publisher, Henri Mattila. Continuing with the theme of healthcare, new contributor Dr. Dheeraj Baji interviewed the Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. (Baji, who is a surgery fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and a committed Christian, turned out to be the ideal interviewer for Bhattacharya, who is outspoken about how his own faith shapes his commitment to scientific discovery.) > Our editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince wrote a heartfelt tribute to Ben Sasse as the former senator faces mortality with remarkable grace and poise. And senior editor Jonathan Church allowed us into his own home—and into his famously rigorous mind—by sharing his observations about raising a child with strict limits on digital technology. > In early April, we were pleased to co-sponsor another Veritas Forum at the University of Pennsylvania, a public event with a Christian evolutionary biologist and an agnostic Jewish philosopher discussing the question "Is there truth beyond science?" One student described the forum as the only venue on campus where people’s true opinions are revealed. Because certain institutions once held in high esteem have abandoned the pursuit of truth through civil debate and dialogue, we are proud to continue partnering with groups such as Veritas. > At *Merion West*, we have always believed there is no substitute for earnestly pursuing what is true. > With gratitude, ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2024/12/sigs.svg) EDITOR & PUBLISHER ![Spotlight](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/08/spotlight-3.svg) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/size/w2000/2025/05/Rx1-3-2-1.png) Is There a Problem with Our Generic Drugs? ](https://www.merionwest.com/is-there-a-problem-with-our-generic-drugs/) Generic drugs account for more than nine out of ten prescriptions written in the United States today, yet the premise that they work as well as their brand-name counterparts rests on assumptions rarely examined in public. Drawing on public archives and conversations with industry insiders, academics, and physicians, Henri Mattila and Martin Maldonado find a patchwork of interest groups motivated by self-preservation and a powerful narrative backed by scientific authority and political incentives. And a question remains that too few have asked: *Do some of our drugs cost too little?* FEATURED ESSAY [ Ben Sasse's Dignity in the Face of Death ](https://www.merionwest.com/ben-sasses-dignity-in-the-face-of-death/) In December, former Senator Ben Sasse announced that he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In the months since, the courage and dignity with which he has faced his diagnosis have been deeply inspiring. In this essay, editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince shares what he has learned from the father of three. ![Interviews](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/01/image-3-1.png) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/portrait_no_background.png) ☩A New Era in Science? An Interview with NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Once sidelined by the scientific establishment, Dr. Bhattacharya now leads the world's largest funder of biomedical research. He speaks with Dheeraj Baji about sparking a "second scientific revolution"—embracing replication over reputation, balancing rigorous debate with clear public messaging, and how his faith fuels his drive to improve health outcomes. ](https://www.merionwest.com/a-new-era-in-science-interview-with-nih-director-dr-jay-bhattacharya/) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/image-2-1.png) ☩Josh Hammer on the Civil War Inside the GOP *Newsweek* senior editor-at-large Josh Hammer joins publisher Henri Mattila for a characteristically pointed exchange on the escalating feud over the Republican Party's future—from Bari Weiss's arrival at CBS News to the fractures the Iran conflict has laid bare across the American Right. ](https://www.merionwest.com/josh-hammer-on-the-civil-war-inside-the-gop/) [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/image-1.png) ☩Do We Need a New Deal for the Twenty-First Century? A Conversation with A. Mechele Dickerson Your eyes are not deceiving you: Life has gotten very expensive for most Americans. In an interview with senior editor Jonathan Church, law professor A. Mechele Dickerson—author of *The Middle-Class New Deal*—looks to the mid-twentieth century for possible lessons on how to improve the lot of the middle class. ](https://www.merionwest.com/do-we-new-deal-for-the-21st-century/) ![Essays](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/07/essays_new.png) FOREIGN POLICY [ On the Death of Ali Khamenei Muzainy Shahiefisally, a member of the Iranian diaspora, reflects on the death of Ali Khamenei at the hands of Israeli bombs and the brutal legacy of repression the late Supreme Leader leaves behind. But could this mark a new beginning for the Iranian people? ](https://www.merionwest.com/on-the-death-of-ali-khamenei/) [ The Right's Caricature of the Neocons Have neocons received their fair shake? Neoconservatism is increasingly dismissed by critics on the Right as insufficiently conservative, if not outright evil. Simon Maass argues that many of these critiques rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of the movement and its intellectual history. ](https://www.merionwest.com/is-neoconservatism-furth/) [ There Is No Universal "We" In an age shaped by humanitarian universalism, what are the philosophical roots of the modern Western "We"? Are they as inevitable—or defensible—as we assume? Benedict Beckeld examines the theological and philosophical foundations of this notion and asks whether they should be reconsidered. ](https://www.merionwest.com/there-is-no-universal-we/) [ The Islamic Republic Cannot Be "Defanged" The debate over how to "defang" the Islamic Republic of Iran presupposes that the regime's conduct can be separated from its character. Pierre Rehov contends that the regime's very nature precludes any effort to compel it toward a more moderate course. ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-islamic-republic-cannot-be-defanged/) SOCIETY [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/03/image-1.png) Why We Have Banned Social Media for Our Child As debates swirl in legislatures around the world about restricting children's social media use, senior editor Jonathan Church offers his own experience raising a daughter while limiting screens. In December of last year, Australia became the first nation in the world to ban social media for children under the age of sixteen; parents, Church argues, already possess the authority to impose such limits. ](https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-have-banned-social-media-for-our-child/) [ Thank You, Governor Murphy Education professor Karen M. Prince draws attention to an urgent quality-of-life issue: the danger posed to pedestrians by reckless E-bike use. She praises officeholders in both New Jersey and Florida for their efforts on this issue—a policy matter that so far has been notably bipartisan. ](https://www.merionwest.com/thank-you-governor-murphy/) [ What Tennessee Williams Saw Before the Assisted Dying Trend University of Rochester lecturer Robert Rich turns to Tennessee Williams's final play, *A House Not Meant to Stand*, to challenge a culture that regards the elderly as burdens—a view now finding expression in public policy. ](https://www.merionwest.com/what-tennessee-williams-saw-before-the-assisted-dying-trend/) CURRENT EVENTS [ Allegiance or Accident? The Supreme Court and Birthright Citizenship Legal scholar William J. Watkins, Jr. examines the constitutional history of birthright citizenship and offers his prediction for how the Supreme Court may rule on the challenge to Executive Order 14160\. The decision could affect the status of millions and reframe the public's understanding of what true citizenship entails. ](https://www.merionwest.com/allegiance-or-accident-the-supreme-court-and-birthright-citizenship/) ![Poetry](https://merion-west.ghost.io/content/images/2024/12/Arts_Poetry.svg) ◆[The Poetry of Ma Dai](https://www.merionwest.com/wandering-in-the-wild/) — translated by Tom Ehrman ◆[Here's to the Cardinal Puff](https://www.merionwest.com/heres-to-the-cardinal-puff/) — W. D. Ehrhart ◆[Dinner](https://www.merionwest.com/dinner/) — Josje Weusten ◆[Her Plastic Heart](https://www.merionwest.com/her-plastic-heart/) — Ryan Posasas [Explore other poems in the Poetry section](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry/) --- [◂ Read the previous Collection](https://www.merionwest.com/collection-iv/) ### Is There a Problem with Our Generic Drugs? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/is-there-a-problem-with-our-generic-drugs/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:05:41.000Z When a patient goes to the pharmacy to refill a prescription, he often gives little thought to the supply chain behind the drug. But every once in a while, he may notice that the color of the capsule has changed or that the packaging is different. In keeping with their training, medical providers will reliably tell him it is the same drug. Rather than focusing on who manufactures the medicine, the patient is told to rest assured that the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), which gives the drug its therapeutic effect, remains the same. That kind of indifference to who makes our medicine is a surprisingly recent phenomenon. The practice of swapping manufacturers is rooted in the concept of substitutability, which, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), [means that one](https://www.fda.gov/drugs/frequently-asked-questions-popular-topics/generic-drugs-questions-answers?ref=merionwest.com) “can take a generic medicine as an equal substitute for its brand-name counterpart.” In the American healthcare system, the importance of generic drugs is difficult to overstate. Beyond easing pressure on ballooning government budgets, generic drugs have transformed medicine cabinets nationwide, accounting for more than nine out of ten [prescriptions](https://accessiblemeds.org/resources/blog/2025-generic-and-biosimilar-medicines-savings-report-highlights-value-and-vulnerability/?ref=merionwest.com) written today. The FDA’s premise that all generic drugs work as well as their brand-name counterparts rests on two key assumptions. First, each prospective generic drugmaker must demonstrate that its product delivers the active ingredient, or API, into the bloodstream in essentially the same way as the original brand-name version. Second, the FDA must be confident that once the product enters mass production, it remains effective over time and free of dangerous impurities. To ensure those standards are met for millions of units, batch after batch, year after year, these drugs must be manufactured under the strictest of controls. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Right’s Caricature of the Neocons URL: https://www.merionwest.com/is-neoconservatism-furth/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:04:04.000Z Neoconservatives have long faced criticism from other segments of the American Right, and this shows no sign of abating. In light of the United States’ ongoing war with Iran, such denunciations have reached a fever pitch. Congressman Thomas Massie [blamed](https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/2029713006104305975?ref=merionwest.com) “neocons” for the war, while former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene [labeled](https://www.latintimes.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-calls-lindsey-graham-psychotic-neocon-after-iwo-jima-comparison-iran-595951?ref=merionwest.com) Senator Lindsey Graham “a psychotic neocon.” Meanwhile, podcast host Tucker Carlson went full Hieronymus Bosch, [lambasting](https://www.mediamatters.org/us-iran-relations/tucker-carlson-neocons-who-agitated-war-iran-demonic-influence-clearly?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) “neocons” as carriers of “demonic influence.” A key component of anti-neoconservative rhetoric has long been the claim that neoconservatism is somehow less conservative than other ideologies within the American conservative movement. Carlson, in fact, endorsed this view years ago, [writing](https://im1776.com/2023/11/01/tucker-excerpt/?ref=merionwest.com): “I realized that there was nothing conservative about neoconservatism. The neocons were just liberals with guns, the most destructive kind.” Without even attempting to sound objective, the website *Conservapedia* [strikes](https://www.conservapedia.com/Neoconservatism?ref=merionwest.com) a similar tone, defining it as: > "....typically pro-Deep State and a RINO Backer, and like RINOs, does not accept most of the important principles in the Republican Party platform.” The perception of neoconservatives as closeted left-wingers is, however, gravely mistaken. As shall be shown below, there have been notable cases when neoconservatives held positions well to the right of much of the American conservative movement, and this is in line with my previous *Merion West* [essay](https://www.merionwest.com/the-myth-of-neocon-anti-nationalism/), which dealt with the charge that neoconservatives tend to support open borders and multiculturalism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Still Life URL: https://www.merionwest.com/still-life/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:49.000Z A. F. Moritz _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Her Plastic Heart URL: https://www.merionwest.com/her-plastic-heart/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:49.000Z Ryan Posasas _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Disintegration URL: https://www.merionwest.com/disintegration/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:50.000Z Anthony Ikeh _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Thank You, Governor Murphy URL: https://www.merionwest.com/thank-you-governor-murphy/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:18.000Z On his final full day in office on January 19, 2026, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy [signed](https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/nj-gov-murphy-signs-law-requiring-license-e-bikes/4335574/?ref=merionwest.com) bipartisan legislation updating regulations governing electric bicycles (E-bikes) in the state. “Thank goodness,” I thought. In the past several months, I was nearly injured or worse by E-bikes three times while walking. The first time was while on the sidewalk of a quiet residential street in the small beach town of Margate, New Jersey this past July. As I was peacefully walking along, a young boy riding an E-bike emerged out of nowhere and came within inches of running me over. He was speeding along on the very pedestrian sidewalk where I was walking. I was able to jump quickly onto a nearby lawn, blessedly avoiding being mowed down. First of all, what was this kid doing riding on a walkway and, secondly, why was he speeding like he was in a motorcycle drag race? I easily recall sitting on some stranger’s lawn for several minutes just trying to calm myself down while Speed Racer was already several blocks away zooming along sidewalk after sidewalk. He never stopped to see if I was okay or made any attempt at an apology. Fortunately, I was uninjured, but there is no question that I could have been had my reflexes been just a tad slower. ## "E-bikes are closer to motorcycles than they are to bicycles and must be treated as such." Two months later in September, I experienced my second near-catastrophe. This time it was on the boardwalk in the nearby seaside community of Ventnor, New Jersey. Walking along the Ventnor-Atlantic City boardwalk is a favorite summertime activity of mine. It is rarely crowded, and I do not have to worry about car traffic as I stroll. And to bolster further the safety of the boardwalk, the municipalities of Ventnor and Atlantic City make clear—via conspicuous signage—that riding E-bikes on their boardwalks is strictly prohibited. Unfortunately, this does not deter many E-bikers from speeding along the boardwalks. As a result, I had a “Groundhog Day” experience when one came racing at me on the Ventnor boardwalk. Thankfully, I was able to move quickly out of its way. But that should not be. It is a pedestrian walkway, after all. It is even called a board*walk*! Again, though, I was able to avert disaster by moving out of the way with just seconds to spare. As such, the newly enacted legislation regarding E-bike use could not be more welcome. The law [states that](https://www.nj.gov/mvc/vehicletopics/mopedatv.htm?ref=merionwest.com) E-bike riders in the Garden State must now have a driver’s license to operate one or obtain a motorized bicycle license if they do not have a valid driver’s license. Further, to get a motorized bicycle license, a rider must be at least 15 years old, pass written and visual tests, and complete a road test. Helmets are required. And E-bikes in New Jersey must be registered and, best of all, riders must carry liability insurance. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Here’s to the Cardinal Puff URL: https://www.merionwest.com/heres-to-the-cardinal-puff/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T20:52:55.000Z > My wife and I put out seeds to feed > the little critters in our courtyard: > wrens and juncos, mourning doves, > squirrels, chipmunks, now and then > a rabbit. This morning a cardinal. > > That reminded me of Cardinal Puff, > a drinking game we used to play > on Okinawa back in 1968; I’ve no idea > why that came to mind. I haven’t > thought of it in years, decades even, > but there the memory was. > > This was after Vietnam, but I still > had time on my enlistment, so I > got sent to Okinawa. Back then, > Okinawa for a young enlisted man > was something like the armpit > of the universe: MPs everywhere, > little to do off base but pay too much > for drinks and hire prostitutes. > > So we just stayed on base, where > at the NCO Club, you could drink > Heineken beer for 35 cents a pop. > We went there every night, night > after night after evening chow > for three straight months: Fat Pat, > Smitty, the Big Swede, and me, > stayed each night ’til closing time, > and drank to the Cardinal Puff, > staggered back to the barracks, > and the next night did it again. > > It’s what you do, or at least > what we did after our little piece > of that war was over, and we’d > no idea what we’d done or what > we were supposed to do > with the rest of our lives. > > Fifty-eight years later, I’m feeding > seeds and nuts to little critters > on a cold and snowy winter day, > and here’s a cardinal. And I > can’t resist the urge to ask > out loud: “Is your name Puff?” ### W. D. Ehrhart's most recent books are a 2025 collection of poems, [*Smart Fish Don't Bite*](https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/ehrhart-w-d-smart-fish-don-t-bite/YD2QGAXXBUFHBNEM4K6HS6AF?cs=true&cst=custom&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-%5FW-lL6cwwW8bsQANmJwm3MsSw-S42Z2xGh0k2oeotYQjMZaBNz9DqAOukdKP95CuNaM19QsZuXdCh2rJglFzD6U6sG4g&%5Fhsmi=380810861&utm%5Fcontent=380810861&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail) from Moonstone Arts, and *Getting Shot At: Essays on War, Conflict & Culture Clash,* forthcoming in 2026 from McFarland & Company, Inc. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales at Swansea and taught English and history at The Haverford School in Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2019. ### The Islamic Republic Cannot Be “Defanged” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-islamic-republic-cannot-be-defanged/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:19.000Z For decades, Western policymakers have returned, almost reflexively, to a familiar question: Can the Islamic Republic of Iran be contained, deterred, or gradually moderated? The latest iteration of this debate—whether to “defang” Iran’s military capabilities or to contemplate outright regime change—suggests a choice. In reality, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding. The distinction assumes that the regime’s behavior can be separated from its nature. Yet the Islamic Republic is not a conventional state whose excesses can be disciplined through calibrated pressure. It is an ideological system, born out of [revolution in 1979](https://www.britannica.com/event/Iranian-Revolution?ref=merionwest.com), whose legitimacy has long depended on resistance—externally against perceived enemies, and internally against dissent. Its foreign policy is not simply strategic; it is doctrinal. The concept of “defanging” Iran typically focuses on limiting its missile arsenal, constraining its nuclear ambitions, and disrupting [its network of regional proxies](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/irans-islamist-proxies?ref=merionwest.com). These objectives are tactically sound and, in some cases, necessary. But they risk addressing symptoms rather than structure. Iran’s military posture is not an instrument of statecraft but is core to the regime’s identity. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliates do not merely project power but they embody the revolutionary logic that sustains the system itself. That alone goes a long way toward explaining why decades of pressure have produced, at best, partial and temporary results. Sanctions have imposed real costs but have not altered the regime’s trajectory. Diplomatic agreements have delayed escalation but have not transformed underlying intentions. Targeted military actions have disrupted operations without dismantling the broader architecture. Like other ideologically driven regimes in history, the Islamic Republic has demonstrated a capacity to absorb pressure while preserving its core. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Dinner URL: https://www.merionwest.com/dinner/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:51.000Z Josje Weusten _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On the Death of Ali Khamenei URL: https://www.merionwest.com/on-the-death-of-ali-khamenei/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:20.000Z On February 28th, the Iranian despot, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was officially declared to have [died](https://www.axios.com/2026/02/28/iran-khamenei-killed-israel?ref=merionwest.com) at the hands of an Israeli airstrike. For [many](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/28/world/video/iran-diaspora-london-supreme-leader-ayotollah-khamenei-hnk-vrtc-digvid?ref=merionwest.com) Iranians, like myself—an ethnic Persian living in Singapore—Khamenei’s death ushered in a wave of optimism, a feeling that had been hard to come by during his nearly four-decade reign of terror. There was finally hope for an Iran liberated from a regime defined by authoritarianism and religious fanaticism. Indeed, to mark this pivotal moment, Iranians [around the world](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpuKtRlGd-g&ref=merionwest.com) came out in droves to celebrate Khamenei’s demise. Diasporic Iranians rallied in California, New York, Paris, and London, reveling in the momentous occasion. In Iran itself, [citizens](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/world/middleeast/iran-khameni-celebrations.html?ref=merionwest.com) took to the streets of major cities such as Isfahan in celebration. ## "It is stunning to see the narrative being spun by much of the Western legacy media converge with that of North Korea and China." President Donald Trump, whose spearheading of Operation Epic Fury led to Khamenei’s death, [echoed](https://time.com/7381829/iran-supreme-leader-ali-khamenei-dead/?ref=merionwest.com) the bullish sentiment among Iranians that they now have “the single greatest chance...to take back their country.” Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, correctly [observed](https://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/not-party-to-the-intelligence-albo-avoids-questions-on-legality-of-strikes-which-killed-irans-supreme-leader-condemns-planned-mourning/news-story/81732c7d86bc458a098226e824cff900?ref=merionwest.com) that Khamenei’s “passing will not be mourned.” While some might prefer that Khamenei had been dispensed with without American or Israeli involvement, surely the Iranian people should not be denied the freedom to hope again. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Desire in Ten Parts URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-forty-ninth-year-2/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:51.000Z Colleen S. Harris _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Josh Hammer on the Civil War Inside the GOP URL: https://www.merionwest.com/josh-hammer-on-the-civil-war-inside-the-gop/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:21.000Z If a time traveler had told me five years ago the following two facts about 2026, I don't know which one of these would have been more unbelievable: that Bari Weiss is the editor-in-chief of CBS News or that the GOP is in the midst of a civil war. Josh Hammer, whom I interviewed in February, has played a unique part in both of these developments. I first learned about Hammer back in 2020 when he broke a barrier many of us thought was impregnable. At the time, liberal ideas and their spokespeople had an iron grip over practically all of mainstream news, so the idea that a Trump-supporting former contributor to the *Daily Wire* would become the opinion editor of *Newsweek* felt like a glitch in the Matrix. As someone who co-founded this magazine to stand against the groupthink perpetuated by the echo chambers of mainstream media, I was thrilled to hear that a respectable outlet had made a gesture toward viewpoint diversity. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/image-2-1.png) The way I see it, Hammer joining *Newsweek* was one of the first dominoes to fall that made the marriage between Weiss and CBS possible. More recently, Hammer has emerged as a key figure in the contentious realignment underway within the Grand Old Party. At the center of the conflict is the iconoclastic Tucker Carlson, a veteran journalist who has used his substantial podcast megaphone to challenge the GOP's close and arguably accommodating relationship with Israel. Despite individuals such as Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro catching most of the ire from the Carlson wing, Hammer has not survived unscathed due to his unapologetic support for—more or less—maintaining the Republican Party's status quo. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Landscape URL: https://www.merionwest.com/landscape/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:52.000Z Tony Brinkley _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why We Have Banned Social Media for Our Child URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-have-banned-social-media-for-our-child/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T05:30:36.000Z In December of last year, Australia became the first nation in the world to ban social media for children under the age of sixteen, and, in the time since, numerous other countries are considering doing the [same](https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/from-paris-to-new-delhi-the-push-to-ban-teens-from-social-media-is-going-global-5ee5f314?ref=merionwest.com). (Around the same time that the Australian policy went into effect, Florida was permitted by an appeals court to begin enforcing its [ban](https://www.fox13news.com/news/social-media-ban-kids-under-14-allowed-florida?ref=merionwest.com) on children under the age of fourteen from having social media accounts.) Reactions to these proposals have [varied](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/02/ban-children-social-media-biometic-data-surveilled?ref=merionwest.com) [widely](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/australia-social-media-ban-effects/685853/?ref=merionwest.com), inviting questions about the perennial tension between liberty and safety, the disconnect between private sector incentive structures and the well-being of young people, and several other trade-offs. The debate over government-ordained bans obscures, at times, a simpler truth: Parents already possess the authority—and the responsibility—to impose limits on technology regardless of what happens in legislative chambers. As confirmed by many research findings, young people are better served to have technology in very limited doses. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/03/image-1.png) Almost from the day my daughter was born, her mother and I agreed that we would minimize our daughter’s exposure to screen time, with a near-total blackout for the first two years. For us, “screen time” was an inclusive term. It meant no phones, iPads, or television screens. But we are not fundamentalists, either. We decided there was nothing wrong with allowing her to watch Disney or *Sesame Street* on occasion because, well, kids are kids. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### There Is No Universal "We" URL: https://www.merionwest.com/there-is-no-universal-we/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:23.000Z For those who claim to be interested in philosophical and cultural subjects, and perhaps even in making a name for themselves in that arena, it is extremely important to question the premises of any discussion that a passionate interlocutor would offer. I was once, for instance, speaking with a friend of mine about the Israel-Gaza war, and my friend, though of course supportive of the Israeli position, asked: But what are we to do about the innocents in Gaza who did not choose this war? And I replied that, while no one is advocating for the killing of innocents, I could not accept the premise of the We in the question, because this word here assumes a Western universalistic egalitarian ethos that, in turn, relies on a number of philosophical principles that I reject—the ultimate result being that, while we might have sympathy for those innocents, it is not the responsibility of the West to help them.[1](#%5Fftn) This is not a question of selfishness or of refusing to be of service to others, when possible, but rather of how we relate to the rest of the world, and why we relate as we do. Is the world constituted only by us, or by us and them? If the latter, when are we no longer we—where do they begin? And how much of ourselves does altruism require us to sacrifice? ## "The squeamishness many Western conservatives feel about abandoning the universalistic We never fails to impress." So one would do well to ask what moral principles form the basis of the desire to help the innocents of Gaza. One should inquire: Why is this question of what we are to do about those innocents even being asked? Why does someone even feel this type of responsibility? Perhaps the answer would be: because of a basic humanitarianism. Very well, then one must inquire: Why does someone feel this humanitarianism? Is it because he thinks that every human life is sacred? Well, where, then, does that thought come from? It is not an automatic or necessarily natural feeling, contrary to what Kant thought (famously in the [conclusion](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5683/5683-h/5683-h.htm?ref=merionwest.com#link2H%5FCONC) to the *Critique of Practical Reason*, but in many passages); rather, it must be inculcated—or if it is natural, the joy in others’ suffering and in inflicting pain is also natural. Someone else might answer that the thought of innocent suffering simply makes him uncomfortable, or induces a feeling of moral disturbance. But again: Why? These are some of the complex issues that often hide behind seemingly innocuous statements or queries. And they constitute the nexus of questions by which we ought to reject the We, the universalistic egalitarian ethos, in my friend’s question. There are of course more political reasons for not accepting this We, outside of philosophy. For example, the universalistic We does not exist to those we would be helping, and it would therefore be counterproductive to have it exist for us. And introducing a large number of Islamic refugees and migrants into Western countries is a disastrous policy, as anyone familiar with Western and Northern Europe’s cities could attest. But these are topics I have dealt [with](https://www.merionwest.com/islam-and-the-west-navigating-the-cultural-and-theological-divide/) [in](https://www.merionwest.com/the-french-election-and-europes-post-historical-collapse/) [some](https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/on-the-importance-of-oikophilia/?ref=merionwest.com) [detail](https://www.merionwest.com/germanys-lingering-hegelianism/) [elsewhere](https://kvartal.se/pellezackrisson/artiklar/islam-ar-oforenligt-med-vastvarlden/cG9zdDo1MDExMQ?fbclid=IwY2xjawPjSyZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeh6Y9B3zFDHRRAekhxchKLEJMoEaXu1CFf4ySx4qBmPunFWaIaBRcewKk5e8%5Faem%5FfUXEkq8PJVCD%5F52KuEVFXQ&ref=merionwest.com), and I should here like to focus on the philosophical problems with the universalistic We. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ben Sasse’s Dignity in the Face of Death URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ben-sasses-dignity-in-the-face-of-death/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:24.000Z Two days before Christmas, Ben Sasse, the former Senator from Nebraska, President of the University of Florida, and devout Christian, [announced on X that he had been diagnosed with](https://x.com/BenSasse/status/2003483746540965891?ref=merionwest.com) “metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer.” He did not mince words; he was “gonna die.” It was one of those events where I can remember precisely where I was when the first of my friends wrote to me, asking if I had heard the news about Ben Sasse. Sasse’s post, which is beautifully written and well worth reading in its entirety, concedes that while death indeed pursues us all and is “a wicked thief,” Sasse’s faith remained entirely undiminished by his diagnosis: “Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment.” But Sasse crucially notes that “the eternal city…is not yet” and that “the process of dying is still something to be lived.” And in the time since announcing his diagnosis, despite enduring frequent waves of nausea and having to sleep upwards of fifteen hours per day, live he has. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Allegiance or Accident? The Supreme Court and Birthright Citizenship URL: https://www.merionwest.com/allegiance-or-accident-the-supreme-court-and-birthright-citizenship/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:25.000Z Is it sufficient for a child to be physically born in the United States to claim citizenship? That is the question the Supreme Court [will decide this term](https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-files/trump-v-barbara/?ref=merionwest.com). The decision could affect the status of millions, deter or encourage future illegal immigration, and reframe the public’s understanding of what true citizenship entails. The operative language for the Court’s interpretation is [Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-1/?ref=merionwest.com): > “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, *and subject to the jurisdiction thereof*, are citizens of the United States.” The language I have italicized is the root of the argument. Does it mean something as simple as territorial jurisdiction? For example, under international law an American citizen who willfully travels to Moscow is subject to the criminal laws of Russia. (Women's National Basketball Association star Brittney Griner [got a lesson in that principle a few years back](https://abcnews.com/US/timeline-brittney-griners-detention-russia-us-vows-secure/story?id=87925739&ref=merionwest.com) when she brought cannabis oil into Russia.) Or does the language mean something more? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Scattering, Over and Over Now URL: https://www.merionwest.com/scattering-over-and-over-now/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:52.000Z S. Chen _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Tennessee Williams Saw Before the Assisted Dying Trend URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-tennessee-williams-saw-before-the-assisted-dying-trend/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:25.000Z Canada’s expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (or MAID) in 2021 has been the source of a series of increasingly disturbing revelations. C[oncerns have been raised](https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/americas/experts-warn-that-organ-donation-could-help-drive-high-assisted-suicide-rates-in-canada?ref=merionwest.com) that the ability of MAID patients to donate organs may be acting as an additional source of pressure on eligible patients to end their lives; [horrified parents](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/canada-assisted-suicide-euthanasia-law-mother-son-b2908678.html?ref=merionwest.com) have been informed of their adult children's decisions to apply for MAID, even when a possible mental health condition may have been a motivator; and there are reports that [infants with deformities and people with mental illnesses](https://www.catholicregister.org/item/3170-canada-creeps-ever-closer-to-baby-m-ai-d?ref=merionwest.com) could soon be considered eligible, [as well as](https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/AMAD/meeting-19/evidence?ref=merionwest.com) "emancipated minors between the ages of 14 and 17." All of this has led to renewed [calls for legislation to restrict](https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/americas/canadian-catholic-bishops-join-members-of-parliament-in-push-to-restrict-maid?ref=merionwest.com) MAID eligibility in Canada. But in other places, such as the American states of [Delaware](https://deathwithdignity.org/states/delaware/?ref=merionwest.com), [Illinois](https://csgmidwest.org/2025/12/15/illinois-will-soon-be-first-midwest-state-allowing-end-life-option-for-terminally-ill-patients/?ref=merionwest.com), and [New York](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-reaches-agreement-state-legislature-pass-medical-aid-dying-act-new-york?ref=merionwest.com), as well as [in the United Kingdom](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3774?ref=merionwest.com), lawmakers have either passed or are in the process of passing new assisted-dying legislation. As I see it, this debacle is not merely a matter of misguided policy but the logical conclusion of a culture that sees the elderly–and the weak more broadly–as a burden. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/image-4.png) This concerning attitude toward human life has been a long time in the making. Nearly half a century ago, Tennessee Williams made it the subject matter of his final play, [*A House Not Meant to Stand*](https://www.scribd.com/document/428633789/A-house-not-meant-to-stand-de-Tennessee-Williams?ref=merionwest.com), which premiered in April of 1982\. One comes away from the play less surprised by the trajectory of contemporary assisted-dying policy. The house referred to in the title is the dilapidated and leaky residence of Cornelius and Bella McCorkle, a couple in their “late sixties or early seventies,” in the Gulf Coast city of Pascagoula, Mississippi. (Williams also hailed from Mississippi.) The play opens with Cornelius and Bella arriving back from the funeral of their son, Chips. Their other son Charlie and his pregnant fiancé Stacey are upstairs when they arrive home, and their neighbors, Jessie and Emerson Sykes, separately drop in and out over the course of the play. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A New Era in Science? An Interview with NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-new-era-in-science-interview-with-nih-director-dr-jay-bhattacharya/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:22:13.000Z As a rookie physician intern thrust into the front line of India's coronavirus (COVID-19) response in a tertiary care hospital, I navigated the chaos of overflowing wards and desperate patients. Like ordinary citizens locked inside of their homes, I also witnessed the heavy toll levied by the pandemic response itself: missed cancer screenings, delayed treatments, and a palpable decline in mental well-being. To minimize total social harm, the [Great Barrington Declaration](https://gbdeclaration.org/?ref=merionwest.com#read) of October, 2020 suggested that these unintended consequences must be accounted for as part of an evidence-based public health policy. Despite advocating for a protocol that had been standard public health practice for handling respiratory viruses up to that point in history, the letter was condemned by the day's scientific establishment [and its dissemination was suppressed by](https://www.thefp.com/p/a-warning-from-shanghai?s=r&ref=merionwest.com) Google, Facebook, and other organs of the media. That letter was my first encounter with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of its three co-authors and a tenured professor at Stanford Medical School at the time. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/portrait_no_background.png) Since then, I have closely followed Dr. Bhattacharya's contributions to scientific discourse, [including a riveting 2023 congressional testimony](https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/115561/witnesses/HHRG-118-IF16-Wstate-BhattacharyaJ-20230328.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) that revealed how political ideology had infiltrated the upper echelons of scientific authority. The medical and research communities were meant to foster consensus through open debate and examination of the evidence, or so I had been led to believe. Conformity, in other words, had no place among genuine scientists. As a lifelong student of the scientific method and aspiring surgeon, these revelations forced me to ask questions that weighed deeply on my mind: Should I still dedicate myself to medical inquiry if the truth—or an honest pursuit of it—can be so easily suppressed by political forces? Dr. Bhattacharya's journey from a besieged academic—the target of threats to both his life and livelihood for years following the start of the pandemic—to manning the post previously held by the most powerful man in science, Francis Collins, has pointed me toward an answer. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Poetry of Ma Dai URL: https://www.merionwest.com/wandering-in-the-wild/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:53.000Z Tom Ehrman _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Gowpen & Undertow URL: https://www.merionwest.com/gowpen/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:54.000Z Gowpen Distaff in the doorway, Aurora, procurer of metallic hyperboles – raw and weeping rachis without tears, what is your reason for lingering? I’ve read your private manuscripts – your bright body of moss and longing – at first light your window’s leaves quietly turn their mouths to buttery, swollen lanterns. I’ve seen your stilted talk, your slicing clavicle leaning through every threshold with bruising anxiety: “This isn’t a good look,” looking at me. *Break glass in case of emergency.* Compelled to your blue landing, sky-grey snow swims in your gowpen. My hands, a begging bowl amid unframed lines perpetually at risk, let us find mesmerizing spaces, our own geometry among public wires, thick buses, billboards, dorsa, replicas of longing akin to the contour of beryl words, unauthorized sounds caroming into doorsills. Now that I am at your doorstep with Lorca’s *verde* gifted and disguised as naïve Tillandsia – I can only foretaste your reply, wind or blister in each hand, precariously awaiting your reply. --- Undertow “Significance is inherent in the human body.” – Julia Kristeva was sleep discovered in offshore ruins where you were always implied in telescopic currents fusing archetypal tankers to internal waves here – adrift from quotidian sargassum recusant qualia swimming in sapphire skin – to you always to you – this stir from where my body may never return ### Elizabeth S. Gunn serves as the Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Business at Nevada State University. She writes poetry and fiction in Henderson, Nevada, where she lives with her wife and their three rescue dogs in the Mojave Desert. ### Do We Need a New Deal for the Twenty-First Century? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/do-we-new-deal-for-the-21st-century/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:27.000Z This past summer, a relatively obscure New York Assemblyman named Zohran Mamdani [won a surprise victory in the New York City mayoral primary](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/01/zohran-mamdani-ranked-choice-results-00435184?ref=merionwest.com) with the theme of affordability at the center of his campaign. Similarly, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger [took home 2025 Democratic gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia](https://democraticgovernors.org/updates/affordability-affordability-affordability-mikie-sherrill-and-abigail-spanberger-ran-and-won-on-the-economy/?ref=merionwest.com) by emphasizing the affordability concerns of voters. And the same issue [featured prominently in](https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-08-14/trump-lays-out-economic-plan-everything-from-cutting-taxes-paying-off-the-debt-to-drill-baby-drill?ref=merionwest.com) President Donald Trump's successful 2024 re-election bid. Politicians campaigning on lower prices should come as no surprise. The theme of affordability has strongly resonated with voters after soaring consumer inflation in recent years, as well as a housing market in which the purchase of a new home [has become increasingly](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=new+home+has+become+increasingly+unaffordable+for+many+Americans.&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ref=merionwest.com) out of reach for many Americans. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/image-1.png) One striking manifestation of a dysfunctional economy is the decline of the middle class, which stands in striking contrast to the shared prosperity that the nation enjoyed in the second half of the last century. Many historianshave attributed this period in the United States to the New Deal that arose from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration, as well as post-World War II policies that followed in their wake. In her new book, [*The Middle-Class New Deal*](https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-middle-class-new-deal?ref=merionwest.com), University of Texas Law Professor A. Mechele Dickerson proposes a New Deal for twenty-first-century America. She explores the rise of inequality, the problem of affordability, and the decline of the middle class over the last five decades. With midterm congressional elections approaching later in the year, Ms. Dickerson offers a stimulating contribution to the national conversation about affordability. Below is a transcript of the conversation between Dickerson and *Merion West* senior editor Jonathan Church, lightly edited for clarity. --- _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Collection IV URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-iv-published/ Last updated: 2026-04-20T13:53:42.000Z Dear Reader, We are pleased to present to you the latest issue of our magazine. *Merion West*'s fourth Collection is available for your reading enjoyment by following the link below: [▷ Read COLLECTION IV](https://www.merionwest.com/) Sincerely, Henri & Erich ### Paper Birds at the Crosswalk URL: https://www.merionwest.com/paper-birds-at-the-crosswalk/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:54.000Z David A. Lee _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Equilibrio Instabile URL: https://www.merionwest.com/equilibrio-instabile/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:55.000Z Laura Ann Reed _This post is for subscribers only._ ### COLLECTION IV URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-iv/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T21:14:01.000Z > Dear Readers and Old Friends, > We are very pleased to release our first Collection of 2026\. In the year ahead, we plan to continue offering our readers essays, interviews, and poetry that, as we like to say to one another within *Merion West*, make the timely timeless and the timeless timely. We will continue to focus on differentiating broad-brush claims, typically of a politicized nature, from the actual policy specifics. The state of healthcare and medical research will increasingly become a priority of coverage for us in the coming months, as well as the ever-important issue of education. > On the subject of education, Collection IV contains a thoughtful essay by education policy expert Bruno Manno on the reality that though graduation rates are increasing, the number of adults struggling to read fluidly is higher than ever. Former education professor Karen M. Prince also pleads with us to watch our language, particularly around children, and former journalism professor Robert Jensen notes that teaching is inherently political, so acknowledging bias rather than obscuring it is the wiser course. > Given the degree to which artificial intelligence, as we all know, is becoming ever more central to our lives, this Collection contains two pieces on the subject, including our feature piece "Are We Ready to Be Governed by Artificial Intelligence?" As the essay's authors, two artificial intelligence scholars from Harvard, assert, either chillingly or excitedly depending on one's perspective, we are already being very much governed by the new technology, whether we are aware of it or not. > Editor-in-chief Erich Prince's recent travels in Africa have reminded him that despite the continent being home to one and a half billion people (making it the second most populous continent), too few Americans are aware of key happenings there. As such, this Collection features two important pieces, one from each side of the continent. Tom McDonough masterfully tells us that the situation in Nigeria is far more complex than the headlines about the persecution of Christians may imply, and Kenyan teacher Tony Njoroge pleads for his countrymen to tone down their prejudice against gay and lesbian people. > Finally, in addition to our typical offerings of poetry in the Arts Section, at our latest editors' meeting, we have decided to begin accepting fiction submissions. > As always, thank you for your most kind readership and patronage of our magazine. > With gratitude, ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2024/12/sigs.svg) EDITOR & PUBLISHER [ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/12/image-10-1.png) ](https://www.merionwest.com/are-we-ready-to-be-governed-by-arti/) ## [Are We Ready to Be Governed by Artificial Intelligence? ](https://www.merionwest.com/are-we-ready-to-be-governed-by-arti/) Technologists Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already shaping the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, showing that we are already, at least in part, governed by AI—with more likely to come. Interviews [☩ Wilfred McClay: The Civilizational Role of the Bible in the American Founding ](https://www.merionwest.com/wilfred-mcclay-the-civilizational-role/) [☩ Reflection: My Interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali ](https://www.merionwest.com/reflection-my-interview-of-ayaan-hirsi-ali/) # Essays [Please Stop the Profanity Education professor Karen M. Prince expresses her disenchantment with the pervasiveness of profanity in contemporary life. Sadly, even the presence of children is typically not enough to discourage swearing. She asks us to consider holding our tongues when tempted to let the expletives fly. ](https://www.merionwest.com/please-stop-the-profanity/) [Reflecting on Tragedy: From Brown University to Bondi BeachSenior editor Jonathan Church, writing in the wake of horrific shootings in Rhode Island and Australia, reflects on the death of his own mother, wringing meaning from tragedy, and what it is to live in a grief-laden world. ](https://www.merionwest.com/reflecting-on-tragedy-from-brown-university-to-bondi-beach/) [The Age of Self-Capital: Work, Identity, and Artificial Intelligence As AI reshapes labor markets, the most valuable forms of work are no longer tasks but traits. Al Binns examines how AI accelerates a system in which personality and identity are increasingly monetized. The question is not whether work will disappear but what kind of human life will remain. ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-age-of-self-capital-work-identity-and-artificial-intelligence/) Education [How the High School Diploma Can Restore Its CredibilityDespite soaring education costs, literacy among young people is declining. Education expert Bruno V. Manno explains how diplomas became detached from actual skills while offering a practical blueprint—informed by encouraging stories from across the country—for reversing the decline.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-51.png)Merion WestBruno V. Manno![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-34.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/how-the-high-school-diploma-can-restore-its-credibility/) [Teaching Students to Think for Themselves Is Never ApoliticalJournalism professor Robert Jensen considers how educators should handle contentious politics in the classroom, from the Iraq War to more recent American actions in Venezuela. He argues that honest disclosure of one’s interpretive framework is essential to teaching students to think critically.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-52.png)Merion WestRobert Jensen![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-35.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/teaching-students-to-think-for-themselves-is-never-apolitical/) Foreign Affairs [Nigeria Needs to Heal Itself, but the United States Can HelpTom McDonough, who has spent considerable time in Nigeria, contends that the country’s problems go beyond the headlines regarding the persecution of Christians. Rather than American bombs, Nigeria needs American guidance on political reform.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-53.png)Merion WestTom McDonough![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-36.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/nigeria-needs-to-heal-itself-but-the-united-states-can-help/) [A Life Made Unlivable: Prejudice Takes on a New Meaning in AfricaThe West has long abandoned draconian measures to enforce morality, guided by the belief that every individual—sinner and saint alike—has dignity. In this personal story, Tony Njoroge reminds us of the consequences of twisting moral concern into hatred, a cost still borne in parts of Africa.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-54.png)Merion WestTony Njoroge![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-37.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/a-life-made-unlivable-prejudice-in-africa/) Poetry - [With Every Classmate I’ve Lost, I Feel like I’ve Failed a Test ](https://www.merionwest.com/with-every-classmate-ive-lost-i-feel-like-ive-failed-a-test/) - [Here to There ](https://www.merionwest.com/here-to-there/) - [Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life) ](https://www.merionwest.com/mi-vida-loca-my-crazy-life/) - [The Poet as Thief ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-poet-as-thief/) [Explore other poems in the Poetry section](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry/) [ ◂ Read the previous Collection](https://www.merionwest.com/collection-iii/) ### Observance URL: https://www.merionwest.com/observance/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:55.000Z Megan Denese Mealor _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Swimming URL: https://www.merionwest.com/swimming/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:56.000Z Josje Weusten _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Leadore URL: https://www.merionwest.com/leadore/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:56.000Z Todd Wellman _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Word Made Flesh URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-word-made-flesh/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:04:09.000Z Jim Newcombe _This post is for subscribers only._ ### With Every Classmate I’ve Lost, I Feel like I’ve Failed a Test URL: https://www.merionwest.com/with-every-classmate-ive-lost-i-feel-like-ive-failed-a-test/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:57.000Z Jonathan Fletcher _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Inflection Point URL: https://www.merionwest.com/inflection-point/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:58.000Z Michele M. Taylor _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Nigeria Needs to Heal Itself, but the United States Can Help URL: https://www.merionwest.com/nigeria-needs-to-heal-itself-but-the-united-states-can-help/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:28.000Z The man before me, with dilated, bloodshot eyes and barely comprehensible speech, could have been mistaken for a homeless person from any big city in the United States. Frighteningly, though, he wore the uniform of the Nigerian Army and poked his AK-47 through our car window, while his comrades laughed. My friends and I had been stopped at a routine checkpoint in southeast Nigeria. While Americans are typically accustomed to greater professionalism from police officers or government representatives, experiences like these are distressingly common in Nigeria, a country marked by significant corruption and a deeply dysfunctional government. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/01/image-7.png) While surprising to many, Nigeria has been and continues to be a critical African ally of the United States. The country boasts the largest population of any African country, and its population is young, with a median age of eighteen. Furthermore, the nation has been blessed with significant crude oil reserves and mineral deposits, and is a cultural hub of Africa with prominent film, music, and fashion industries. As such, it should come as no surprise that China is making substantial investments in the country. It is in the interest of our own nation, therefore, to help Nigeria navigate the internal divisions this piece will discuss. And I say that as someone who generally prefers the United States focus on its own domestic issues. This past fall, President Donald Trump declared Nigeria a "Country of Particular Concern" under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 amid continued reporting about the persecution of Christians.[1](#%5Fftn) Before turning to that, I should add—having traveled to Nigeria ten times for business—that it is also an extraordinarily interesting country. It is rich in resources and in human vitality, being often described in terms of four broad regions: the North, the Middle Belt, the Southwest, and the Southeast. It has a population not much smaller than that of the United States scrunched into a land area about the size of Texas. There are at least 250 tribes and easily as many languages. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Here To There URL: https://www.merionwest.com/here-to-there/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:59.000Z Dan Fitzgerald _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Conversation with Salvator Rosa URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-conversation-with-salvator-rosa/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:59.000Z Christopher Mesch _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Please Stop the Profanity URL: https://www.merionwest.com/please-stop-the-profanity/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:29.000Z I recently traveled to Florida to visit my family and celebrate my sister’s birthday. It was an entirely delightful visit until just about the last moment: on the flight home. The flight attendant announced that our flight was fully booked and that every seat would be occupied. A completely packed plane is never pleasant. But, surprisingly, the middle seat between me and a young woman in the window seat remained unoccupied. I was thinking that I had really lucked out—an empty seat next to me on a supposedly full flight. My good fortune held for another five minutes until a straggling passenger came charging down the aisle to the middle seat next to me. My middle seat mate settled in and promptly announced in a loud voice that he had missed his f—ing flight from Miami and had to f—ing drive all the way to Tampa to fly to f—ing Philly. He then took out his phone and began calling whomever to repeat his tale of travel woes. That is when the f-word really began to fly. And he was on speaker phone the whole time. It also did not concern him that we, passengers, had been told to turn off our cell phones or place them in airplane mode. He persisted with his string of vulgarity bemoaning how he had missed his previous flight. Finally, he put his phone away and blessedly dozed off for a while. No one said anything to him while he spouted one f-word after another, including the people on the other end of his calls. They actually were using it also, and there were clearly children in the background of the call. Not one person within earshot of him on the flight said a word. I certainly did not, I am sorry to report. Parents of children near our row said nothing. No one did. I suppose we are all so accustomed to hearing foul language these days that we just ignore it. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Life Made Unlivable: Prejudice Takes on a New Meaning in Africa URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-life-made-unlivable-prejudice-in-africa/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:30.000Z My friend Kamara and I were as close as brothers. Although we shared many happy times together, I noticed that many of the other children found him strange. Even in nursery school, he always wanted to be the mother when we played house. As the years progressed, I observed that he was acutely conscious of his appearance. I remember rebuking him often for spending so much time in front of the mirror. When we got older and enrolled at the same boys’ boarding school, Kamara made the rest of us look like a bunch of greasy mechanics. His clothes were always the cleanest, and he took a shower every day. He had long, polished nails that always got him in trouble with the teachers, and he loved to plait his hair on weekends. Sometimes, when he walked, one would think he was strutting on a catwalk. Some boys disliked him at first because he was different, but they gradually came to like and appreciate him for how unique he was. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/01/image-4.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Poet as Thief URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-poet-as-thief/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:00.000Z > “Donc le poète est vraiment voleur de feu.” > — Arthur Rimbaud > Was Prometheus a poet? > Rimbaud says he was, stealing fire > from the gods: technology, knowledge, > human arts and sciences. He paid > a terrible price for his audacity. > Whatever was he thinking? > Look what we have done > with what he gave us. Okay, > we’ve got the *Mona Lisa*, *Hamlet*, > Bernini’s *Apollo and Daphne*, > movable type, the Brooklyn Bridge. > But how about the Spanish Inquisition, > the siege of Münster, TNT, mustard > gas, the Maxim gun, flame throwers, > the Holocaust, Rwandan genocide, > Predator drones, Hellfire missiles, > thermonuclear bombs? > Thanks a lot, Prometheus. > Poor sucker. I’d have to say > you didn’t do us any favors. ### W. D. Ehrhart's most recent books are a 2025 collection of poems, [*Smart Fish Don't Bite*](https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/ehrhart-w-d-smart-fish-don-t-bite/YD2QGAXXBUFHBNEM4K6HS6AF?cs=true&cst=custom&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-%5FW-lL6cwwW8bsQANmJwm3MsSw-S42Z2xGh0k2oeotYQjMZaBNz9DqAOukdKP95CuNaM19QsZuXdCh2rJglFzD6U6sG4g&%5Fhsmi=380810861&utm%5Fcontent=380810861&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail) from Moonstone Arts, and *Getting Shot At: Essays on War, Conflict & Culture Clash,* forthcoming in 2026 from McFarland & Company, Inc. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales at Swansea and taught English and history at The Haverford School in Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2019. ### The Age of Self-Capital: Work, Identity, and Artificial Intelligence URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-age-of-self-capital-work-identity-and-artificial-intelligence/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:22:13.000Z With the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) comes a question: What will we do when there is no more work to do? At first blush, this can sound hyperbolic, especially at a moment when many people still use tools such as ChatGPT as elaborate search engines. Yet the data points not just to job disruption but, instead, to a transformation in what *work itself* demands from us. McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2030, generative AI could automate activities accounting for nearly thirty percent of hours worked in the United States economy. Goldman Sachs projects that up to fifty percent of jobs could be fully automated by 2045\. These figures do not imply mass unemployment overnight, but they do indicate a profound reshaping of labor markets, work norms, and the social expectations tied to productivity. What is disappearing fastest is not employment per se, but tasks—especially those that are rule-based, predictable, and informational. ## "The workplace now colonizes the self." This is already visible in sectors such as banking. Major financial institutions report substantial productivity gains from AI adoption, with executives openly acknowledging that workforce reductions may follow as efficiencies increase. This pattern is familiar from earlier waves of automation, yet the difference now is qualitative rather than merely quantitative. AI does not simply replace physical labor or repetitive clerical work; it increasingly encroaches on cognitive tasks once thought to define “knowledge work” itself. What emerges from this shift is not a vacuum of work but a narrowing of what remains valuable. As tasks are automated, what employers increasingly demand from humans is not labor in the classical sense but *sociality*. Communication, empathy, creativity, emotional intelligence, ethical judgment, presence, and relational labor become central. In other words, work is no longer primarily about what one *does* but about who one *is*—and how convincingly one can perform that self within organizational and market settings. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Wilfred McClay: The Civilizational Role of the Bible in the American Founding URL: https://www.merionwest.com/wilfred-mcclay-the-civilizational-role/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:22:14.000Z As it happened, Wilfred McClay and Stuart Halpern's [*The Jewish Roots of American Liberty*](https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/jewish-roots-american-liberty/?srsltid=AfmBOootcYnDgoZ-i7NOsMfUG9R22qSULdVtFXsPsh4hEnEjqeRIdoid&ref=merionwest.com) was released in late September of 2025, just as the American Right was increasingly grappling with some of its own calling into question the role of Judaism and the Jewish people in American history. The controversy reached a fever pitch just weeks later when Tucker Carlson [decided to host Nick Fuentes on *The Tucker Carlson Show*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efBB0D4tf1Y&ref=merionwest.com), prompting [a](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/us/politics/heritage-foundation-tucker-carlson-nick-fuentes.html?ref=merionwest.com) [series](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/us/politics/heritage-foundation-trustees-resign-tucker-carlson.html?ref=merionwest.com) of resignations from the Heritage Foundation's board of governors (after its CEO Kevin Roberts [defended Carlson](https://x.com/KevinRobertsTX/status/1983958755613262324?ref=merionwest.com)) and provoking anxiety that anti-Semitism was creeping into sections of the American conservative movement. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/01/7d42d43a-3340-4024-9d74-7c2640470750-1.png) In their highly engaging book, which consists of twenty-one essays and speeches from various contemporary scholars and figures from American history, McClay and Halpern chronicle both the Hebrew Bible's influence on the United States, as well as the long-standing relationship between the Jewish people and the United States of America. On that latter point, though early colonial America was overwhelmingly Christian (and over ninety percent Protestant), *The Jewish Roots of American Liberty* contains a 1925 speech by none other than Republican President Calvin Coolidge narrating the participation of many colonial Jews in the [non-importation resolution of 1765](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th%5Fcentury/newyork%5Fnon%5Fimportation%5F1765.asp?ref=merionwest.com), as well as the service of Jews such as [Major Benjamin Nones](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nones-benjamin?ref=merionwest.com) in the Continental forces during the American Revolution. One theme present in both President Coolidge's remarks and throughout other included essays and speeches is the omnipresent idea at the time of the American Founding that the New World was to its settlers as the Promised Land was to the Jews in the Book of Exodus. And as President George Washington made clear in [his famous 1790 letter to the](https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0135?ref=merionwest.com) Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, Jews would very much be included in this vision. Unlike in most of Europe, Washington assured this congregation that Jews would not just be tolerated in America but, rather, would be free to practice their faith thanks to their inherent natural rights. President Washington continued: > "May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid." Furthermore, *The Jewish Roots of American Liberty* makes clear again and again that while the Enlightenment and classical philosophy no doubt influenced the American Founding, the ideas of Christianity and the Old Testament loomed just as large, if not larger. To this point, Leon Kass is quoted: "You don’t get out of Plato and Aristotle an account that would sustain the view of the equal dignity of every human being." That comes from the Bible. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Three States Triptych URL: https://www.merionwest.com/three-states-triptych/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:00.000Z J.M. Vesper _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The 7th Burial Mound URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-7th-burial-mound/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:01.000Z Samuel Schaefer _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Teaching Students to Think for Themselves Is Never Apolitical URL: https://www.merionwest.com/teaching-students-to-think-for-themselves-is-never-apolitical/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:33.000Z My nomination for the most predictable platitude invoked by university professors to describe the essence of their job is “teaching students to think for themselves.” During my 26 years at the University of Texas at Austin, where I was sometimes accused of politicizing the classroom, I repeated that phrase many times, not as a dodge but because I believed it was the right goal. As with many platitudes, the problem is not that it is incorrect. Rather, it is inadequate. Teaching “critical-thinking skills” is at the heart of good teaching, but that phrase offers little guidance on how to do the job, especially in the social sciences and humanities. (I taught in a journalism school, which typically is a mix of those two traditions.) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/02/image.png) I never met a professor—liberal, conservative, or centrist—who thought the job was to propagandize students, to push a particular belief system. But every professor makes decisions about topics covered, readings assigned, and the direction of class discussions in the limited time available, all of which require judgments that inevitably reflect a way of seeing the world. Call it a framework of analysis, a worldview, an ideology—no one understands human affairs in a purely objective fashion, without underlying assumptions about how the world works. In short: Teaching is not politics, but there is always an underlying political current to teaching about human affairs because there is inescapably a politics to living. By politics, I do not mean partisan battles but, rather, competing claims about human nature, how to distribute power, what constitutes a good society, *et cetera*. In that sense, a form of politics pervades everything people do, whether stated or implicit. The question, therefore, is whether we can make a good case for the choices we make, which will inevitably be politically inflected. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How the High School Diploma Can Restore Its Credibility URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-the-high-school-diploma-can-restore-its-credibility/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:34.000Z How does a wealthy nation like the United States, which spends more per K-12 and post-secondary student than almost any of its peers, end up with young adults who cannot reliably read a news article, interpret a workplace memo, or follow written instructions? One answer is that the link between credentials and skills is broken. Over the last decade, as the country’s leaders have increasingly conflated graduation metrics with academic achievement, the number of diplomas climbed even as literacy plummeted. As Mark Schneider, the former director of the federal Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, observes, “But even as more money gets poured into our education system, student performance has not improved.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2026/01/diploma_cap.png) To see what is being lost, it helps to be clear about what “literacy” means in practice. IES, the federal education research agency, [distinguishes](https://nces.ed.gov/naal/fr%5Fdefinition.asp?ref=merionwest.com) between task-based and skills-based definitions of literacy: the former emphasizes the everyday reading demands adults face at work, at home, and in the community, while the latter focuses on the underlying knowledge and abilities required to meet those demands, from basic word recognition to higher-level skills such as drawing appropriate inferences from continuous text. With those definitions in view, the scale of the problem becomes harder to dismiss. In 2024, IES released an alarming report showing that [nearly](https://ies.ed.gov/learn/press-release/u-s-adults-score-par-international-average-literacy-skills-below-international-average-numeracy-and?ref=merionwest.com) one in three U.S. adults struggle with basic reading tasks, with the steepest declines concentrated among young adults who most recently completed the K-12 system and entered college or the workforce. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Forty-Ninth Year URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-forty-ninth-year/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:01.000Z Colleen S. Harris _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Unraveling URL: https://www.merionwest.com/unraveling/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:02.000Z Glenn Wright _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life) URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mi-vida-loca-my-crazy-life/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:03.000Z Ron L. Dowell _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Live from the Hadal Zone URL: https://www.merionwest.com/live-from-the-hadal-zone/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:03.000Z Joseph Long _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ten Notable Articles from 2025 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ten-notable-articles-from-2025/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:34.000Z 1. [Year of the Plague: Jake Gardner and the Ghosts of 2020](https://www.merionwest.com/year-of-the-plague-jake-gardner-and-the-ghosts-of-2020/) This article tops my list as an exceptionally well-crafted retrospective on a tragic suicide that encapsulates the “year of the plague,” when the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic spread worldwide, mass protests over the murder of George Floyd filled American streets, and Kyle Rittenhouse ignited yet another incendiary national debate about the Second Amendment. In May of 2020, outside a bar in Nebraska, “Jake Gardner killed James Scurlock on a street in Omaha and, shortly thereafter, killed himself,” as Matt Chabin writes in this [Spotlight](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/featured/) essay. Chabin navigates the complexities of competing narratives around this seismic event with the meticulous attention to detail of a virtuoso investigative journalist and the literary mastery of an essayist of exceptional craft. He highlights the excesses of “woke mobs” and the weaponization of social justice ideology without losing sight of the genuine and deeply felt concerns about social injustice that were widespread at the time. The detached yet intimate attention to nuance and detail, coupled with an empathy that emerges from his personal history with Jake Gardner, gives this illuminating piece the air of a profound retrospective that reaches into the realm of the timeless. It transcends the cacophony of commentary that prevailed as events unfolded in real time. 1. [Public Servant in Name Only: Rob Bresnahan Hardly Alone](https://www.merionwest.com/public-servant-in-name-only-rob-bresnahan-hardly-alone/) This pointed editorial by *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince illuminates one of the most enduring concerns animating citizen cynicism about the integrity of politicians. Prince traces the surprising speed with which a newly elected Congressman from northeastern Pennsylvania—Rob Bresnahan—succumbed to the culture of graft that many see as endemic to Washington, D.C. Entering Congress in 2025 with a net worth of approximately $48m, Congressman Bresnahan became the second most active stock trader in Congress a year after he argued for the necessity of banning members of Congress from trading stocks. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Are We Ready to Be Governed by Artificial Intelligence? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/are-we-ready-to-be-governed-by-arti/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:35.000Z Artificial Intelligence (AI) overlords are a common trope in science-fiction dystopias, but the reality looks much more prosaic. The technologies of artificial intelligence are [already pervading](https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049948/rewiring-democracy/?ref=merionwest.com) many aspects of democratic government, affecting our lives in ways both large and small. This has occurred largely without our notice or consent. The result is a government incrementally transformed by AI rather than the singular technological overlord of the big screen. Let us begin with the executive branch. One of the most important functions of this branch of government is to administer the law, including the human services on which so many Americans rely. Many of these programs have long been operated by a mix of humans and machines, even if not previously using modern AI tools such as [Large Language Models](https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/large-language-models?ref=merionwest.com). A salient example is healthcare, where private insurers make widespread use of algorithms to review, approve, and deny coverage, even for recipients of public benefits like Medicare. While Biden-era [guidance](https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/644bd9a2/cms-clarifies-medicare-advantage-organizations-use-of-ai-and-algorithms-in-coverage-decisions?ref=merionwest.com) from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) largely blesses this use of AI by Medicare Advantage operators, the practice of overriding the medical care recommendations made by physicians raises profound [ethical questions](https://www.statnews.com/2023/03/13/medicare-advantage-plans-denial-artificial-intelligence/?ref=merionwest.com), with life and death implications for about [thirty million Americans](https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024.10.17-PSI-Majority-Staff-Report-on-Medicare-Advantage.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) today. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Reflecting on Tragedy: From Brown University to Bondi Beach URL: https://www.merionwest.com/reflecting-on-tragedy-from-brown-university-to-bondi-beach/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:36.000Z On the morning of February 24, 2020, as I boarded a Metro train in Alexandria, Virginia, I received an eerie phone call from a strange man who stammered out a few words, saying he was awfully sorry about what had happened to my mother. Naturally, I was flummoxed. Was this a wrong number? Was it a sick prank? But, mostly, I felt the cold dread of harrowing news gradually encroach upon the serene state of mind I was in when I sat down to read Jacques Derrida’s *Of Grammatology* during a 30-minute commute to work on a bright winter morning. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/12/image-10-1.png) The first dark thought that occurred to me was that my mother had been the victim of a home invasion. When I asked this mysterious messenger if he could tell me more, he hesitated, and then suggested that I call the fire department in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The fire department seemed like an odd place to start for relevant information, but I could not detect a sinister tone in the man’s voice or a malevolent plan in the words he spoke. He sounded like a middle-aged concerned citizen, perhaps a neighbor of my mother's. As it turned out, he simply did not have the heart to inform me that, as I soon discovered, my mother had burned to death in a house fire. We need not dwell on the feelings that are familiar to all who have received the unexpected news of a death in the family. However, as one fond of Stoic philosophy, I felt compelled to remain calm. I continued my ride to work, allowing myself to collect my thoughts, not only about funeral arrangements and other family-related obligations that the living must confront when a loved one departs for that ["undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns"](https://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html?ref=merionwest.com) but also how or if I could make sense of life and death in the wake of this unfathomable tragedy. That question has been top of mind again after the weekend blitz of evil that saw a gunman take the lives of two students at Brown University—[Ella Cook](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/us/brown-university-shooting-victim-ella-cook-alabama.html?ref=merionwest.com) and [Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/us/brown-university-shooting-victim-mukhammadaziz-umurzokov-uzbekistan.html?ref=merionwest.com)—and two other gunmen kill [at least 15 people](https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/bondi-beach-gunshots-reported-12-14-25?ref=merionwest.com) at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. The death of my mother—a macabre accident—may not be ethically comparable to the twin calamities in which the victims were targets of murder. But in all three cases, the sudden shock of a gruesome and undeserved death gives rise to age-old questions that have never ceased to plague humankind: Why do bad things happen to good people? How do we cope in a world that is inherently not designed to guarantee the health and safety of our loved ones from ghastly accidents or the evil that men do? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Grace URL: https://www.merionwest.com/grace/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:04.000Z Jennifer Nachtwey _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Reflection: My Interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali URL: https://www.merionwest.com/reflection-my-interview-of-ayaan-hirsi-ali/ Last updated: 2026-01-26T13:13:51.000Z I owe Ayaan Hirsi Ali a Greek iced coffee and a follow-up conversation. I promised her as much [when we spoke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6jmr0XBLH0&ref=merionwest.com), for the first and only time, in May of 2021—about immigration and the West, about Islam and Europe, about tribalism and America. Four eventful years later, I still find myself talking about immigration and the West, Islam and Europe, tribalism and America. ([Increasing revelations about](https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c9v2zpn35j4t?ref=merionwest.com) a decades-old sexual-crime ring in the English town of Rotherham now give Ayaan’s *Prey*, the book she and I had discussed then, soon after its publication, the rare glow of prescience—a sooner vindication than any author can hope for.) There is nothing new under the sun, according to the Christian Old Testament. Except, in this case, a new Christian. In late 2023, I read [Ayaan’s essay about her having found God](https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/?ref=merionwest.com). I did not know she had been looking. Sure, the beginning of these Groaning Twenties was eventful. But this? Forget Trump 45, Covid-19, inflation at [9.1 percent](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/u-s-inflation-at-9-1-percent-a-record-high?ref=merionwest.com). *This* news seemed otherworldly. Akin to the discovery, let us say, that Anglicanism had won over the pope (or the British royal family). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/12/image-6-1.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Animal Instinct URL: https://www.merionwest.com/animal-instinct/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:05.000Z > Today a Cooper’s Hawk perched itself > outside our bedroom window on a low branch > of a small tree not twenty feet away. > The courtyard of our condo complex. > Frequented by all sorts of wildlife: > sparrows and wrens, mourning doves, juncos, > hummingbirds, now and then a cardinal, > chipmunks, rabbits, lots of squirrels. > But birds this big, hunters, only rarely. > In thirteen years, in fact, only twice before. > We’ll see them floating on the currents > high above, but never down where we are, > certainly never still, or perched where we > can watch them even for a moment. > This one stayed for several hours. > We could see its tail feathers sticking down > behind the branch the bird was perched on, > talons wrapped around the branch, the sharp > hooked beak designed for tearing flesh. > It sat so still, it almost seemed a statue > or a decoy, but the head kept turning, > turning, turning, and the eyes kept looking > for something, movement perhaps, something > to kill. After all, all living things must eat. > But the little critters in the courtyard > that my wife’s been feeding nearly every day > were, this morning, nowhere to be seen. ### W. D. Ehrhart's most recent books are a 2025 collection of poems, [*Smart Fish Don't Bite*](https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/ehrhart-w-d-smart-fish-don-t-bite/YD2QGAXXBUFHBNEM4K6HS6AF?cs=true&cst=custom&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-%5FW-lL6cwwW8bsQANmJwm3MsSw-S42Z2xGh0k2oeotYQjMZaBNz9DqAOukdKP95CuNaM19QsZuXdCh2rJglFzD6U6sG4g&%5Fhsmi=380810861&utm%5Fcontent=380810861&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail) from Moonstone Arts, and *Getting Shot At: Essays on War, Conflict & Culture Clash,* forthcoming in 2026 from McFarland & Company, Inc. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales at Swansea and taught English and history at The Haverford School in Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2019. ### Fresh Off the Press: Collection III URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ready-to-read-collection-iii/ Last updated: 2025-12-08T21:24:57.000Z Dear Member, On this frosty Philadelphia afternoon, we are pleased to present to you the latest issue of our magazine. *Merion West*'s third collection is available for your reading enjoyment–by a fireplace, perhaps–by following the link below: [▷ Read COLLECTION III](https://www.merionwest.com/latest-collection) Sincerely, Henri & Erich ### COLLECTION III URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-iii/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T21:12:35.000Z ## Letter from the Editor & Publisher > Dear Readers and Old Friends, > This letter marks our final collection of the year. In the two months since we last wrote, there have been some exciting developments at *Merion West*. We had the honor of co-sponsoring a dialogue at the University of Pennsylvania between Ross Douthat, a devout Catholic, and philosopher Damon Linker, a self-described secular Jew. Hosted by the Veritas Forum, the event was a great success and echoed the spirit of civil dialogue that we have always striven to embody in our pages. In terms of our team, Austin Allen James has officially joined as our new poetry editor, and we are most excited about his leadership of our arts section. We have also recorded a fascinating set of conversations for release in forthcoming collections. > Our selection of interviews and essays—our *raison d'être*—has remained strong. We begin this issue with the formerly agnostic intellectual Dr. Charles Murray, who, in his interview with Erich, discusses his evolving perspective on Christianity. Once an ascendant force, the New Atheist movement is perhaps breathing its last. It is our humble opinion that we are all the better for it. > You will find in this collection thoughtful writings on the pressing issues of the day, such as Gerfried Ambrosch's examination of contemporary anti-Semitism, alongside reflections of a more timeless sort—including Sadhika Pant's celebration of *Fathers and Sons*, an undeservedly overlooked classic of Russian literature, as well as philosophy professor Jimmy Alfonso Licon’s plea to distinguish between appearing virtuous and being such. > As always, we sincerely appreciate your belief in our project, and we hope you enjoy what you read. > With gratitude, ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2024/12/sigs.svg) EDITOR & PUBLISHER [ ![Charles Murray Interview Art](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/size/w2000/2025/12/Gemini_Generated_Image_sjnmrtsjnmrtsjnm-1.png) ](https://www.merionwest.com/charles-murray-is-taki/) ## [Why Charles Murray Is Taking Religion Seriously ](https://www.merionwest.com/charles-murray-is-taki/) Erich J. Prince speaks with one of America’s best-known political scientists. In this interview, Dr. Murray discusses his new book and the slow, unexpected path that took him from reluctantly attending Quaker meetings to defending the veracity of many religious claims. Other Interviews [☩ Why We Need Better College Rankings ](https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-need-better-college-rankings/) [☩ Can "Deliberative Polling" Solve Polarization? ](https://www.merionwest.com/can-deliberative-polling-so-polarization/) # Essays [Public Servant in Name Only: Rob Bresnahan Hardly Alone A young congressman elected on promises of integrity has quickly become one of Washington’s most prolific stock traders, writes editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince. Is it any wonder why so many Americans feel nothing ever really changes at the Capitol? ](https://www.merionwest.com/public-servant-in-name-only-rob-bresnahan-hardly-alone/) [The Oldest Hatred, the West’s Latest TestFollowing the October 2nd terrorist attack in Manchester, England, Gerfried Ambrosch examines the ideological convergence between the Western left and Islamist movements—and calls for renewed resolve in confronting anti-Semitism in all of its forms. ](https://www.merionwest.com/the-oldest-hatred-the-wests-latest-test/) [If Being Virtuous Feels Easy, It Could Be Junk Although no one likes to admit to doing it, virtue signaling is a practice that is a natural part of being a human. Yet, in this essay, philosopher Jimmy Alfonso Licon advises caution by comparing the practice to the culinary equivalent of junk food–it might be tempting but, ultimately, counterproductive. ](https://www.merionwest.com/if-being-virtuous-feels-easy-it-might-be-junk/) [ ▸ Learn more about *Merion West.*](https://www.merionwest.com/join/) Literary & Societal [Why We Should Return to Ivan Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons”In this essay, Sadhika Pant helps us to see why Turgenev’s fourth novel remains the most enduring portrait of Russia’s 19th-century ideological storm. More than a mere history, the novel continues to resonate as an antidote to the revolutionary spirits of today.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-48.png)Merion WestSadhika Pant![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-31.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/we-to-ivan-turgenevs-fathers-and-sons/) [The Conservatism of Russian-Speaking JewsSimon Maass, a German writer of Soviet Jewish descent, contends that Jews who left the Soviet Union often hold distinctly conservative views—and are steadily shaping politics in their new homes.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-49.png)Merion WestSimon Maass![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-32.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/the-conservatism-of-russian-speaking-jews/) [Agnosticism Is Not ReasonableRefusal to make a choice is a choice of its own. Although often presented as the intellectually humble third option between belief and atheism, Stuart Doyle argues that agnosticism presents a false middle path that is neither coherent nor practical.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-47.png)Merion WestStuart Doyle![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-30.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/agnosticism-is-not-reasonable/) [Is the Current Era of Free Speech Over?Considering the rest of the developed world, it is a miracle that the First Amendment continues to reign in the United States. Tracing the precarious history of free speech in the country, legal scholar Eric Heinze writes that shifting bipartisan attitudes are placing it under threat.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-50.png)Merion WestEric Heinze![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-33.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/is-the-current-era-of-free-speech-over/) Poetry - [Pray Silence (The Mind of the Meeting) ](https://www.merionwest.com/pray-silence-the-mind-of-the-meeting/) - [Three Elegies for the Everyday ](https://www.merionwest.com/three-elegies-for-the-everyday/) - [Orchard Season ](https://www.merionwest.com/orchard-season/) [Explore other poems in the Poetry section](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry/) #### Smart Fish Don't Bite New from W.D. Ehrhart A long-time friend of *Merion West* and a frequently featured poet in our pages, Dr. Ehrhart returns with a compelling new release. Featuring 77 new poems written since 2019, this volume runs the gamut from the serious to the playful. In both tone and substance, it stands as perhaps his most diverse collection to date. Upcoming Readings - **Feb 27:** Bucks County Community College - **Mar 4:** Wallingford Art Center [Purchase Exclusively at Moonstone Arts Center ](https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/ehrhart-w-d-smart-fish-don-t-bite/YD2QGAXXBUFHBNEM4K6HS6AF?cs=true&cst=custom&utm%5Fmedium=email&%5Fhsenc=p2ANqtz-%5FW-lL6cwwW8bsQANmJwm3MsSw-S42Z2xGh0k2oeotYQjMZaBNz9DqAOukdKP95CuNaM19QsZuXdCh2rJglFzD6U6sG4g&%5Fhsmi=380810861&utm%5Fcontent=380810861&utm%5Fsource=hs%5Femail) [ ◂ Read the previous Collection](https://www.merionwest.com/collection-ii/) ### Can "Deliberative Polling" Solve Polarization? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/can-deliberative-polling-so-polarization/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:37.000Z On November 5th, the shutdown of the United States federal government became the [longest](https://www.npr.org/2025/11/05/nx-s1-5598315/government-shutdown-longest-history?ref=merionwest.com) in history at 36 days. Government funding for nonessential services had lapsed since October 1 due to an impasse between Republican and Democratic senators over the refusal of Democrats to vote for a spending bill until they received an agreement on the extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits. Finally, [eight Senate Democrats](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/09/senate-democrats-shutdown-vote-00644146?ref=merionwest.com) broke ranks with their party and its leadership and agreed to a plan to end the shutdown. But this was met with anger from high-profile Democrats such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, [who called their decision to back down](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/newsom-slams-pathetic-shutdown-deal-014118509.html?ref=merionwest.com) “pathetic.” If there is one thing that seems certain as the government reopens, it is that deep distrust exists on both sides of the aisle. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/12/image-5.png) The government shutdown is the latest evidence of an ever-deepening breakdown in bipartisanship and consensus-building across the American political divide. While the divide is seemingly evident everywhere, one prominent example of the state of polarization in American politics is the wide gap that exists between how Republicans and Democrats view President Donald Trump’s job performance—a recent [report](https://prri.org/research/trumps-unprecedented-actions-deepen-asymmetric-divides/?ref=merionwest.com) notes that 86 percent of Republicans approve of President Donald Trump’s job performance, while only 8 percent of Democrats do. The question arises: Is the division irreparable? Is there any hope for reconciliation and consensus-building? Or are shutdowns, ever longer and even more acrimonious, going to become a permanent fixture of the political process? Stanford University professor [James Fishkin](https://politicalscience.stanford.edu/people/james-fishkin?ref=merionwest.com) would answer, "No," and "Yes." In [his recent book](https://www.amazon.com/Can-Deliberation-Cure-Ills-Democracy/dp/0198944411?ref=merionwest.com) *Can Deliberation Cure the Ills of Democracy?*, Professor Fishkin argues that Deliberative Polling—wherein individuals literally come together in a mediated environment to consider evidence, discuss issues, and decide on the best courses of action—could hold the key to healing our highly polarized political system. Here is how it works. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why Charles Murray Is Taking Religion Seriously URL: https://www.merionwest.com/charles-murray-is-taki/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T05:47:47.000Z *Taking Religion Seriously* [is Charles Murray's most recent book](https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/taking-religion-seriously/?ref=merionwest.com). Although the world-famous political scientist has published books outside of his usual genre such as his eminently enjoyable [2014 book](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/239455/the-curmudgeons-guide-to-getting-ahead-by-charles-murray/?ref=merionwest.com) *The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead*, his latest work represents something quite unique. As he acknowledges early on, like many outwardly successful people living in the modern West, he lived most of his life not as an explicit atheist or even as an agnostic but as someone who felt little need even to pause to consider religion. As he writes, "I had distracted myself with Western modernity. I am using *Western modernity* as shorthand for all the ways in which life in the last hundred years has shielded many of us from the agonizing losses, pains, and sorrows that were part of human life since the dawn of humankind." It was through gradually beginning to attend Quaker meetings with his wife, Catherine, that Murray began to think to himself: Perhaps these religiously minded people have something valuable to teach. From there, Murray began an intensive reading regimen engaging with authors both supportive and critical of his newfound appreciation for, first, theism and, later, Christianity. *Taking Religion Seriously* is hardly polemical and instead aims to chronicle how he, a skeptically minded modern person, has been engaging with these questions. Murray has taken a particular interest in both near-death experiences and terminal lucidity, the latter of which prompted [a back-and-forth with cognitive scientist Steven Pinker](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/charles-murrays-unscientific-case-for-the-soul-pinker-brain-neuroscience-b5c76c86?msockid=3059c304516f6c2e3653cd5e50926d0f&ref=merionwest.com). In this conversation with *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince, Murray discusses the problem of evil; how certain critics of religion have arguably constructed a false dichotomy between religion and science; the Big Bang as evidence of creation; and the rediscovery of religion arguably underway in many parts of the West today. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Wonder Me URL: https://www.merionwest.com/wonder-me/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:05.000Z Colleen S. Harris _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Orchard Season URL: https://www.merionwest.com/orchard-season/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:06.000Z Margaret Taylor-Ulizio _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Pray Silence (The Mind of the Meeting) URL: https://www.merionwest.com/pray-silence-the-mind-of-the-meeting/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:06.000Z Joseph Long _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Three Elegies for the Everyday URL: https://www.merionwest.com/three-elegies-for-the-everyday/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:07.000Z Tanisha Bose _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Public Servant in Name Only: Rob Bresnahan Hardly Alone URL: https://www.merionwest.com/public-servant-in-name-only-rob-bresnahan-hardly-alone/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:39.000Z Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech?ref=merionwest.com) AudioNative Player... Having closely followed Pennsylvania politics over the past decade, particularly when interviewing a number of incoming members of Congress from the so-called class of 2018, I found it interesting to watch Congressman Matt Cartwright consistently hold onto his Northeastern Pennsylvania congressional district, even as it increasingly shifted to the Right in the Trump era. Election after election, the Democratic representative survived. Then came 2024, when Congressman Cartwright [was finally defeated](https://penncapital-star.com/election-2024/u-s-rep-matt-cartwright-concedes-to-gop-challenger-rob-bresnahan/?ref=merionwest.com) by a 34-year-old businessman and University of Scranton graduate named Rob Bresnahan. His grandfather had founded an electrical contracting company, Kuharchik Construction, of which the future lawmaker [became an executive at the age of 19](https://robforpa.com/about/?ref=merionwest.com). In addition to later serving as CEO of the family business, Bresnahan also became a real estate investor in Pittston and served on a number of boards and community organizations prior to announcing his challenge to Congressman Cartwright, which was his first run for public office. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/11/image-1-1-1.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why We Should Return to Ivan Turgenev’s "Fathers and Sons" URL: https://www.merionwest.com/we-to-ivan-turgenevs-fathers-and-sons/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:40.000Z Ivan Turgenev’s [*Fathers and Sons*](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47935/47935-h/47935-h.htm?ref=merionwest.com) is a novel that may find itself lost amid louder voices. It is not revolutionary enough for the radical left, nor nostalgic enough for the old guard. It is not polemic. It is not triumphant. It has a brooding quality. Yet, in an age like ours, torn between generational impatience and inherited anxiety, it reads with startling clarity. Turgenev, one of the foremost Russian novelists of the 19th century, occupied a complex position within his cultural milieu. Disillusioned [by years of censorship and the persecution of](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41566/chapter-abstract/353062992?redirectedFrom=fulltext&ref=merionwest.com) writers under Nicholas I—a system whose effects lingered even after the tsar’s death in 1855—he left for Western Europe in 1856, spending most of his later life in France and Germany. He returned to Russia for only brief visits thereafter. Educated in both Russia and Germany, he found himself caught between liberal Western ideals and the entrenched conservatism of his homeland. His life in partial exile and his role as a mediator between Russian and European literary sensibilities endowed his work with a certain psychological nuance and restraint of prose rare among his contemporaries—writers such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, whose novels surged with moral intensity and philosophical argument. He famously clashed with both men, their temperaments and artistic visions too different to coexist easily, though time and illness would soften these rivalries into mutual respect and eventual reconciliation. And perhaps because of that moderation, *Fathers and Sons—*Turgenev’s fourth novel—has aged better than many of the novels of its generation. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/11/image.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### FLATLAND URL: https://www.merionwest.com/flatlands/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:08.000Z Nancy Cherry _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### In the Valles Caldera URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-the-valles-caldera/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:08.000Z Sonya Wohletz _This post is for subscribers only._ ### If Being Virtuous Feels Easy, It Could Be Junk URL: https://www.merionwest.com/if-being-virtuous-feels-easy-it-might-be-junk/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:41.000Z Junk food refers to high-calorie, ultra-processed food engineered for immediate gratification with minimal nutritional value. Eaten occasionally, it is harmless, but when consumed chronically, it corrodes health and taste alike. Something similar occurs with moral outrage that costs little and serves mostly for display. Virtue signaling satisfies a primal need to demonstrate one's own sincere moral convictions, but it is performed at a cost. Moral condemnation is a social technology for sustaining cooperation, enforcing norms, and punishing wrongdoers. Across societies, punishing violators signals one’s trustworthiness, loyalty to shared values, and a willingness to bear personal costs for the common good. These traits are reputational assets: useful for identifying someone as a reliable partner and discouraging others from defecting. Yet this raises a puzzle: Why do people still express outrage when doing so is costly, risky, and apparently invisible—when anonymity rules out social reward? (How is it costly? Well, for one thing, it can incentivize other people to retaliate.) Moral psychologists Jillian Jordan and David Rand have a 2020[ *reputation heuristics*](https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2019-20336-001.html?ref=merionwest.com) account that offers a viable answer: because most of human life occurs in social settings where reputations matter. As such, our minds are calibrated to assume that moral behavior will—sooner or later—be observed and evaluated. And even when direct observation is uncertain, the reputational logic persists as a default heuristic: Act as though others are watching because they, very well, could be. ## "Outrage provided the emotional reward of feeling righteous without the slower, costlier work of responsibility or repair." In a series of experiments with more than 8,000 participants, Jordan and Rand found that people expressed greater moral outrage when they were unable to signal virtue through helping behavior. When opportunities to give, share, or otherwise act pro-socially were removed, participants compensated with moral condemnation, which is a lower-cost way to display moral commitment. When those opportunities were restored, expressions of outrage declined. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Bubble of Loneliness URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bubble-of-loneliness/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:09.000Z CM Pickard _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Agnosticism Is Not Reasonable URL: https://www.merionwest.com/agnosticism-is-not-reasonable/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:42.000Z If one cannot prove something to be true or false, then one should not make any claims about it either way. This seems eminently reasonable. It is a good rule of thumb, especially in science. After all, this is basically the definition of science according to the most influential theory of demarcation: Karl Popper’s falsificationism. However, when this way of thinking is exported beyond the borders of science, it becomes unreasonable—especially when it leads to agnosticism on the question of God. Despite its urbane sheen of measured rationality, agnosticism always entails a self-contradiction. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/10/image-10.png) Bertrand Russell thought that claims about God are like claims about a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars—that there should be serious proof before such claims are accepted as true. What Russell did not appear to appreciate is that, while no one needs to make a decision about orbiting teapots, everyone must make a decision about God. The agnostic, just like everybody else, must choose what to do with his life. Every decision involves the loss of alternative possibilities. And one has to choose. If one puts off the decision, that is a choice. ## “The agnostic does not avoid taking a side; he takes a side and calls it neutrality.” If one kills oneself to avoid choosing, that is also a choice. It is true that we are “condemned to be free.” One must choose whom to forgive, what to protect, and when to tell the truth at a cost. There is no opting out because that is still a choice of what to do. This puts one in the inescapable position of figuring out what one ought to do. What will guide a person? It cannot be nothing because one has a mind and will act. The individual will decide. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ancient Cooperation URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ancient-cooperation/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:09.000Z Blaire Baron _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Easter Plum URL: https://www.merionwest.com/easter-plum/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:10.000Z Al Ortolani _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Pistachios URL: https://www.merionwest.com/pistachios/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:10.000Z Eric Machan Howd _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Conservatism of Russian-Speaking Jews URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-conservatism-of-russian-speaking-jews/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:43.000Z In the West, Jews from the former Soviet Union have received comparatively little media attention, despite [their significant contributions to](https://www.timesofisrael.com/these-are-the-russian-speaking-jewish-americans-you-never-knew-changed-your-life/?ref=merionwest.com) science and technology. Only recently have they become more visible in political and cultural debates. To be sure, a few Soviet-born Jews have been influential as media figures and opinion makers. [Natan Sharansky](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/natan-anatoly-sharansky?ref=merionwest.com) has long been known as an activist for Jewish causes, and Gary Vaynerchuk rose to prominence as a business guru [starting](https://fortune.com/2014/12/08/is-gary-vaynerchuk-vaynermedia-for-real/?ref=merionwest.com) around 2010\. Nevertheless, owing perhaps to linguistic and cultural barriers, Soviet Jewish immigrants and their descendants have had little readily visible political impact. A decade ago, one could scarcely have named any Soviet-born Jew in the West who had palpably affected political debates on non-Jewish issues. (The obvious exception was Ayn Rand, who died in 1982.) Over the last few years, things have changed. Podcaster and author Michael Malice [gained](https://townhall.com/columnists/lisadepasquale/2017/06/27/de-pasquales-dozen-with-author-michael-malice-n2346990?ref=merionwest.com) mass appeal in the late 2010s. Computer scientist Lex Fridman’s podcast has risen to prominence since around 2020, hosting then-presidential candidate [Donald Trump](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCbfTN-caFI&ref=merionwest.com) in 2024 and Indian Prime Minister [Narendra Modi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPUtA3W-7%5FI&ref=merionwest.com) in 2025\. Across the Atlantic, Konstantin Kisin, who is of partial Jewish heritage, has [achieved](https://lawliberty.org/podcast/optimism-for-the-western-project/?ref=merionwest.com) renown as co-host of the podcast *Triggernometry*, founded in 2018\. The pattern extends to Israel as well, where Soviet-born politician Avigdor Lieberman has experienced a resurgence of late. As [reported](https://jstribune.com/svetlova-avigdor-lieberman-vindication-of-the-outsider/?ref=merionwest.com) by Ksenia Svetlova, the hawkish Lieberman has been credited with prescient warnings about the threat of Hamas in the wake of October 7, 2023\. "'Lieberman was right’ became a trending hashtag on X,” she observes. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/10/image-9-1.png) Thus, Jews from the Soviet Union have become increasingly influential in Western politics. At the same time, America’s traditionally left-leaning Jewish community has shifted—at least somewhat—to the right. In 2023, Nathan Cofnas [contended](https://thecritic.co.uk/twilight-of-the-liberal-jew/?ref=merionwest.com) that, among American Jews under forty, “the most politically influential” were mostly on the right. In the 2024 United States presidential election, [according](https://www.jewishelectorateinstitute.org/p7846?ref=merionwest.com) to the Jewish Electorate Institute, “Democrats turned in their weakest performance among Jewish voters since 2012.” Five of that election’s ten biggest [donors](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-top-10-donors-of-the-2024-u-s-presidential-election/?ref=merionwest.com) were Jewish, and three of those five supported the Republican Party. Against the backdrop of this rightward shift, Russian-speaking Jews may provide a model for a more conservative American Jewry. For these reasons, it is worth examining the political leanings exhibited by this frequently ignored subgroup of Jews. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ars Poetica: or, Benzaitan’s Rules for Poems (That She Told Me In A Dream) URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ars-poetica-or-benzaitans-rules-for-poems-that-she-told-me-in-a-dream/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:11.000Z Katherine Elwood Hashimoto _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Oldest Hatred, the West’s Latest Test URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-oldest-hatred-the-wests-latest-test/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:44.000Z In a 2010 address, the late Christopher Hitchens [warned](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2kjpwgMYSI&ref=merionwest.com): > "Because antisemitism is the godfather of racism and the gateway to tyranny and fascism and war, it is to be regarded not as the enemy of the Jewish people alone but as the common enemy of humanity and civilization and has to be fought against very tenaciously for that reason—most especially in its current, most virulent form of Islamic jihad." On Yom Kippur 2025—the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and two years after Hamas’s [brutal massacre](https://www.hamas-massacre.net/?ref=merionwest.com) of some 1,200 men, women, and children in Israel—a Muslim man carried out a [terrorist attack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6qLvs0t54&ref=merionwest.com) on a Manchester synagogue, leaving two dead. “This is the day we hoped we would never see, but which, deep down, we knew would come,” [said](https://x.com/chiefrabbi/status/1973855930388230379?ref=merionwest.com) Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis. “For so long we have witnessed an unrelenting wave of Jew hatred on our streets, on campuses, on social media and elsewhere—this is the tragic result.” Since October 7th, 2023, anti-Semitism has [surged across the West](https://www.eurotopics.net/en/346377/antisemitism-on-the-rise-since-hamas-massacre?ref=merionwest.com). Many on the political left, in particular, have aligned themselves with Islamists in demonizing and vilifying the world’s only Jewish-majority country—and the only democracy in the Middle East—as a “genocidal apartheid state.” Calls for a “global intifada” at countless mass protests have once again left Jews in Western countries feeling exposed and vulnerable. Self-described progressives have, in effect, made themselves “useful idiots”—to use a phrase often attributed to Lenin—for the world’s Islamofascists, through their embrace of anti-Zionist Palestinianism. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/10/image-8.png) What accounts for this closing of ranks that once again imperils history’s most persecuted minority? While it cannot be denied that these groups share an anti-Western attitude, that explanation falls short—after all, neo-Nazis and other non-leftists also reject Western values. At its core, the answer lies in what Marxists call the “revolutionary subject.” As one [source](https://criticaltheoryinberlin.de/en/event/new-revolutionary-subjects-in-memoriam-herbert-marcuse/?ref=merionwest.com) puts it, “Every revolution needs a steadfast subject setting it in motion.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why We Need Better College Rankings URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-need-better-college-rankings/ Last updated: 2026-01-26T13:14:09.000Z As a beneficiary of the nation’s meritocratic system, I have lost count of the number of times I have consulted *U.S. News & World Report’s* annual college [rankings](https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges?ref=merionwest.com). I suspect many readers have, too, even if discreetly. The first time I opened the storied magazine was as a starry-eyed high school student applying to undergraduate programs in the mid-1990s. I did the same once again some years later, as a young professional, when I anxiously applied to graduate programs to polish my résumé. As the first in my family to obtain a college degree, I was particularly susceptible to the lure of prestige and exclusivity. To be sure, other factors played a role, too. As a high school student, I had become a devotee of the liberal arts and sincerely looked forward to studying the Great Books with esteemed professors. What better place to delve into the classics than at one of the nation’s elite academic institutions? I also came of age during peak Clintonism, a time when the ideal of neoliberal meritocracy reigned supreme. In this country, it was practically an article of faith that the more prestigious one’s educational attainment, the better one’s life would be. As a true believer, I was prepared to spend years paying off a staggeringly daunting loan balance if that was what it took. I ultimately earned two Ivy League degrees—and I was fortunate to receive generous financial aid. The 1990s came and went, and so did many of the era’s convictions. Today, I am compelled to ask: Was it worth it? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Is the Current Era of Free Speech Over? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/is-the-current-era-of-free-speech-over/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:45.000Z In November of 2024, President-elect Donald Trump sued CBS News for $10 billion, later [increasing](https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-amend-cbs-lawsuit-doubles-damage-claim-to-billion/?ref=merionwest.com) the claim to $20 billion. He complained that the network had manipulated a *60 Minutes* interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris to bolster her presidential campaign. And, in July of this year, Paramount, which owns CBS News, [settled the lawsuit for $16 million](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paramount-trump-60-minutes-lawsuit-settlement/?ref=merionwest.com) to be donated toward the eventual construction of President Trump’s presidential library. In February of 2025, Associated Press reporters were [banned](https://www.ap.org/media-center/ap-in-the-news/2025/white-house-bars-ap-reporter-from-oval-office-because-of-ap-style-policy-on-gulf-of-america?ref=merionwest.com) from White House press events after refusing to adopt President Trump’s directive to rename the "Gulf of Mexico" as the "Gulf of America" in their reporting. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/10/image-1.png) In September of this year, the world witnessed the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah. In response, the late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel accused President Trump on-air of flaunting fake grief while accusing the MAGA movement of exploiting the tragedy to “score political points.” Later, ABC briefly tabled Kimmel’s show as Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, who was appointed by President Trump, threatened to take retaliatory action against the company and amid Nexstar and Sinclair’s [decision to suspend airing](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/23/jimmy-kimmel-return-preempt-nexstar-00576320?ref=merionwest.com) *Jimmy Kimmel Live!* on their stations. Among the many affronts to free speech in recent years, it remains puzzling why Kimmel’s firing was the incident that unleashed a particularly fierce backlash. Was it just the most publicized? Or because of the mutual recriminations triggered by Kirk’s assassination? Perhaps because Americans are seriously worrying about what had seemed to be their untouchable free speech rights? To this point, certain figures typically supportive of President Trump’s agenda such as [Senator Ted Cruz](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5516642-mitch-mcconnell-ted-cruz-fcc-kimmel/?ref=merionwest.com) and commentator [Tucker Carlson](https://fortune.com/2025/09/20/jimmy-kimmel-suspension-conservatives-fcc-free-speech-debate-charlie-kirk-trump-broadcast-late-night-censorship/?ref=merionwest.com) have recently displayed their anxiety, fretting about the health of the First Amendment. ## "…in 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes—in *Schenck v. United States*—led a unanimous Supreme Court to [uphold](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/249/47/?ref=merionwest.com) the criminal conviction of a man for no crime other than distributing antiwar leaflets to potential conscripts." _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ready to Read: Collection II URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ready-to-read-collection-ii/ Last updated: 2025-12-08T21:49:39.000Z Dear Member, Fresh off the digital press, *Merion West*'s second issue has been published and is available by clicking below: [▷ Read COLLECTION II](https://www.merionwest.com/collection-ii/) Sincerely, Henri & Erich ### COLLECTION II URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-ii/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T21:12:06.000Z ## Letter from the Editor & Publisher > Dear Readers and Old Friends, > When we began planning the new version of this magazine, many questions were left up in the air. Should we have fewer long-form essays and more punchy op-eds? What about publishing views we strongly disagree with? Despite leaving several of these questions unanswered, our past experience had made one thing crystal clear: We would only publish articles that we feel proud of, or even love. > While such a choice may seem obvious, the temptation to lower the bar is always creeping up on publishers of all sizes. In the relentless competition for ever-more clicks and shares, victory is measured in quantity at the expense of quality. As you may have noticed, the pathology has infected many once esteemed publications. > To ward off moments of weakness, we gave ourselves permission to publish just one new article per month. It is therefore a welcome surprise that the second issue came together as quickly as it did. In Collection II, you will encounter articles dealing with timeless subjects that shape the conversation today, as well as subjects that have been unfairly overlooked. In keeping with our tradition of engaging with established figures as well as up-and-comers, we are pleased to share our interviews with both America's leading legal theorist and a Christian pioneer on Wall Street. > Thank you for reading with us. > > With gratitude, ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2024/12/sigs.svg) EDITOR & PUBLISHER ## [The Perennial Allure of Political Violence](https://www.merionwest.com/the-perennial-allure-of-political-violence/) Writing from across the Atlantic, Gerfried Ambrosch condemns both the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the disturbing celebrations that followed, ending with a forceful defense of free expression. Interviews [☩ Alan Dershowitz: On His Magnum Opus, *The Preventive State* ](https://www.merionwest.com/alan-dershowitz-on-his-magnum-opus-the-preventive-state/) [☩ The Man Who Dared to Imagine If God Were an Investor ](https://www.merionwest.com/interview-the-man-who-dared-to-imagine-if-god-were-an-investor/) # Essays [Caste Remains the True Test of Inclusion in Corporate India Across boardrooms from Bangalore to Delhi and inside Western corporations staffed by an increasing number of Indian employees, caste continues to influence who advances and who does not. Ignoring this reality, writes Indian scholar Disha, makes all other efforts at fostering inclusivity ring hollow. ](https://www.merionwest.com/caste-remains-the-true-test-of-inclusion-in-corporate-india/) [Let’s Teach Young People Hope—Not DoomEducation expert Bruno Manno argues that when educators present social and ecological problems as intractable, this fosters hopelessness in students and urges that educators teach students that problems can be solved, not merely bemoaned.](https://www.merionwest.com/lets-teach-young-people-hope-not-doom/) [Why Today’s Atheism Requires a Leap of FaithMichel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies invite readers to consider whether atheism withstands logical scrutiny, suggesting that the materialist worldview itself demands a leap of faith.](https://www.merionwest.com/why-todays-atheism-requires-a-leap-of-faith/) [ ▸ Learn more about *Merion West.*](https://www.merionwest.com/join/) Power & Policy [We Ought Not Tolerate Reckless DrivingOur editor-in-chief argues that reckless driving must be treated as the urgent social ill that it is. Driving is dangerous enough already, and those who wantonly flout traffic safety need to be consistently held accountable.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-45.png)Merion WestErich J. Prince![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-28.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/we-ought-not-tolerate-reckless-driving/) [The Machiavellian Keir StarmerBritish writer Seamus Flaherty, channeling Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund’s new book, dissects the Machiavellian approach British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has brought to his political career and now premiership.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-36.png)Merion WestSeamus Flaherty![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-19.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/the-machiavellian-keir-starmer/) [Who Pays for “Free” Speech?Law professor Eric Heinze reminds us that for all the rhetoric about free speech, demonstrations and protests often impose on the public costs of millions of dollars.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-40.png)Merion WestEric Heinze![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-23.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/who-pays-for-free-speech/) [From Austerity to Arms: Europe’s Recurring Escape from Deflationary ParalysisEurope’s turn from austerity to rearmament recalls an older pattern: economic stagnation broken by military spending. This essay traces the parallels—and the risks—for the European Union’s future.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-38.png)Merion WestIoannis Mademlis![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-21.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/from-austerity-to-arms-europes-recurring-escape-from-deflationary-paralysis/) Poetry - [Dream Person](https://www.merionwest.com/dream-person/) - [Heat of a Bayou](https://www.merionwest.com/heat-of-a-bayou/) - [Emergency Room](https://www.merionwest.com/emergency-room/) [Explore other poems in the Poetry section](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry/) ###### More from Collection II [Why We Should Reacquaint Ourselves with William BlakeMark Vernon, the author of a recent book on William Blake, urges us to rediscover the wisdom contained in the writings and artwork of the great British polymath.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-46.png)Merion WestMark Vernon![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-29.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-shoulreacquaint-ourselves-with-william-blake/) [The State Sovereignty Question Again Rears Its HeadTom McDonough argues that Governor JB Pritzker’s recent appeal to “state sovereignty” misreads the Constitution. Revisiting the works of Orestes Brownson, McDonough warns that treating the Constitution as a tool of convenience risks reviving old errors about sovereignty and federal authority.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-43.png)Merion WestTom McDonough![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-26.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/the-state-sovereignty-question-again-rears-its-head/) [Revisiting “The Classical Liberal Case for Israel”Walter E. Block and Alan G. Futerman’s book, which was published in 2021, has taken on ever greater import since the October 7th attacks. In this essay, historian Paul Gottfried questions some of the book’s assumptions and its use of history.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-44.png)Merion WestPaul Gottfried![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-27.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/revisiting-the-classical-liberal-case-for-israel/) [ ◂ Read the previous Collection](https://www.merionwest.com/collection-i/) ### Dream Person URL: https://www.merionwest.com/dream-person/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:12.000Z Shivani Sivagurunathan _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Morning News URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-morning-news/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:12.000Z David Milley _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Heat of a Bayou URL: https://www.merionwest.com/heat-of-a-bayou/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:13.000Z Austin Allen James _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Interview: The Man Who Dared to Imagine If God Were an Investor URL: https://www.merionwest.com/interview-the-man-who-dared-to-imagine-if-god-were-an-investor/ Last updated: 2026-01-26T13:12:43.000Z For most of us, the phrase "Put your money where your mouth is" amounts to little more than an empty saying. But not to Robin John, a middle-aged man who made a peculiar pivot in the early part of his career: Instead of joining the clergy, he would go on to found an investment firm competing on Wall Street. In recounting the difficult early years when Eventide Asset Management was still floundering, Mr. John tells me that his motivation was not chasing riches but, instead, making the world "rejoice." At first blush, this goal sounds better suited for a nonprofit institution or missionary group. Joy, after all, is not typically associated with the world of finance. But the more I listened, the more sensible his vision became. Like all good entrepreneurs, Eventide solved a problem he and his co-founder, Finny Kuruvilla, had themselves faced. Devout and financially savvy, the two young Christians had wanted to make it possible for people of faith to invest with their conscience. The moral dimension of money was a recurring theme during our conversation. Unless kept underneath a mattress, most people's savings are released into the broader economy, including as investments into companies. Yet most of us rarely consider what these companies actually *do.* This is where the two faithful entrepreneurs saw an opportunity. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Caste Remains the True Test of Inclusion in Corporate India URL: https://www.merionwest.com/caste-remains-the-true-test-of-inclusion-in-corporate-india/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:46.000Z After 2020, something changed in Indian offices. In the wake of the global reckoning with racial injustice sparked by George Floyd’s murder, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts gained momentum worldwide, including in India. While the vocabulary may be new to corporate spaces, the spirit of DEI has long existed in India’s constitutional framework. For example, Articles 14, 15, and 17 of the [Indian Constitution](https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s380537a945c7aaa788ccfcdf1b99b5d8f/uploads/2024/07/20240716890312078.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) guarantee equality before the law, prohibit discrimination on the basis of caste, and abolish untouchability. Yet despite these foundational commitments, Indian workplaces have been slow–or typically, outright reluctant–to engage meaningfully with casteism as a form of discrimination. ## "...the intense pushback against caste legislation in California revealed just how fiercely caste hierarchies are protected, even outside of India’s borders." The [caste](https://www.britannica.com/topic/caste-social-differentiation?ref=merionwest.com#ref199452) system in India is a centuries-old social hierarchy that finds its early roots in the ancient [*varna*](https://www.britannica.com/topic/varna-Hinduism?ref=merionwest.com) framework, which broadly divided society into four occupational groups: Brahmins (priests and scholars), Kshatriyas (nobles and warriors), Vaishyas (traders and commoners), and Shudras (servants and laborers). Over time, this framework became more rigid and localized, giving rise to[ *jati*](https://www.britannica.com/topic/jati-Hindu-caste-system?ref=merionwest.com)—thousands of hereditary, endogamous communities that governed social status, occupation, and marriage. While *varna* was an abstract classification, *jati* shaped daily lived experience. (The word *caste* comes from the Portuguese term *casta*, meaning “breed” or “lineage.”) Outside the *varna* system was the so-called “[untouchables](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dalit?ref=merionwest.com),” a group subjected to extreme social ostracism and systemic violence. (Untouchables are also sometimes referred to as Dalits.) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-18-1.png) Indian inclusivity efforts have largely followed a path set by American corporate culture. In the United States, diversity initiatives were shaped by a long history of racial exclusion and the Civil Rights Movement. Across India, companies [imported](https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/hold-the-line-on-dei-a-few-indian-companies-have-embraced-diversity-as-a-principle-prnt/cid/2118586?ref=merionwest.com) the American progressive language of allyship, microaggressions, and inclusion without asking whether it suited the soil it landed on. To be sure, importing ideas from outside cultures is not, by itself, a problem. But what happens when only the veneer of justice is imitated, but not its substance? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The State Sovereignty Question Again Rears Its Head URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-state-sovereignty-question-again-rears-its-head/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:46.000Z In an August speech in downtown Chicago’s River Point Park—flanked by Mayor Brandon Johnson, both United States Senators from Illinois, and numerous local officials—Illinois Governor JB Pritzker [defiantly accused](https://news.wttw.com/2025/08/25/pritzker-vows-stop-trump-sending-national-guard-chicago?ref=merionwest.com) President Donald Trump of "circumventing our democracy." He also demanded “justice under our constitutional rule of law.” In doing so, Governor Pritzker disclosed a fundamental misunderstanding of that Constitution by referring to the “sacred sovereignty of our state.” Illinois is not a sovereign state, nor is Chicago a sovereign city, as the Governor [further asserted](https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/illinois-governor-jb-pritzker-speech-news-conference-full-text-trump/?ref=merionwest.com). States do have rights, under [the Tenth Amendment](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/?ref=merionwest.com) to the Constitution. Crucially, however, there is only one sovereign, and it is the federal government. Governor Pritzker warns against constitutional rights being trampled by “a dangerous power grab.” Governor Pritzker has every right to ask the courts to clarify the constitutional issue, but he alarmingly goes on to urge his fellow governors to rally around his cause of state sovereignty. The ghost of Jefferson Davis emerges once again. It should be clear to Governor Pritzker and all Americans that we fought a civil war to resolve the issue of sovereignty. We should not have to do that again. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-17-1-1.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Dämmerschlaf, or, Twilight Sleep URL: https://www.merionwest.com/dammerschlaf-or-twilight-sleep/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:13.000Z Erin Emily Ann Vance _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What You Could Not Spare URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-you-could-not-spare/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:14.000Z Elle Burroughs _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Let's Teach Young People Hope—Not Doom URL: https://www.merionwest.com/lets-teach-young-people-hope-not-doom/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:47.000Z “Don’t teach your kids to fear the world,” [writes](https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/09/the-best-way-to-teach-kids-about-danger/671310/?ref=merionwest.com) Arthur C. Brooks, public intellectual and happiness researcher at Harvard. “Teaching them that the world is a dangerous place is bad for their health, happiness, and success.” This is a great message for K-12 school educators to remember as they head back to school this year. There is no doubt teachers face a heavy task. They are not only delivering content or raising test scores. They are shaping the hearts and minds of a generation grappling with what can feel like relentless gloom. Turn on the news—or browse the average social studies curriculum—and it is hard to escape the drumbeat of crisis. Climate catastrophe, democratic collapse, political assassinations, economic inequality, racial injustice, mass shootings, mental health epidemics, and disruption from artificial intelligence. The list is long and, for many young people, it is overwhelming. Educators rightly want students to be aware of the world’s problems. But in the process, they may unintentionally teach gloom and despair. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Perennial Allure of Political Violence URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-perennial-allure-of-political-violence/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:48.000Z Following the news from across the Atlantic, I was shocked to learn of the assassination of 31-year-old conservative activist Charlie Kirk, [fatally shot](https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-conservative-activist-shot-546165a8151104e0938a5e085be1e8bd?ref=merionwest.com) during a public debate on a Utah campus on September 10, 2025\. What came as no surprise, however, was that many on the Left derided—or even celebrated—his death. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-10.png) Having once been [part of a radical leftist subculture](https://quillette.com/2020/02/11/my-former-life-as-a-radical/?ref=merionwest.com), I know how often [political violence is glorified](https://www.merionwest.com/understanding-the-mind-of-a-rioter/) and free speech reduced to a one-way street [in a milieu](https://www.merionwest.com/what-punk-rock-has-taught-me-about-the-radical-left/) that prides itself on the credo, “no fascism, no racism, no sexism, no homophobia, no transphobia—no discussion.” Kirk was accused of each of these five modern sins—as defined by his detractors—and, by insisting on debate, embodied the antithesis of that final command. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why Today’s Atheism Requires a Leap of Faith URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-todays-atheism-requires-a-leap-of-faith/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:49.000Z Not long ago, belief in God was dismissed as intellectually naïve—a relic of pre-scientific thinking. Disbelief, by contrast, was seen as the natural outcome of reason and evidence. Today, scientific progress is reshaping that landscape. Paradoxically, it is now the materialist worldview that demands a leap of faith. For much of the 20th century, scientists tended to assume that the universe had always existed, that life could arise spontaneously from inert matter, and that the universe's finely balanced laws were brute facts requiring no further explanation. These assumptions supported a naturalistic view of reality, but more recent scientific breakthroughs challenge this premise. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Alan Dershowitz: On His Magnum Opus, The Preventive State URL: https://www.merionwest.com/alan-dershowitz-on-his-magnum-opus-the-preventive-state/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:41:41.000Z Alan Dershowitz, the famous Harvard Law School professor who just turned 87, published what he considers his magnum opus earlier this year. His 57th book, [*The Preventive State*](https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/the-preventive-state/?srsltid=AfmBOopyM4aefB4Ul7xd2s0nlims40hhmLegAUfX0Xwy9FjlMY8IdeSN&ref=merionwest.com), explores questions he has been grappling with since his 20s. Primarily, Professor Dershowitz seeks to provide a framework societies can use to assess how to reduce harm while also balancing the ensuing risks to liberty. He suggests that there is *always* a trade-off between liberty and security; however, thus far, legal scholars have paid far too little attention to questions in this vein. Peppered throughout the book are also interesting insights—for example, that tough cases make bad precedent–as well as that many popular understandings of the law ought to be reconsidered upon closer examination such as the famous thought experiment about "yelling fire in a crowded movie theater" (from the 1919 Supreme Court case *Schenck v. United States*). In this interview with *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince, Professor Dershowitz observes that this book, despite being likely his most important, has received comparatively little media attention, something he attributes to the fact that he was previously part of President Donald Trump's legal defense team. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Emergency Room URL: https://www.merionwest.com/emergency-room/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:14.000Z Hobs A. Corner _This post is for subscribers only._ ### We Ought Not Tolerate Reckless Driving URL: https://www.merionwest.com/we-ought-not-tolerate-reckless-driving/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:51.000Z Driving from Philadelphia to Margate, New Jersey one Friday afternoon this summer, I was reminded of one of the leading indignities of contemporary American life, or at least such life in the urban areas of the Northeastern United States: drivers who place so little value on the miracle of human life that they are willing to risk high-speed collisions rather than reach their destinations at most a few minutes later. A blue SUV, merging onto the Atlantic City Expressway, rapidly zipped across lanes of traffic to seek the left lane as quickly as possible, and when the car in front of it was moving insufficiently quickly (though still surely ten miles an hour or more above the speed limit), the driver of the blue SUV began honking frantically. Unable to pass on the right due to the volume of shore traffic (as we call it), this maniacal driver tried to see if he could pass on the left via the small patch of asphalt between the edge of the lane and the grassy median. Unable to squeeze his vehicle through without risking toppling into the wildflower gardens (with their origins in Lady Bird Johnson’s Highway Beautification program), he returned to honking like a madman until the driver of the car in front risked collision himself squeezing his way into the lane to the right. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-5.png) If only this were an unusual experience. Just a few days before, my mother reported to the rest of our family that when she was driving on the Schuylkill Expressway in the late afternoon, a severe thunderstorm struck, pelting the highway with near-blinding rain and wind. She slowed down a bit, as is reasonable to do when visibility becomes a challenge. The driver behind her began honking with increasing aggression before joining the lane beside her, gesturing to her with not all five fingers, and then seemingly hurling insults at her that fortunately were not easily deciphered on account of the rainstorm. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### From Austerity to Arms: Europe’s Recurring Escape from Deflationary Paralysis URL: https://www.merionwest.com/from-austerity-to-arms-europes-recurring-escape-from-deflationary-paralysis/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:04:14.000Z On the morning of February 27, 2022, a stunned silence settled over the Bundestag as then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz approached the podium. Only three days earlier, Russian tanks had crossed into Ukraine, shattering post-Cold War security assumptions. Now, in a special session hastily convened in Berlin, Scholz delivered a speech that broke with decades of German policy. “We will now—year after year—invest more than two percent of our gross domestic product in our defense,” he [declared](https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/service/archive/policy-statement-by-olaf-scholz-chancellor-of-the-federal-republic-of-germany-and-member-of-the-german-bundestag-27-february-2022-in-berlin-2008378?ref=merionwest.com). “The goal is a powerful, cutting-edge, progressive Bundeswehr that can be relied upon to protect us.” Television cameras captured Members of Parliament (MPs) exchanging glances; a few covered their mouths, stunned by the Chancellor’s words. Then came the number: a €100 billion [special fund](https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/federal-government/special-fund-federal-armed-forces-2047910?ref=merionwest.com), earmarked for rebuilding Germany’s military. For a country long defined by a degree of postwar pacifism and fiscal restraint, the speech marked something more than a policy pivot. It was a moment of historic reorientation: the “[Zeitenwende](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/zeitenwende-real-time?ref=merionwest.com)”—a turning point—had arrived. Just ten years earlier, in the summer of 2012, amid the lingering fallout of the Eurozone crisis, Berlin had [ruled out](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jun/27/germany-eurozone-eurobond-debt-angela-merkel?ref=merionwest.com) Eurobonds, mutualization of debt, or fiscal expansion. Southern European economies at the time were to liberalize, cut labor costs, minimize public spending, and prove their discipline to global markets. But a rapidly changing geopolitical environment eventually forced even the most rigid assumptions to bend. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-3-1.png) Three years after the Zeitenwende speech, in March of 2025, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, affirmed this policy shift at the European Union (EU) level, by announcing “[ReArmEU](https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence/news/von-der-leyens-rearm-europe-plan-and-the-holes-in-it/?ref=merionwest.com),” quickly [rebranded](https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/03/21/brussels-confirms-rearm-europe-rebrand-after-backlash-from-italy-and-spain?ref=merionwest.com) “Readiness 2030.” It is an €800 billion defense plan for the expansion of Europe’s military capabilities, allowing member states sufficient flexibility to increase their defense budget without triggering excessive fiscal deficit concerns, under certain restrictions. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Not Quite Touching Sestos URL: https://www.merionwest.com/not-quite-touching-sestos/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:15.000Z Alexander David Graham _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why We Should Reacquaint Ourselves with William Blake URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-shoulreacquaint-ourselves-with-william-blake/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:22:15.000Z William Blake, who lived from 1757 to 1827, was born into a world in turmoil, not unlike our own. He was a poet and painter, now often linked with figures from the Romantic movement, including William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ralph Waldo Emerson later [praised Blake for displaying](https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/poetryimag.html?ref=merionwest.com) “abnormal genius.” However, there was barely a year in Blake’s life unspoiled by what, in his long poem, *Vala, or The Four Zoas*, [he called](https://blake.lib.asu.edu/html/the%5Ffour%5Fzoas.html?ref=merionwest.com) “thunder smoke & sullen flame & howling & fury & blood.” In particular, he lived through the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars, which killed untold numbers across Europe and the New World. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-12.png) Life in Britain was marked by strife, too. His hometown of London was the booming heart of the British Empire. New ideas and influences came to England’s capital alongside wealth, and this included religious ideas from India, as well as encounters with Indigenous Americans. These stirred Blake’s interest in alternatives to the deepening materialism of the times, which he saw both in the sense of a growing consumer desire to own material things and in the philosophical sense of perceiving the world to be made, at base, of matter rather than being an expression of divine mind. He witnessed the birth pangs of the modern, plural world, and, moreover, understood what was unfolding—dynamics that are still active today. This is why his genius can help us now. His verse and imagery offer a spiritual analysis of our times that is immensely useful and revolves around a single notion: *imagination*. Understanding the workings of the imagination, Blake says, allows us to appreciate what is happening right before our eyes. Blake perceived that imagination drives all human desires, individually and collectively. What is now manifest was first imagined, he stressed. But while this faculty of inventiveness and inspiration can lead us to great goods, it can also be mistaken and become unwittingly destructive. Consider one of his best-known paintings. [*Newton*](https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-newton-n05058?ref=merionwest.com), which was first completed in 1795, depicts the famous natural philosopher Isaac Newton sitting on a stone seat, bending over a scroll, wielding a pair of compasses. He is drawing geometric shapes that capture the secrets of the universe. And this is an accurate depiction because, in the Georgian period, Newton’s discoveries seemed little short of miraculous. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Published: First Merion West Collection URL: https://www.merionwest.com/published-first-merion-west-collection/ Last updated: 2025-08-29T22:58:44.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Silencing URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-silencing/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:15.000Z Aya Mohamed _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Machiavellian Keir Starmer URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-machiavellian-keir-starmer/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:04:12.000Z In [*The Prince*](https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/machiavelli-the-prince/ACCEE83504D6C76F2D8D93064F20BEF5?ref=merionwest.com#overview), the notorious advice book of 1513, dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the new ruler of Florence, the erstwhile Florentine politician, Niccolò Machiavelli, admonished that “a ruler who wishes to maintain his power must be prepared to act immorally.” Rulers “maintain themselves better if they owe little to luck,” he counseled. Rulers “who have done great things are those who have set little store by keeping their word,” Machiavelli went on. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-14.png) It “is much safer to be feared than loved.” Yet, “a ruler must above all guard against being despised and hated.” To “betray one’s friends, to be treacherous, merciless and irreligious,” according to Machiavelli, “power may be gained by acting in such ways, but not glory.” The people, moreover, “are fickle,” he asserted; “it is easy to persuade them about something, but difficult to keep them persuaded.” “One of the best safeguards that a ruler has against plots,” Machiavelli cautioned, “is not being hated by the people.” The invocation of the concept of an [island of strangers,](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/13/island-of-strangers-speech-echoes-of-past-discordant-voices-over-immigration?ref=merionwest.com) echoing the Conservative and then Ulster Unionist Member of Parliament Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech; “totalitarian discipline," which led to the [suspension of four Members of Parliament](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y7zqdwzqyo?ref=merionwest.com)—Neil Duncan Jordan, Brian Leishman, Chris Hinchliff, and Rachael Maskell—for repeated breaches of the party whips’ instruction; a major policy [U-turn on the winter fuel payment](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglejl656y1o?ref=merionwest.com), which means nine million pensioners in England and Wales with an annual income of £35,000 or less will be eligible; Prime Minister Keir Starmer is a dutifully Machiavellian prime minister. But, with [just 23 percent of Britons having a positive opinion of the Labour Party leader](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52586-political-favourability-ratings-july-2025?ref=merionwest.com) and two-thirds of the public—67 percent—maintaining an unfavorable view of him, Prime Minister Starmer is perhaps not an entirely successful one. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Crepe Myrtles URL: https://www.merionwest.com/crepe-myrtles/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:16.000Z Jeffrey Heath _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Revisiting "The Classical Liberal Case for Israel" URL: https://www.merionwest.com/revisiting-the-classical-liberal-case-for-israel/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:55.000Z *The Classical Liberal Case for Israel* by Walter E. Block and Alan G. Futerman has received considerable attention from Murdoch-owned media companies, [especially *The Wall Street Journal*](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-jews-escaped-their-dismal-fate-zionism-israel-war-gaza-oct-7-persecution-479544f2?ref=merionwest.com), ever since it appeared in 2021\. [This work](https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Liberal-Case-Israel/dp/9811639523?ref=merionwest.com) is written from a passionately pro-Israel perspective, and already in the introduction the reader is overwhelmed by both the praise showered on Israel and the obloquy hurled at its Arab neighbors: "Israel is the most liberal state in the Middle East, surrounded by murderous dictatorships, autocratic regimes, and closed societies that dramatically oppress their citizens and shut down their voices." Moreover, "the Jewish state is the only real free society in the area, respecting private property and all that follows from it. It is innovative and strong *because* it is free." \[Emphasis original\] ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/09/image-13.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Deny Your Surface Self URL: https://www.merionwest.com/deny-your-surface-self/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:17.000Z Michael Zysk _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Who Pays for "Free" Speech? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/who-pays-for-free-speech/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:56.000Z Speech can be free because it does not impose costs on anyone. As long as I obey the law, I should be free to march and protest wherever and whenever I please because no one else needs to pay. Right? Wrong. All of us pay for free speech, and it is not cheap. For example, digital speech depends on infrastructure, such as vast data storage centers. And cooling systems in these data storage centers consume millions of gallons of water per day, at rates often [negotiated](https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2024/05/06/data-centers-are-draining-resources-in-water-stressed-communities/?ref=merionwest.com) below what is paid by ordinary residents. This is a corporate subsidy. Who pays? The public. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Văcărești URL: https://www.merionwest.com/vacaresti/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:17.000Z Michael Scottoline _This post is for subscribers only._ ### I Wake Up Daily Which Cannot Continue Forever. URL: https://www.merionwest.com/i-wake-up-daily-which-cannot-continue-forever/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:18.000Z R.H. Booker _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Engineering Morality in the Age of Driverless Cars URL: https://www.merionwest.com/should-your-tesla-kill-you-or-other-people/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:58:57.000Z I am a philosophy professor tasked with teaching various ethics classes. A staple of introductory ethics is the famous thought experiment known as [the trolley problem](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/trolley-problem-moral-philosophy-ethics?ref=merionwest.com). In the classic scenario, a decision maker is faced with a runaway trolley headed down a track where it will kill five innocent people if he does nothing. However, he can flip a switch that diverts it onto another track, killing just one innocent person instead. There is no time to save everyone—the trolley is too close—so he must decide: allow five people to die, or actively intervene and cause the death of one person. This scenario pits the moral intuition that we should never intentionally kill against the intuition that we ought to save the greatest number of lives possible. Trolley problems have caused countless students (and professors) to sweat over the difficult moral trade-offs they illustrate. One of the most common questions I hear—besides “Is this going to be on the test?”—is about the practical value of these abstract thought experiments. When pressed, moral philosophers usually explain that trolley problems serve as useful tools for testing and refining our ethical intuitions and theories. There is value in that, much like how thought experiments in science help clarify complex ideas. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/08/image-18.png) However, that is still a bit abstract. There is a more practical and immediately relevant reason to take trolley problems seriously: They can help us understand how our self-driving cars should behave in life-or-death situations. In most everyday driving, the question of whom one’s car should kill is not relevant, thankfully. Yet there will be rare but significant instances when a self-driving vehicle must make moral calculations akin to trolley dilemmas. Imagine a scenario in which a self-driving Tesla recognizes that a serious accident is unavoidable. It calculates two possible outcomes: it can crash into pedestrians, killing them but saving the driver; or, it can crash into an obstacle, killing the driver but sparing the pedestrians. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Prison Love Story URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-prison-love-story/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:04:11.000Z I first met my wife in high school, but we fell in love 15 years later when I mistakenly sent Britteni an email meant for my friend's girlfriend. One year later, I proposed to her during what she thought was a surprise birthday party for me. This might be just another “meet-cute” story, except that the proposal happened over a prison video system. (I am the one in prison, serving 63 years for my role in a murder.) Cute and romantic meets crime and punishment. Before describing how Britteni and I have dealt with the many challenges we have faced in loving each other, let us confront the stereotypes about relationships with incarcerated men. What are the men after? Because prisoners are fully human (I hope that is not a controversial statement!), we have the same yearning for intimacy as everyone else. Some prisoners actively search for it by signing up for websites such as [WriteAPrisoner](https://writeaprisoner.com/?ref=merionwest.com) or [Meet-An-Inmate](https://www.meet-an-inmate.com/?ref=merionwest.com), platforms designed to help incarcerated people connect with the outside world. Completing these applications (usually on paper, since most prisoners do not have access to the open Internet) raises the same questions about how to present oneself as on a dating app. Out of fear of sounding too desperate for love, some prisoners say they are “looking for friendship." Others are blunt: "I'm just looking for sex!" I have seen applications like that accompanied by a photograph of a shirtless prisoner, lathered with enough baby oil to make him flammable. That is how Mike—whom I worked with when I was at Washington State Penitentiary, where he is serving a life sentence—found the woman who eventually became his wife. Not the most common way to find love, perhaps, but it worked for him. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How to Write a Poem URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-to-write-a-poem/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:18.000Z Bart Edelman _This post is for subscribers only._ ### While We Were in Motion URL: https://www.merionwest.com/while-we-were-in-motion/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:19.000Z Abigail Michelini _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Year of the Plague: Jake Gardner and the Ghosts of 2020 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/year-of-the-plague-jake-gardner-and-the-ghosts-of-2020/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T17:24:42.000Z > “I want the world to recognize, with me, the open door of every consciousness.” — Frantz Fanon 2020—Year of the Rat. What Nimrod hurled his spear at Heaven? What Pandora cracked the lid for a peek in the box? What rogue planet wandered into our solar backcountry like a rabid bear, bit the leg of Nandi, and put the Pandavas to rout? Did we deserve it? Did we engender it? Did we call it down? Or did it simply happen? And is that distinction also an illusion, a construct of vanity and anxiety, and the childish desire to be both innocent and in control? As the COVID-19 pandemic spread over the globe, it seemed to many only the outward sign of something more fundamentally rotten and astray in the spiritual life of the planet. The dual-origin stories of the virus (was it a wet market? a lab?) merged on the symbolic level to tell the tale of our original sin, our need to probe, screw, and eat every dirty and sacred thing under the sun. A nightmare year. President Trump hunkered in the White House like some great poisonous toad, infected himself, but seemingly immune, as fires consumed the hills, and riots raged in the cities. Theaters and parks stood empty, and fountains ran dry, their stonework graffiti-tagged and scorched, their statues disfigured or torn out. Enmity soared. Men killed each other in the streets. It was the year of George Floyd and Kyle Rittenhouse—names you may have heard. It was also the year of Jake Gardner and James Scurlock—names you may have missed. In May of that wretched year, Jake Gardner killed James Scurlock on a street in Omaha and, shortly thereafter, killed himself. Competing narratives sprang up around their deaths. Gardner—a guilty man who had cheated justice; Scurlock—a second George Floyd. Gardner—victim of a corrupt system hounded into suicide; Scurlock—a thug who courted his own death. The civil authorities seemed more than usually confused on the matter, and Gardner’s death foreclosed the possibility of an official ruling. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Exit Terra URL: https://www.merionwest.com/exit-terra/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:19.000Z Austin Allen James _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Porschegasbord URL: https://www.merionwest.com/porschegasbord/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:20.000Z Jean Noel Ruhland _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Visions of Hell: What One Man Sees in October 7th URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-one-man-understands-october-7th/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:00.000Z Pierre Rehov is a filmmaker, director, and novelist who lives in Ashdod, Israel, which is 20 miles from Gaza. Mr. Rehov is renowned for his coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, with a specific focus on terrorism. His latest documentary, [*Pogrom(s)*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33381706/?ref=merionwest.com), traces the malign forces in Palestine, the Middle East, and the international community that enabled the Hamas-orchestrated terror strikes in the fall of 2023\. His French bestseller, [*Octobre 7 – La Riposte*](https://www.fayard.fr/livre/7-octobre-la-riposte-9782213731407/?ref=merionwest.com) (translating to "response" or "counterattack"), examines that day in further detail. Remarkably, the book also delivered a warning with remarkable accuracy: Israel would inevitably be forced to strike Iran before summer 2025. ## "Now I am waiting for the next stage." In this conversation, *Merion West* contributing editor Jonathan Church and Pierre Rehov discuss the recent war between Israel and Iran, as well as the October 7th attack. *Note from the publisher: the interview has been modified for length and clarity.* **One of the notable themes of the book is your prediction that Israel would have to respond to Iran in the wake of October 7th. Can you begin by talking about the book, what its main themes are, and whether I accurately just described your prediction.** _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### In Search of Dreams URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-search-of-dreams/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:21.000Z Laurie Schreiber _This post is for subscribers only._ ### At the Cardiologist’s URL: https://www.merionwest.com/at-the-cardiologists/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:21.000Z James Kangas _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Mystifying Answers to Magic 8 Ball Questions Regarding Recent Political Events URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mystifying-answers-to-magic-8-ball-questions-regarding-recent-political-events/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:22.000Z Tammy Smith _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Clash and the Quest URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-clash-and-the-quest/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:36.000Z > When first young Maro in his boundless mind > A work t’ outlast immortal Rome design’d, > Perhaps he seem’d above the critic’s law, > And but from Nature’s fountains scorn’d to draw: > But when t’ examine ev’ry part he came, > Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. > **\-Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”** *The Iliad* and *The Odyssey* are not only the alpha and the beta of our literary alphabet; they are its alpha and omega. They are its poles and touchstones. They define its gamut. They constitute, as well, the two most fundamental narrative tropes through which we structure human experience, both personal and historical. *The Iliad* begins with anger (its first word); it is, thus, a dramatization of conflict, a great conflagration and its resolution. It starts after the conflict’s origins and ends before its terminus, but such is inevitably the way with dramas of this sort. Even when the illusions of the conflict’s primeval inception and total resolution are more actively cultivated, as in *The Lord of the Rings* trilogy, the question of what came before and what will come after are inevitable, and if the author can convince us that it does not matter, that death or the happily-ever-after truly ends all, he has fulfilled our expectations. Within such narratives, the central conflict, the “Clash,” is the centerpiece around which all preliminary and subsidiary conflicts are organized. It is the engine that sets the narrative in motion upon the dramatic arc it must traverse in order to arrive at its ultimate destination, which is either a success or a failure of some significant sort (to quote Céline, “There’s an ending to everything. It’s not always death, it’s often something else and possibly worse, especially when there are children”). Chekhov observed that all endings are banal, with stories concluding either in the protagonist’s marriage or else in his death. In a similar vein, Slavoj Žižek has noticed that Hollywood films almost invariably end with the literal or figurative reconciliation of the family in one or another form. If these are overstatements, they do not overshoot the mark by much, at least not as far as conflict literature is concerned. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/07/image-2.png) There are many examples of this type of narrative.From *Paradise Lost* to *Tess of the D’Urbervilles;* Wagner’s *Ring* and most opera libretti; the vast majority of fairy tales and of plays, whether those of the Greek tragedians or Shakespeare or Racine; and nearly all thrillers; mysteries; and other genre fiction, whether horror, fantasy, sci-fi or romance, kids lit, chick lit, lit lite; and the many popular films which bring such and similar tales-in-a-box to the silver screen. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Bad Angel's Home URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bad-angels-home/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:22.000Z Mark J. Mitchell _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Solaria URL: https://www.merionwest.com/solaria/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:23.000Z Valentina Fulginiti _This post is for subscribers only._ ### An Alternate Ending URL: https://www.merionwest.com/an-alternate-ending/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:24.000Z Jonathan Chibuike Ukah _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Gilgandra, 1963 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/gilgandra-1963/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:24.000Z Johnny Elder _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Words Unheard URL: https://www.merionwest.com/words-unheard/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:25.000Z Gene Twaronite _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Senator Lankford's Timely Reminder of the American Ethos URL: https://www.merionwest.com/coming-soon-a-conversation-with-senator-james-lankford/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:02.000Z In November of last year, shortly after Republicans won control of the Senate, as well as the presidency, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma became [vice chair of the](https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4986559-lankford-senate-gop-leadership/?ref=merionwest.com) Senate GOP Policy Committee. Senator Lankford had captured national headlines during the Biden administration for being the lead Republican negotiator on what was presented as a compromise, bipartisan bill to seek to address the border crisis. After receiving considerable flak for his involvement in the bill, including from fellow Republicans, negotiations eventually broke down, [and the bill never passed the Senate](https://oklahomavoice.com/2024/05/24/bipartisan-border-bill-loses-support-fails-procedural-vote-in-u-s-senate/?ref=merionwest.com). Prior to his election to the Senate in 2015, Senator Lankford was a Representative from Oklahoma, placing first in a crowded primary without having previously held office. A former Baptist minister, his Christian faith continues to guide his approach to politics. ## “If you get angry, go mow your neighbor's lawn.” [The book](https://www.amazon.com/Turnaround-Americas-Revival-James-Lankford/dp/1630062901?ref=merionwest.com) that is the subject of this interview, *Turnaround: America's Revival*, took him three years to write. And though it could be interpreted as an homage to President Trump's proclaimed ["Golden Age of America,"](https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/03/sunday-shows-the-golden-age-of-america-is-here/?ref=merionwest.com) as the senator notes in this interview, he was writing it when it was just as possible that then-Vice President Kamala Harris would be elected to the presidency. Amid a precipitous divergence of reported [national pride](https://news.gallup.com/poll/692150/american-pride-slips-new-low.aspx?ref=merionwest.com) along political party lines, Senator Lankford consistently advocates a grounded patriotism, no matter which party happens to be in control of Washington, D.C. at a given time. In the following conversation with *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince, the senator discusses a few themes: getting involved in one's community, whether an elected official or otherwise; a reverence for the country's founding and Constitution; and, when possible, setting aside the rancor to work on difficult, seemingly intractable problems. He also opens up about what he learned from being at the center of the controversy surrounding the immigration bill, as well as some general comments about the early days of President Trump's second term. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### When Therapy Fails Artists URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-therapy-fails-artists/ Last updated: 2025-07-04T19:28:44.000Z What kind of art should creatives make in charged or dangerous times? In 2013, my mental health suffered, and I had to see a professional. I told the therapist that I could no longer write the same poems, no longer rehearse them, or even perform them in public. I was suffering from panic attacks, which meant that I could not breathe easily, and I was riddled with anxiety. The slam poems I performed at the time were competitive in nature, so I risked public failure at every event. The audience’s response was immediate, with people either snapping their fingers or hissing their disapproval. For the first time in my life, I found myself dreading all my upcoming obligations. I shared these concerns with my therapist. “Maybe you don’t have to be a poet,” she said. Maybe, she explained, I was already accomplished enough and did not need to participate in another competition. Maybe I did not need to push myself and should prioritize rest. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/07/lighthouse.png) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Summer in the Mountains URL: https://www.merionwest.com/summer-in-the/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:25.000Z Ray Greenblatt _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Enduring Question at the Heart of Gone with the Wind URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-enduring-question-at-the-heart-of-gone-with-the-wind/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:22:17.000Z Margaret Mitchell’s [1936 novel](https://www.amazon.com/Gone-Wind-Margaret-Mitchell/dp/1416548947?ref=merionwest.com) *Gone with the Wind* is many things: a sweeping historical romance, a portrait of the American South that many consider controversial, and a narrative [often entangled in](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-17/canceling-gone-with-the-wind-censorship-slippery-slope?ref=merionwest.com) debates about nostalgia, race, and ideology. These conversations, though important, have often obscured a subtler philosophical current. For all its romance and war-drum thunder, the novel remembers something many of us would rather forget: That surviving is not the same as living, and living is not always a virtue when the corn will not grow. This largely overlooked theme—articulated most powerfully through the contrasting figures of Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilkes—speaks not only to the nature of personal virtue but also to broader civilizational questions. In particular, it maps onto a recurring dichotomy in modern discourse: the divide between science and art, between problem-solving and meaning-making. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/06/image-7-1.png) At its core, *Gone with the Wind* presents two visions of virtue. Scarlett O’Hara gets called many things—some not fit to print—but she survives. She claws and scrapes and breaks where she has to, and when the war swallows up all the lace and laughter of her world, she puts on boots and goes to work. There is a kind of holiness in that. It is not pretty, not refined. But it keeps the stove warm. And then there is Ashley Wilkes, full of poetry and sighs. He belongs to the world that used to be—the one with music after dinner and hands that never knew what a plow felt like. He walks through the ashes of the old world carrying a book of verses and no map for the new one. He is hopelessly ill-equipped for the post-war South but remains tethered to a disappearing sense of gentility. The central tragedy of the novel is not the fall of the Confederacy but, instead, the realization that survival and beauty, when divorced from one another, become mutually impoverished. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Haberdasher URL: https://www.merionwest.com/haberdasher/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:26.000Z Austin Allen James _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What an Exiled 19th-Century Economist's Letters Tell Us about the Tariff Debate URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-an-exiled-19th-century-economists-letters-tells-us-about-the-tariff-debate/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:03.000Z In 1827, Friedrich List was living in Reading, Pennsylvania. The German civil service reformer, professor, journalist, and sometime entrepreneur had previously been imprisoned in his home country for comments he made in a leaflet he circulated while serving as a member of the General Assembly in Württemberg. After serving five months of his ten-month sentence, he had accepted banishment in lieu of serving out the remainder and ultimately decided to move to the United States. In July of that year, he began writing a series of letters to Charles J. Ingersoll, the United States District Attorney for Pennsylvania and the vice president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and the Mechanic Arts. These letters would, with their author’s permission, be published in the Philadelphia *National Gazette* and would also circulate as a pamphlet under the title [*Outlines of American Political Economy*](https://archive.org/details/outlinesofameric00list). The Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Manufactures and the Mechanic Arts had been established in order to promote American industry and advocated for, among other things, high tariffs on imports. In writing to Ingersoll, List was essentially preaching to the choir. He had been rather impressed by their recent talks and addresses, but he nevertheless believed that what he saw as the fundamental errors of the Society’s ideological opponents—errors inherited from such eminent authorities as Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say—were not sufficiently understood. ## "...the elitist versus populist character of the debate is not entirely new, and neither is the dogmatism sometimes encountered in arguments for free trade." He thus sought, through a series of letters, to provide a refutation of the standard arguments for free trade. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Four Questions to Ask Before Using Artificial Intelligence URL: https://www.merionwest.com/four-questions-to-ask-before-using-artificial-intelligence/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:04.000Z By now, generative artificial intelligence, or AI, appears to be woven into most aspects of modern life. Whether one has opted in or not to the new suite of software, it will be to our benefit, we are told. Already, Microsoft’s AI tool Copilot is integrated into various applications as a “[companion to inform, entertain, and inspire](https://copilot.microsoft.com/?ref=merionwest.com).” Users of Android phones can access AI Mode, which [Google advertises](https://search.google/ways-to-search/ai-mode/?utm%5Fsource=ai.google&utm%5Fmedium=referral) as doing “the heavy lifting.” Apple [advertises its iPhone 16](https://www.apple.com/iphone-16/?ref=merionwest.com) as “built for Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that helps you write, express yourself, and get things done effortlessly.” These flashy applications promise to make all that we do so much easier, faster, and cheaper. Yet we should not simply assume that faster and cheaper is always better. We can pause and ask: Will using this AI tool really make one’s life better? One does not have to be a philosophy professor like me to want to know the answer. AI appears poised to disrupt sectors as varied as education, healthcare, and long-haul trucking. The question urgently needs asking. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Mother-in-Law URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mother-in-law/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:26.000Z Linda Martin _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Supreme Court Takes a Welcome Stand against Reverse Discrimination URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-supreme-court-takes-a-welcome-stand-against-reverse-discrimination/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:43:34.000Z In what seems like another chapter in the “[great un-awokening](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/07/great-unawokening-2028-presidential-candidates-00393376?ref=merionwest.com)” currently unfolding in America, the Supreme Court of the United States recently [decided](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/us/politics/supreme-court-straight-woman-workplace-discrimination.html?ref=merionwest.com) in favor of a white woman who sued her employer for job discrimination. In a welcome development, the Court determined that it was not necessary for a straight white woman, or anyone else from a “majority group” who sues an employer for discrimination, first to prove that the employer’s hiring preferences were intrinsically biased against members of a majority group. The plaintiff needs only to prove that discrimination occurred, without jumping through the additional hoop of proving that the employer had a pre-existing propensity to discriminate against members of a majority group. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/06/image-4.png) In the ethos of social justice activism over the last ten years, it felt almost sacrilegious to suggest that a straight white man (or woman) could be a victim of discrimination. More generally, in America and in Western societies as a whole, it often seemed that, in the minds of social justice activists, it was virtually inconceivable that a white person could be the victim of discrimination by a hiring manager who was a person of color; that a man could be the victim of sexual harassment by a female boss; that a Christian community could be the victim of discriminatory policies promoted by a Muslim political leader; or that a straight man or woman could find himself or herself marginalized in a community of people who identified as gay or transgender. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Stealing Baby Jesus URL: https://www.merionwest.com/stealing-baby-jesus/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:27.000Z > The headline in today’s *Inquirer* > shocked me to my very soul: “Baby Jesus > Stolen from the Shrine of St. John Neumann,” > Northern Liberties neighborhood, > Fifth Street & Girard. In broad daylight, too. > Okay, it was only a plaster figurine, > not expensive, though very much beloved— > according to the shrine’s director— > there among the sainted bishop’s > Bibles, vestments, and eyeglasses. > Criminy! Is nothing sacred anymore? > Only last week, a gold crown was stolen > from a statue of the Virgin Mary > in a Center City Roman Catholic Church. > It’s getting so you don’t know who to trust. > But a gold crown at least makes fiscal sense. > Gold is gold, after all. It’s got real value: > pawn it, maybe sell it on the street, > buy yourself a quart of Thunderbird wine, > a spoonful of smack, a hit of crack. > But a plaster Baby Jesus? I mean > let’s get real. What are you supposed to do > with a plaster Baby Jesus? Bounce it > on your knee? Play peek-a-boo I-see-you? > A sin. A sacrilege. And all for what? ### *W. D. Ehrhart has authored or edited a number of collections of poetry and prose, most recently* [*Thank You for Your Service: Collected Poems*](https://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Your-Service-Collected/dp/1476678537?ref=merionwest.com) *and* [*What We Can and Can’t Afford: Essays on Vietnam, Patriotism, and American Life*](https://www.amazon.com/What-Can-Cant-Afford-Patriotism/dp/1476692203?ref=merionwest.com)*, both from McFarland & Company, Inc. He holds a Ph.D. from University of Wales at Swansea and taught at The Haverford School in Pennsylvania from 2001 to 2019.* ### The Movement James Burnham Began URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-movement-james-burnham-began/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:22:18.000Z James Burnham, who lived from 1905 to 1987, began his intellectual career as a disciple of Leon Trotsky and ended it as William F. Buckley’s mentor at *National Review*. He influenced figures from George Orwell to President Ronald Reagan, from C. Wright Mills to Senator Barry Goldwater. More recently, Burnham has been called an embryonic neoconservative and a proto-Trumpist. Both assessments are correct. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/06/image-3.png) Burnham’s intellectual odyssey began during the Great Depression, when he became a trusted follower of Leon Trotsky. In dozens of articles for socialist newspapers, he demanded the overthrow of the ["imperialist"](https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/burnham/1939/09/theirgov3.htm?ref=merionwest.com) government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, insisting that it merely advanced the interests of the economic elite. Burnham believed justice could only be brought to America through a revolution that displaced its ruling class. Burnham began questioning Marxism in the late 1930s in the wake of Joseph Stalin’s purges. The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Soviet invasion of Poland further eroded his faith. He pivoted by challenging Trotsky’s assumption that the Soviet Union was a state for the working class and openly disavowed Marxist concepts like the dialectic, the unity of opposites, and the inevitable victory of the proletariat. Stalin was not the problem in the Soviet Union, he wrote. Marxism was. Trotsky fired back. Consistent with ideas he had presented in his classic 1937 work *The Revolution Betrayed*, Trotsky refused to fault Marxism. The revolutionary declared that Stalin and his bureaucratic clique had perverted the revolution. Not persuaded, Burnham [left](https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/burnham/1940/05/resignation.htm?ref=merionwest.com) the Marxist movement in May of 1940. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ice Skating on Lake Estancia URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ice-skating-on-lake-estancia/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:38.000Z Sara Fitzpatrick _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Shahuhude (Foolish) URL: https://www.merionwest.com/shahuhude-foolish/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:28.000Z Ihor Pidhainy _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Rousseau, the Letter Writer URL: https://www.merionwest.com/rousseau-the-letter-writer/ Last updated: 2025-06-03T15:35:20.000Z Once upon a time people solved the problem of how to converse with those far away by setting pen to paper to write a letter that would, in due course, be delivered and savored before being answered. In the 17th and 18th centuries, among the luminaries of such centers of intellectual life as Amsterdam, Paris, London, Vienna, and Rome, correspondence was the foundation of the "Republic of Letters." _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Teacher Retires URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-teacher-retires/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:29.000Z Deborah Bailey _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Manifesto Against Manifestos URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-manifesto-against-manifestos/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T05:30:37.000Z Manifestos are short-lived documents at critical junctures to rouse a self-described poetic group to action and to separate it from other self-described groups trying to do the same. This separation seems to clarify everyone’s minds as they enter into elective affinities, publishing and publicizing each other’s work, also nourishing the hope that they will knock their opponents out of contention, heralding their own arrival on the scene. They need opposition in order to prosper, and for that enemy’s existence, they should indeed be thankful. Classicists need modernists and poststructuralists need structuralists in the same way that darkness defines sunlight. In this analogy, which is shadow, and which is light? It depends where one is sitting. In either case, the principles each group defines to be eternal turn out over time to be contingent, therefore subject to change as new movements come along and new manifestos are written. This is true even when a movement hearkens to the past and insists that its principles are eternal, having always been the truth. We create our own precursors to the extent that we need them and worship their ways. Or else we claim to be completely novel, without ancestors, disruptors simply breaking the mold. However, over time, grand, universal statements start to sound more and more like position papers and the latter, at a remove of some years, read as either quaint or tedious—as yesterday’s news. In 1821, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” I happen to agree with him, but what that claim means to me might not mean the same as it does to another. We might both believe it for different or even opposite reasons. That is why we are all arguing about such pregnant phrases, because everybody wants a crack at describing or even prescribing what everybody else ought to be doing when they sit down to write a poem, and also what they ought not to be doing. Manifestos, [like Martin Luther’s famous theses](https://www.britannica.com/event/Ninety-five-Theses?ref=merionwest.com), often require strict devotion, groupthink, and inner repentance from perceived aesthetic sins, otherwise a poet is cast into outer darkness. They are ultimately less foundational philosophy than they are dogma, always already in practice, meant to call out the wrongdoing of others—in this case, one’s poetic competitors. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Sound of Silence URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-sound-of-silence/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:29.000Z Will Diggs _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Like a Rock URL: https://www.merionwest.com/like-a-rock/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:30.000Z Rebecca Clifford _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Cheers URL: https://www.merionwest.com/cheers/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:30.000Z Christine Potter _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Unfair Safety Net for Success URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-unfair-safety-net-for-success/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:39.000Z If the 1950s quiz show scandals taught us anything, it is that the "winners" of these rigged spectacles were—ironically—already knowledgeable and astute. Each had been thoroughly vetted and [tested](https://www.ripleys.com/stories/the-quiz-show-rigging-scandal?ref=merionwest.com) on their comprehension across a wide range of topics. Many of these winners—among them former child prodigies and [university instructors](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/quizshow-charles-van-doren/?ref=merionwest.com)—could have advanced quite far on their own, though reaching the top would have been debatable. Cheating in such cases was less about lacking the answers and more about eliminating any chance of failure. With a safety net in place for each subsequent question, there was no room for mistakes—no suspense or second-guessing. While testimony before the United States Congress resolved the quiz show scandals (and [amended](https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2024/04/considering-history-lessons-we-can-learn-from-the-quiz-show-scandals/?ref=merionwest.com) [the](https://uslaw.link/citation/us-law/public/86/752?ref=merionwest.com) Communications Act of 1934), similar critiques of favoritism in corporate jobs and elite college admissions suggest a comparable reckoning may be near. Like the pre-selected winners on 1950s quiz shows, wealthy families have relied on what can be considered crutches to help get their children into college and the job market. These crutches are measures that ensure rejection never touches their children, even if they are skilled and credentialed. For entry into the most prestigious colleges, well-padded transcripts and intelligence alone are not enough. As college admissions involve [qualitative factors](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/democratizing-elitism/?ref=merionwest.com)—not to mention an element of luck—these crutches prove useful. Positions in high finance and government have become more coveted by recent graduates, with [degree inflation](https://www.vox.com/policy/23628627/degree-inflation-college-bacheors-stars-labor-worker-paper-ceiling?ref=merionwest.com) driving this trend as more master's degrees are awarded. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Endless Vitality of "Ode to the West Wind" URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-endless-vitality-of-ode-to-the-west-wind/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:41.000Z Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1819 work [“Ode to the West Wind”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45134/ode-to-the-west-wind?ref=merionwest.com) endures through sheer vitality in the English language. The verses are capacious yet offer great speed. His creation sports exuberance, while the formal control of its terza rima keeps the cataract of breathless euphoria from turning to a gushing waterfall. This ode still shows contemporary poets how to court magnitude of effect, without grandstanding. Poets could and should examine this ode to learn how to go full throttle into sublimity, without trivializing genuine rapture. **I** O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! The simile in line four imbues the wind with an enchanter’s magic, dead leaves “fleeing” straight into the second stanza. The wind’s breath brings life to winged seeds, which portend the poet’s rebirth into a higher consciousness. Commas, conjunctions, and line breaks simulate the whirling rush and settling of the leaves and seeds, as they sweep and sail along the metered fields and skies. Shelley moves with ease from the infinitesimal to “multitudes,” and from there opens quickly to the “dreaming earth” itself. Figuring each seed as a “corpse” to be reawakened lends this immortal poem an almost ghoulish vivacity. One cannot easily forget, tracking the spell of individual images, that Shelley consistently supplies grit and bite. For every "aëry" there is a "wintry." **II** Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread On the blue surface of thine aëry surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith’s height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear! In a critique of postmodernism’s insistence that everything is surface,[ Alan Liu](https://liu.english.ucsb.edu/local-transcendence-cultural-criticism-postmodernism-and-the-romanticism-of-detail/?ref=merionwest.com), meditating on William Wordsworth’s *The Prelude* alongside William Gibson’s *Neuromancer,* tries to find a critical idiom apt for mediation between the worldly and the otherworldly. He insists that “transcendence is recuperated within the banal-the denotative banal of commonplace experience.” That gives us hope that the ode, as a form, today allows us to examine the ordinary, but do more than regurgitate Pablo Neruda’s odes to his socks. Shelley shook the foundations of the ode as ceremonial when he composed his radical “Ode to the West Wind.” This poem of beauty is driven by a guerrilla spirit. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### At Woodlawn URL: https://www.merionwest.com/at-woodlawn/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T22:24:31.000Z Elijah Perseus Blumov _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### As I Think about Pope Francis URL: https://www.merionwest.com/as-i-think-about-pope-francis/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:40.000Z As someone who is a traditionalist Catholic in terms of the liturgy (I love Latin, candles, novenas, sacramentals, and communion at the railing and on the tongue), I have had some trouble with the Catholic Church, not with the late Pope Francis so much as with the Church’s cynical lust to be “relevant.” To me, Church authorities forgot that sometimes, one of the best answers to suffering is majesty. They had the Frankfurt School philosopher [Theodor Adorno](https://iep.utm.edu/adorno/?ref=merionwest.com) rolling over in his grave by dumping some of the most sublime sacred music for ersatz folk rock. I agreed with Pope Benedict XVI on that principle, and I find false humility (an intentional down-playing of majesty for the sake of being “just folks”) to be dangerously close to the sin of pride. I thought Church authorities underestimated the need for the sublime, for something greater than the ordinary “just folks” aesthetic. I am old enough to have taken my first communion in a church that still had high masses in Latin. Bring them back. In terms of “the poor,” the broken, those who are outcast, who do not fit in with a middle-class poster for Catholic family values, I have a great love. So, my Catholic faith pleases neither conservatives nor liberals (and I really confuse moderates). I am happy not to please anyone. To me, belief is the cross itself, and the cross remains a scandal under the signs of both lowliness and majesty. Both are absolutely necessary. It is in this contradiction that I weigh Pope Francis. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/05/image-2.png) He flunked for me as someone who could have reconciled himself to the fact that he was not a parish priest. He tried so hard to symbolize a pope who was just a parish priest. I think he did this out of a true desire to be humble, but I do not think it escaped the performative. This often annoyed me. It annoyed me the way priests on brochures often take photo-ops with developmentally disabled children—especially kids with Down syndrome. I had a brother who was brain damaged. I never saw a priest within one hundred yards of him. The picture was not the reality. The church doors remained locked to vagrants all over the world. My own children, who have autism and are developmentally disabled, were called a disruption at a Mass, and I was asked by one unsympathetic person not to bring my daughter to church. So, when I saw the pope kissing babies (so to speak), my heart grew antsy. Much of this was my own experiential hurt over the distance between what my Lord, Jesus Christ, wanted, and what middle-class propriety endorses. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why America? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-america/ Last updated: 2025-05-12T16:36:37.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2024/12/1980s-statue-of-liberty-and-twin-towers-vintage-images-1-1.jpg) In 1979, my parents and maternal grandparents came to New York as refugees from communism from the former Soviet Union, from that ever-overcast northern city where the Neva River meets the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea, memorialized as the miasma-beset protagonist of Andrei Bely’s *Petersburg*, and which, in our time there, bore the nation’s founder’s holy name. My parents and grandparents brought with them in tow a few possessions—some clothing, jewelry, photo albums and the like—the four-year-old me, and a grand total of $300, the maximum you were permitted to take with you when you left back in those days. My family was educated. My grandfather was a dentist, my grandmother a teacher. My mother had a degree in British history, while my father was working on his Ph.D. dissertation in psychology. My grandparents, especially, lived a comfortable life, with a spacious apartment in the very center of the city. Why, then, did we flee? Why would my parents and grandparents leave behind everything and everyone they had ever known, their culture and heritage, their apartments and their lifetimes of cherished, accumulated objects for a country where they knew no one, where their degrees and skills would be of little use, where unfamiliar words would be mashed together and left to bound around in what sounded, to the earthy Slavic ear tuned to the patter of plosives and hiss of fricatives, like so many thick, plucked strings echoing out their facile twang? _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Three Haiku URL: https://www.merionwest.com/three-haiku/ Last updated: 2025-05-12T17:36:09.000Z The curved universe reflected in this puddle Let us break our stride _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Discarded URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-discarded/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:35.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Sponsored · An Apology from Trump’s America URL: https://www.merionwest.com/where-free-speech-turns-fractious-tony-d-senatores-bold-new-book/ Last updated: 2025-05-27T14:48:24.000Z ![Where Free Speech Turns Fractious book cover](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2025/05/image-1-1.png) ## NEW BOOK: *Where Free Speech Turns Fractious* > If you're having trouble falling asleep, **DO NOT READ** this book… it turns the tables on every assumption and keeps you wide awake. — Walter Block, Ph.D. #### Excerpt from the book: > "Are you suggesting Nazi Germany could not be judged simply because it had its own standards and values? When it comes to justice and human rights, humanity cries out in judgment—and each of us has a duty to speak." - [Read the excerpt »](#) - [Order the book today »](https://www.amazon.com/Apology-Trumps-America-Tony-Senatore/dp/1783243678/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=2C0ZYUKWJC7TW&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QVct%5F-tA6CNPC2Wj-V6-2A.XYRWdbsZFUwZ3cuMAXy4Lj3iT7FxMl3fo74fDnNHorA&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=an+apology+from+trump%27s+america&qid=1748301428&s=books&sprefix=an+apology+from+trump%27s+america%2Cstripbooks%2C191&sr=1-1&ref=merionwest.com) #### About the Author ### Tony D. Senatore is a musician and journalist who graduated from Columbia University in 2017 at age 55\. Tony has released the world's first commercially available instructional DVD dealing with all aspects of the 12-string bass guitar with his 12-String Bass X-Ploration DVD, which was released in 2007\. Tony was the house bassist at The Barber Shop Studios under the direction of the late Jason Corsaro since 1993, and released a highly acclaimed solo album titled Holyland in 2005\. Tony periodically writes from *Merion West* and maintains a blog at *The Times of Israel.* × Excerpt from *An Apology from Trump's America* **About the Book:** This book is neither an apology from individuals who voted for President Trump nor a defense of his presidency's virtues. The main argument is that although free speech is the cornerstone of a free society, sometimes too much freedom has a corrosive effect on society, especially when those we elect to govern fail us and media outlets obfuscate truth by dividing people. An open dialogue with the people we disagree with most is Socrates' best wisdom. As we learned from him over two thousand years ago, we must realize that we don't have all the answers, and we need to learn how to ask all the right questions, and to have the courage to act upon what we hear, even when it conflicts with long-standing beliefs. **\[Professor\]** I disagree that a universal form of justice and morality is knowable with absolute certainty, as are rectangle, square, or triangle forms. One culture is not better than another; it is merely different. Every society, from primitive to advanced, is unique, and no outside, universal standard can be used to evaluate them. Cultures evolved in their own ways and their own regions and periods. Moreover, concepts of morality and justice vary, depending on the culture and the individual, and the idea of absolute ethics is impossible. I find it surprising that someone who refers to herself as a feminist and a supporter of the LGBT community and BLM could make such a claim and support countries and regimes that go against all you hold sacred while disparaging a nation and a system that best reflects the type of world you aspire towards. Tolerance and fence-sitting are in vogue today and might benefit your career at Columbia, but I think you're doing a disservice to your education by holding such views. The apparent drawback to your moral and ethical relativism is exposed "writ large," as Plato would say, with the rise of Nazi Germany and the work and extermination camps in which millions of Jews were tortured and murdered. Are you suggesting that Nazi Germany could not be judged because it was unique and evolved in its own way with its standards and values? The record of history is crystal clear that humanity cried out in the judgment of the Nazis. Of course, moral and ethical relativists get around my point by minimizing the Holocaust, or worse, asserting that it ever happened. Nevertheless, when it comes to justice and human rights, human beings share universal human standards, and individuals have a moral responsibility to judge and speak out when these rights are violated or denied. ### Villanelle for Stronghold Table and Daydream URL: https://www.merionwest.com/villanelle-for-stronghold-table-and-daydream/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:44.000Z “Prairie dogs call through the murmuring grass,/mimicking history—its rhythmic drum beats—/and resurrecting Wodziwob’s sacred chants.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why I’m Running for Governor of California URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-im-running-for-governor-of-california/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:09.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_7152.jpg) (Zoltan Istvan) > I want to save California and America from the dangers of artificial intelligence. Something is desperately wrong in California. Whether it is the spectacle of homeless people wandering the streets, wildfires razing entire towns, blatant crime in our cities, or sky-high costs to find housing, California has become a dystopia. And, now, looming above all that is the artificial intelligence (AI) crisis coming to take the jobs people have. California is my birthplace and home, as well as the state where my wife and I raise our two young daughters. However, over the past decade, I have angrily watched this state flounder and become almost unlivable. This is why today I am announcing my run for California Governor in the 2026 election. I cannot stand by and watch this beautiful state go to ruin. As a Democrat, my policies are markedly different from the other candidates running, as is my resume. I am not a lawyer, bureaucrat, or a career-minded politician, and I am definitely not some woke idealist. I am one of the world’s most accomplished futurists. My work has ranged from speaking at the [World Bank](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151127-meet-zoltan-the-strangest-candidate-running-for-president?ref=merionwest.com) to consulting for the [United States Armed Forces](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3645171/Is-Navy-planning-implant-people-microchips-Officials-consult-Presidential-candidate-merging-humans-machines.html?ref=merionwest.com) to appearing on [*The Joe Rogan Experience*](https://open.spotify.com/episode/283GjD7oqqgHjopWyaCdxq?ref=merionwest.com) to being a [correspondent](https://zoltanistvan.com/national-geographic/?ref=merionwest.com) for *The New York Times*. And much of that work has been about reshaping what the American Dream is, and what it can become—especially through the use of innovative ideas and technology. California needs more than a new vision: It needs a reset. So does America for that matter. Because if you think the chaos, division, and instability over the last decade have been intense, it is nothing compared to what AI is going to do over the next five years. There is a distinct possibility that nearly half of Californian and American jobs will be lost by [2030.](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages?ref=merionwest.com) And many of those remaining jobs will disappear by 2035\. Robots nearly as agile as Olympic gymnasts are on schedule to be mass produced [next year](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teslas-optimus-robots-enter-mass-101736202.html?ref=merionwest.com). AI—almost as intelligent as any human—is in training as we speak. By [2027,](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teslas-optimus-robots-enter-mass-101736202.html?ref=merionwest.com) AI robots will be significantly smarter and more functional than most of us. These are no longer just far-fetched opinions. Many experts worry that this is our certain future. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Indigo Goodbyes URL: https://www.merionwest.com/indigo-goodbyes/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:16.000Z “in a vale of blue orchid gowns/sewn with bachelor buttons/in lavender blue fields” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Undoing Civilization: The Degeneracy of America’s Political Elites URL: https://www.merionwest.com/undoing-civilization-the-degeneracy-of-americas-political-elites/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:10.000Z > “With Vice President Vance as President Trump’s heir apparent, it is difficult to envision a restoration of principled conservatism any time soon. Meanwhile, the country’s political class is plagued by general senescence and by kakistocracy among the younger politicians (think Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez).” In October of 2024, conservative pundit Ben Shapiro [offered](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43ya3SD3XqI&ref=merionwest.com) an interesting observation about the American presidential election of 2000\. In the final days of the campaign, the big bombshell had been the revelation of then-candidate George W. Bush’s [arrest for](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/11/03/bush-acknowledges-1976-dui-arrest/e9adcf3b-f0d7-4ce8-8b54-304e1545f500/?ref=merionwest.com) drunk driving in 1976\. “Can we just point out what an innocent country this was?” remarked Shapiro. “Seriously, \[in\] the year 2000, the biggest scandal they could drop on George W. Bush \[was\] that, like, twenty years prior, he’d had a DWI.” Shapiro went on to juxtapose that episode with the widespread indifference to Minnesota Governor [Tim Walz’s drunk driving arrest](https://apnews.com/article/tim-walz-drunken-driving-arrest-kamala-harris-b2ffe73963e0dbf9c804697e2831753e?ref=merionwest.com) and [unseemly allegations against](https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/harris-husband-doug-emhoffs-controversies-take-centre-stage-on-bill-mahers-show-he-definitely-knocked-up-101729225570288.html?ref=merionwest.com) First Gentleman Doug Emhoff. Conversely, the story of Governor Bush’s drunk driving had “tighten\[ed\] the polls fairly significantly.” Predictably, Shapiro picked only Democrats to contrast with President Bush’s relative upstandingness and utterly ignored how current President Donald Trump and his entourage contribute to the decay of civil society in America. Of course, so do former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and other recent Democratic leaders. But the Trump team is arguably more brazen in its disregard for the norms of respectful civil discourse and honorable behavior. Its members show a serious lack of impulse control, foresight, and moral restraint. Plenty has already been written about why the Trump administration’s policy on the war in Ukraine has been [obtuse,](https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/what-did-trump-just-say-about-ukraine-what/?ref=merionwest.com) [malicious,](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/heavy-russian-strikes-kill-more-than-20-people-in-ukraine-as-u-s-withholds-intelligence?ref=merionwest.com) and a betrayal of the [Budapest Memorandum](https://theconversation.com/thirty-years-ago-ukrainians-got-rid-of-their-nuclear-arsenal-now-most-of-them-regret-that-decision-251733?ref=merionwest.com). However, one detail in particular stands out. Following his disgraceful meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, President Trump justified his confrontational stance toward Kyiv by [saying](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dejydynngo?ref=merionwest.com) that President Zelenskyy “feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage; I want peace.” Exactly. President Trump does not want to ensure that any peace achieved be durable, nor that it leave the Free World in the strongest possible position. He wants to make the problem go away as swiftly and easily as possible and thinks it is easier to browbeat an ally into submission than to defeat an enemy. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Fieldnotes: Annie Christain’s “The Vanguards of Holography” and Caroline Harper New’s “A History of Half-Birds” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/fieldnotes-on-the-love-songs-of-whales-annie-christains-the-vanguards-of-holography-and-caroline-harper-news-a-history-of-half-birds/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T05:04:48.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/9366917648_19563ce37a_b.jpg) (Eric Heupel) > “There is a sense of preparation through formal and informal erudition, meant to complicate what it means to write adequately about natural and human worlds, with fewer donnéees and more of a sense of a non-human cosmos, one of manatees and marsupials, in which each creature’s essence is not given to us easily.” Are some words more poetic than others? Is *cloud* more so than *wrench*? Or is it simply a matter of context? *Wrench,* for instance, can be a tool, as with a socket wrench; then again, we may speak of a *heart-wrenching experience.* Does the latter case move us further toward the emotional, therefore lyrical, realm of experience? Then again, the phrase *he assaulted me with a lug wrench* even with its strict denotation, immediately evokes the sensation of fear and anguish, possibly remorse on the part of the one who assaulted, therefore its acception resonates as emotional. Which in turn lends to its easy cooptation into a simile. *He laid into my soul as with a wrench;* *left hand upraised, he lectured me nonstop.* *He treated me like prey, ate me like lunch* *moved like a storm made of ten million drops.* Placing such a word within an iambic pentameter quatrain, and pairing it with an off rhyme, as well as tangling it up with a sonic landscape of consonance and assonance, transforms an ordinary, workaday word into a “poetic” word. Thus, we get plainspoken poets like Philip Levine, a writer who wants to draw from the well of plain speech, and generally refrains from basting it with varnish, relying on the premise that how people speak and think in everyday life is good enough, without reaching for the thesaurus. In his [“Blasting From Heaven,”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48479/blasting-from-heaven?ref=merionwest.com) we get the familiar scene of a mother coaxing her stubborn child to eat her bland lunch. Milk and relish and a hard bun that comes off like a hat—a kid’s life is a cinch. This question of what language is available for poetry and what not extends beyond individual words and phrases into the general material from which we draw poetic inspiration. Romantic poetry is associated with being in touch with nature and consequent deep feeling. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s [“The Cloud”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45117/the-cloud-56d2247bf4112?ref=merionwest.com) begins thus: I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. Showers and flowers; seas and streams and dreams. This is the stuff familiar to any high schooler who wrote a love poem and needed some easy imagistic equivalents for the feelings moiling inside. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Non-Binary Runner Phenomenon URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-non-binary-runner-phenomenon/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:54:38.000Z > “However, for me, as a lifelong runner who has logged 10,000 miles on American roads in the past 10 years and who has competed in dozens of races from the 5K to the marathon since 2004, I disagree with Fedorowski. Adding a non-binary category to road racing is misguided and counterproductive.” As Maine’s Governor, Janet Mills, [battles](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy48r02zrpvo?ref=merionwest.com) the United States Department of Justice over the inclusion of biological boys in girls’ sports, another development in the cultural battle over identity has flown comparatively under the radar: the establishment of a third gender category in American long-distance running. In recent years, organizers of more than [200 road races](https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a41233893/non-binary-categories-major-marathons/?ref=merionwest.com) have now included a “non-binary” option in addition to the traditional male/female divisions. “For those who are not cisgender, competing in an environment that does not affirm their identity is not only a safety concern, but also adds unnecessary anxiety and pressure, which detracts from the participant’s overall ability to fulfill their personal and competitive goals.” So writes Jake Fedorowski in [*The Guide to Non-Binary Inclusion in Running*](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/627ac6cf60c3d30ef65c0369/t/670422680d0efb17d410f323/1728324200988/Non-Binary+Running+Guide+-+2024+October.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) in support of this extra category. However, for me, as a lifelong runner who has logged 10,000 miles on American roads in the past 10 years and who has competed in dozens of races from the 5K to the marathon since 2004, I disagree with Fedorowski. Adding a non-binary category to road racing is misguided and counterproductive. No one is thinking about gender while you run a race. It is not written on your bib, and it has no bearing on your performance. Gender, in fact, is like the color of your undergarments. It is not visible to the public and does not impact strength, speed, endurance, or mental toughness. Participants in road races run together at the same time in a mass start—one big enthusiastic and supportive throng—and are not distinguishable by gender. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Has the “Journal of Controversial Ideas” Become Irrelevant? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/has-the-journal-of-controversial-ideas-become-irrelevant/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:12.000Z The first issue of the [*Journal of Controversial Ideas*](https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/?ref=merionwest.com) was published in April of 2021\. For a brief moment, this seemed like a big deal. The journal was founded by well-known philosophers Peter Singer, Francesca Minerva, and Jeff McMahan. If anyone could meaningfully push back against academic conformity and cowardice, surely it would be these three. At the time, it was common to see headlines about professors and researchers being chastised for asking the wrong questions. Perhaps most famously, in 2017, philosopher Rebecca Tuvel scandalized the academic world by publishing a defense of transracialism (the idea that a person can transition from one race to another) in the feminist philosophy journal *Hypatia*. In response, according to [*Quillette*:](https://quillette.com/2021/04/28/the-journal-of-controversial-ideas-is-here/?ref=merionwest.com) “Over 800 people signed a petition demanding that her article be retracted. That never happened, but Tuvel was subject to online harassment, and attempts to get her fired. *Hypatia*’s board of associate editors responded by posting an apology on Facebook for the ‘harm’ that Tuvel’s article had supposedly caused. This wouldn’t be the last time something like that occurred.” In an environment like that, it made sense for an academic journal to emerge that was dedicated to publishing controversial papers. Academics should feel free to take on any topic, no matter how many hyper-sensitive feathers it might ruffle. What is the point of academia if entire worlds of discussion are off limits? Philosophers, in particular, are well-suited to bring dispassionate logic to hot-button cultural or moral discussions. Anytime it feels as though civil discourse has been lost online, it may very well be because both sides of an issue are arguing from an emotional rather than a logical standpoint. Or, for that matter, oftentimes people are simply arguing from a perspective of ignorance and incuriousness. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Ficus Frost URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-ficus-frost/ Last updated: 2025-11-14T00:27:08.000Z “to the garage bound welders masked/in metal, tampering the eternal flame” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Melodic Dream of Attic URL: https://www.merionwest.com/melodic-dream-of-attic/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:19.000Z “Little dragonfly,/Gliding, flew.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Chapel URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-chapel/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:57:58.000Z “Yet these walls sound with echoes of the past,/With whispered prayers which linger in the air/And animate this space – still holding fast:/A shelter from the passing world’s despair.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Strawberry Fields Forever: Amie Whittemore’s “Nest of Matches” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/strawberry-fields-forever-amie-whitmores-nest-of-matches/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-kindelmedia-7457187.jpg) (Kindel Media) > “Lilies/finch/flinches/nest/basil/hair/hat. I would swear before a jury that those are all legitimate off-rhymes, even if I were convicted of perjury for it. I wish that Shelley or Keats or Lorca or Miguel Hernández were alive so that I could pass this poem along to them.” The mid-20th century poet [Denise Levertov](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69392/some-notes-on-organic-form-56d249032078f?ref=merionwest.com) argued that in modern writing, a genuine poem is organic, “a method of apperception,” i.e., of recognizing what we per­ceive, and is based on an intuition of an order, a form beyond forms, in which forms partake—essentially arguing that each poem is an entity original unto itself. Can this meditative method, this “revelation of content” be practiced? Surely, in exceptional cases, talent will out as one gropes her way by intuition. Yet however intriguing the idea of writing as revelation, derived from Levertov’s work with the Black Mountain Poets, its premise implies that there is a potential infinity of sui generis poems, none conforming to the other. This fanciful notion is put to the test by actual literary tradition, by the established cultural insistence of literary forms, a reality that some poets (and some literary movements, claiming absolute freedom) try to ignore, as if doing away with rhyme or strict meter, for instance, would by itself solve the problem of governance. But even the most self-expressive writer, such as those who take refuge in the prose poem, or practice concrete poetry and other healthy avant-garde breakaways—in the end these radical departures feel like recombinant variations on an established set of forms. They cannot outwit the combination of centuries of poetic refinement, including those experimenters who strive the hardest to abolish that tradition, and in doing so, in knocking the rust off poetic tendencies that have become mannered and stale, unwittingly renew its vital force. For one way or another, each of us poets, however assertively individualistic, is—to borrow a catchy phrase from singer Grace Jones—slave to the rhythm. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Incorporated Town and Cold War Clocks URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-incorporated-town-and-cold-war-clocks/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:36.000Z “The train cars are trying to sleep/in the postal town. Purple tracks/forsake concrete footer and loading/dock pad. The pale moon/asks homes to hold the bones.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Public Education URL: https://www.merionwest.com/public-education/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:27.000Z “No one assigns homework./No one expects anyone to do anything./Disappoint, like ill-fitting pants,/can chafe you to death.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Making Sense of the Rotherham Child Sex Abuse Scandal URL: https://www.merionwest.com/making-sense-of-the-rotherham-sex-abuse-scandal/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T08:44:13.000Z > “British cultural and political life is governed, accordingly, largely by emotion and instinct.” **Part One** “Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” So begins Franz Kafka’s posthumously published dystopic novel, written in 1914 and 1915, [*The Trial.*](https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30907190042&dest=gbr&ref%5F=ps%5Fggl%5F2039220669&cm%5Fmmc=ggl-%5F-UK%5FShopp%5FTradestandard-%5F-product%5Fid=UK9780140009071USED-%5F-keyword=&gad%5Fsource=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA2cu9BhBhEiwAft6IxIOTHGjXhnQgTbo-HjYIPWcBfFuAQGtuNmlVe7HkG42LosLfscJSJxoCzpIQAvD%5FBwE&ref=merionwest.com) “Someone must have been telling lies about migrants, or, more frequently, Muslims, for without having done anything wrong they were arrested one fine morning.” So might begin a similarly dystopic contemporary novel set in near-future Britain or almost any of the current European Union member states. It would, however, be a crude heuristic to deploy if the intention of this hypothetical book was to instruct its audience about the dangers of the [“regression of our public sphere,”](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/297762/against-the-double-blackmail-by-slavoj-zizek/9780141984124?ref=merionwest.com) as the philosopher Slavoj Žižek described the state of our present intellectual and political culture, in 2016, aptly arguing that “\[a\]ccusations and ideas that were until now confined to the obscure underworld of racist obscenity” have gained “a foothold in official discourse.” Falsehoods, to be sure, abound in the new era of post-truth politics we entered in circa 2016\. As I have [noted](https://seamusflaherty.substack.com/p/donald-trump-popularism-and-the-character-f6c) elsewhere, the current Vice President of the United States of America, J. D. Vance, has openly admitted to being willing to lie (in a nominally trivial way) for his own political benefit. In this, among Machiavellians, he is exceptional only in his readiness to say so. Yet often, or indeed typically, the most prominent authors of conspiracies, myths, and untruths in Western politics and media are not lying. Which is to say, they believe the things they write and say *are* true. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Daisy Chain URL: https://www.merionwest.com/daisy-chain/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T03:08:14.000Z “Astrology is not a science because women conceived it/and it’s not a religion because the stars, even/with the pictures they pattern,/could never take the place of a god” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Cosmic Comic Kvetching in Anthony Immergluck’s “The Worried Well” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/cosmic-comic-kvetching-in-anthony-immerglucks-the-worried-well/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:15.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-filipe-delgado-749930-1601495.jpg) > “The grand Guignol exaggeration provides an excellent comic read, as we fail to take completely seriously his worrywart grandstanding. Chances are, we have known someone exactly like him, who upon greeting us, got straight to describing their various medical conditions, real and imagined in excruciating detail.” Contemporary lyric poetry desperately needs more widespread comic verve. We live and write in an age in which lyric practitioners as a whole tend toward the dignified, solemn, quarrelsome, plaintive, sometimes didactic. As a percentage of those writing at the highest level, poetry is serious business. Where are you, James Tate? Times are hard, injustice runs rampant, and it seems we must face it with sobriety, because the stakes are high. Wit and humor often are considered fit for second-order, lighter verse, poesy lacking in perspective, in grandeur, in bite, in social relevance. Yet from Alexander Pope to Philip Larkin, a certain number of poets in each epoch of literary history—never enough—has understood the difference between serious and self-serious, as well as the fact that the more painful the human reality is, the more it cries out for comedy. Form, meter, rhetoric, prosody, image, metaphor—these elements do not know the difference between comedy and gravity. They are neutral technical means. Only tone knows, and tone is not telling until it is too late and the poetry is on the page, ready to be dealt with, in its painful contradictions. Just as comic movies are often overlooked (yes, *Some Like it Hot,* you impish stepchild, you deservedly bucked the trend in 1960 [by getting](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053291/awards/?ref=merionwest.com) 13 nominations and 11 wins), poetry driven primarily by wit and a sense of the absurd, which ought to be top of mind as proving itself necessary in these grim times, seldom takes away the Pulitzer, the MacArthur, and it has been more than half a century since the blackly comic Samuel Beckett claimed the Nobel. Menachem Feuer, speaking of the performance style of Charles Bernstein, [says:](https://schlemielintheory.com/2014/05/16/charles-bernstein-writing-on-theatricality-and-doing-poetic-stand-up/?ref=merionwest.com) ###### stand-up poetics, playing the schlemiel on the stage or in a poem, is a way of doing more than theory says it does. The running joke and the act of self-deprecation in language do more to loosen up language and make it playful than any abstraction. Playing with failure is a way of playing with pathos. Not long ago, [I considered in this magazine](https://www.merionwest.com/wrackable-as-arguments-anne-marie-turzas-fugue-with-bedbug/) the work of Anne-Marie Turza, who shares a profitably eccentric sensibility with Anthony Immergluck, whose recent [*The Worried Well*](https://www.autumnhouse.org/books/the-worried-well/?ref=merionwest.com) brings sharp wit and a robust feel for the absurd to his poetic fretting, in which he often assumes the persona of the schlemiel. In the book’s first section, “The Dybbuk,” the poet, like the disembodied human spirit he evokes, begins his wander through a landscape that mainly offers the potential for failure and disaster to his overthinking mind. The first poem, not surprisingly named “Worry (The Dybbuk),” explains the familial precedent. I have a worry mother and I have a worry father and once they shared a worry and my own worry, a sprout in this worry dirt, bullied by the worry weeds, spoiled by the worry sun and rain and I the runt among a litter of suckling worries and the worry is the current and we are its conductors and On and on goes the lament, as if he were reciting the Book of Lamentations on the feast day of Tisha B’av. The comedy derives from neurotic overstatement of the case, as if he were mourning the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians. Although the poem lasts barely more than one page, the concatenation of “ands” suggests that it is interminable, like the speaker’s tendency to worry about nothing and everything. In fact, the poem ends when the poet says, “I don’t/know why I told a worry/child not to worry when/surely the trick is to give/the worry a name and then to call it again and again.” However irrational this fretting, he is determined to pass it on, creating a familial worry, genealogical, theoretically extending back to Babylonia and forward to eternity. If this is a joke, it is a cosmic one, undergirded with a layer of seriousness. Immergluck’s tone manages to be both hysterical and deadpan, as in “Deadsong,” wherein the speaker imagines the many ways in which he will absolutely, most certainly, and without a doubt, die in a cruel, violent, disastrous manner. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Overpass to Memphis URL: https://www.merionwest.com/overpass-to-memphis/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:25.000Z “This insufficient code of the soil—/aphasia’s shorthand where/language lathers in mud, masquerades its atoms” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Walking and Thinking URL: https://www.merionwest.com/walking-and-thinking/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:05:18.000Z > “Nevertheless, I am often struck by how many great thinkers have also been great walkers.” “Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value,” so proclaims Friedrich Nietzsche in [his 1889 work](https://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary%5Fzabel/Phil%5F100/Nietzsche%5Ffiles/Friedrich-Nietzsche-Twilight-of-the-Idols-or-How-to-Philosophize-With-the-Hammer-Translated-by-Richard-Polt.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) *Twilight of the Idols*. An assertion like this one might sound strange in a society today that mostly values and communicates ideas acquired while sitting. We now do not generally think of learning—especially at the highest levels—as involving physical exertion. Many of us seem quite comfortable in a world that separates thinking from doing. Nevertheless, I am often struck by how many great thinkers have also been great walkers. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle famously walked up and down while teaching and founded the [Peripatetic School](https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-4870?ref=merionwest.com) in 335 B.C. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau [wrote:](https://blog.oup.com/2020/02/five-philosophers-on-the-joys-of-walking/?ref=merionwest.com) “To travel on foot is to travel in the fashion of Thales, Plato, and Protagoras.” American author Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay titled [“Walking,](https://archive.org/details/walking0000thor/page/1/mode/2up?view=theater)[”](https://archive.org/details/walking0000thor/page/6/mode/2up?view=theater) in which he described the “art of Walking.” A philosophizing Ralph Waldo Emerson thought nothing of walking from town to town; Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth would walk together; and Zen Buddhists practice a kind of meditation [specifically associated with walking](https://adaptivecenter.net/everyday-zen-practices-walking-meditation/?ref=merionwest.com). So, if, as Nietzsche insists, the relationship between walking and thinking is neither coincidental nor trivial, what is the nature of that relationship? *Ambulator nascitur, non fit.* As far as Thoreau was concerned, walkers were born not made. “It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker,” he wrote. The mere physical act of walking, especially on untrodden paths, presents a perpetual opportunity to reconnect our minds to our bodies, as well as our bodies to nature. “Two or three hours walking,” writes Thoreau, “will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Bells, on Evening Paths URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-bells-on-evening-paths/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:19:17.000Z “The tower tall strikes bells. The day slinks out/Leaving behind skies watercolor clear/And gives the evening air the taste of song” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why We Should Still Read Orestes Brownson URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-should-still-read-orestes-brownson/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:15.000Z > “What our country needs is a long-term, multi-pronged rediscovery of the true Constitution and a commitment to live by it. The thought of Orestes Brownson can help us in this rediscovery.” President Donald Trump, in the early days of his new term, is diligently working to reverse over a century of abuse of the Constitution of the United States by unelected bureaucrats in federal agencies. As he declared [in his March 4th Joint Address to Congress,](https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/03/remarks-by-president-trump-in-joint-address-to-congress/?ref=merionwest.com) “…the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.” This is a simple assertion of [Article II of the Constitution:](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/?ref=merionwest.com) “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States.” And as President Trump questions the legitimacy of agencies not directly answering to the President of the United States or Congress, he is also recentering the First Amendment such as [through his executive order on](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-freedom-of-speech-and-ending-federal-censorship/?ref=merionwest.com) “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” He is also returning to government “by the people, for the people” by reasserting the [Tenth Amendment](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/?ref=merionwest.com) (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”) through, for example, announcing plans to end the Department of Education [“to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/improving-education-outcomes-by-empowering-parents-states-and-communities/?ref=merionwest.com) Nevertheless, a permanent restoration of the constitutional order cannot be accomplished by executive orders alone. Far too many Americans equate democracy with the federal government and are determined to return to a big-government agenda as soon as possible. What our country, thus, needs is a long-term, multi-pronged rediscovery of the true Constitution and a commitment to live by it. The thought of Orestes Brownson can help us in this re-discovery. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Perfect Paradox URL: https://www.merionwest.com/perfect-paradox/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:26.000Z “the idiosyncrasies, stamps of my proprietorship” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Germany’s Lingering Hegelianism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/germanys-lingering-hegelianism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T08:14:47.000Z > “And so things continue as before, because in a post-historical era, sprinkled with German-Hegelian state worship and a view of oneself as the summit of civilizational development, there is no need to move from the spot one has occupied.” *for S.N.S.* Having lived in Germany for many years on and off from 2004 to 2012, I have been privy to that country’s particular foibles. My love for German literature, music, and philosophy, the latter of which is ultimately what drove me to that country, was very much my own: Whereas I had been raised to admire the British Empire, and whereas it was a matter of course that I should speak French like all of my family’s leading matriarchs, my love for German culture I had developed alone and it therefore, in a sense, burned even stronger. And so it is with far more sadness than Schadenfreude that I write about Germany’s cultural collapse and self-inflicted Islamization. My first inkling of the lingering German Hegelianism was during my initial few months in Germany in 2004, which I spent mostly in Berlin. In my search for the best German university I had briefly visited Heidelberg, which was indeed to become my beloved Alma Mater, and had been impressed by the mosaics of Greek quotations on the wall in the main humanities library (taken from the library of Alexandria and from 2 Corinthians 3:6). When I soon thereafter walked into the Humboldt University in Berlin, the large quotation on the wall that greeted me was from Karl Marx (the famous line from the *Theses on Feuerbach* that philosophers should not just interpret but change the world), and I thought to myself: “Heidelberg it is.” In fairness, the latter quote had been put there during the communist East German era, but it was still a sign of a self-satisfied Hegelian spirit that has never left Germany and that, just as it contributed to that country’s rise, is now just as surely contributing to its fall. The recent election in Germany, and the current attempts by Friedrich Merz to form a new government there, are a microcosm of this spirit. Some people of a more conservative bent had hoped for a solid Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) victory. I shared their hope but said in [a few](https://youtu.be/xoz5t1ZGUGQ?si=m0X8oMfmXxGod6QO&ref=merionwest.com) [interviews](https://bulletin.nu/podd-benedict-beckeld-kan-trump-bereda-mark-for-en-vasterlandsk-comeback?ref=merionwest.com) leading up to the election that I did not think the German people were ready for such a drastic change, and that proved to be correct. I had two reasons for thinking this. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Worst of Our Fathers URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-worst-of-our-fathers/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:41.000Z “we struck/each other so often, too often,/like astronauts/scraping for the last flight/back to earth” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What Progressives Need to Do URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-progressives-are-still-getting-wrong/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:05:19.000Z > “No, not everyone on the Left supported these tyrannies, yet what progressives cannot escape is that much of the Left lent political legitimacy to regimes that destroyed and damaged tens of millions of lives, leaving festering wounds that still bleed today.” Ever since President Donald Trump’s [re-election in November,](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/czxrnw5qrprt?ref=merionwest.com) autopsies of the Left have become every pundit’s pastime. Democrats lost because they ignored the working class. They forgot the kitchen-table issues. They ignored differences between men and women. They brushed aside fears about illegal immigration. They preached too much about race and ethnicity. There is some merit to these diagnoses, but they leave the impression that the problem was simply about tweaking the message. If progressives had cared as much about working-class whites in factories as about trans women on soccer fields, then-Vice President Kamala Harris—as the logic goes—would have sailed to the White House, and Democrats would be controlling Congress right now. Of course, few believe this. In fact, leading up to the election, Democrats talked constantly about [the working class](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/biden-harris-working-class-vote-trump-election-rcna179186?ref=merionwest.com) and very little about [trans women](https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kamala-harris-trans-rights-platform/?ref=merionwest.com). So, what went wrong? Let us return to an age-old concern of those on the Left. If a democratic system is worth having, this is largely because it allows citizens to expose past injustices. A worthwhile democracy takes history seriously, and progressives have rightly highlighted injustices going back centuries, including socio-economic disadvantage based on class, race, gender, and sexuality. To do this, they have connected politics to history through a two-step process I call “memory politics.” Step one consists of documenting atrocities committed by the West over several centuries. Step two consists of spreading this knowledge to the widest possible public. We have seen this since the 1960s, when universities increasingly taught histories of Western wrongdoing—and swiftly became hotbeds of rebellion. In the following decades, workplaces implemented diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and democracies across the globe embraced educational and social spending measures to even out past inequalities. More recently, these initiatives have been [carpet-bombed](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-protects-civil-rights-and-merit-based-opportunity-by-ending-illegal-dei/?ref=merionwest.com) from the Right, largely because they originally sprang from the Left. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Christianity and the West―Criticizing Lawrence Auster URL: https://www.merionwest.com/christianity-and-the-west-e2-80-95criticizing-lawrence-auster/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:05:20.000Z > “It was Christianity that became Europe’s unifying ideology and inspired figures from Charlemagne to Columbus.” In 2005, the late conservative writer Lawrence Auster published a [response](http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/003380.html?ref=merionwest.com) to one of his critics. The critic argued that Christianity had added little or nothing of value to Western culture. Auster disagreed. Since this specific question is seldom discussed, the dispute seems worth revisiting even 20 years after the fact. Auster’s challenger advances roughly the argument one might expect, highlighting Western civilization’s beginnings in Greece and Rome and casting the Dark Ages as a regressive interlude of Christian obscurantism. The Renaissance’s subsequent rediscovery of the classical heritage is what made European civilization great again, he says. In that sense, his thesis is not too original. He does, however, make a few points which seem to cast fresh light on parts of Western history. Thus, he muses that “Shakespeare is littered with \[references\] to Jove, Jupiter, Niobe, Nero, Alexander, but very few to any Christian heroes.” True enough, though Christianity certainly belongs to the [“Elizabethan World Picture”](https://books.google.de/books/about/The%5FElizabethan%5FWorld%5FPicture.html?id=WIxxfCJSI3MC&redir%5Fesc=y&ref=merionwest.com) which so frequently suffuses the Bard’s work. Auster’s rebuttal is more interesting, especially in light of historian Henry Bamford Parkes’s 1969 volume [*The Divine Order,*](https://books.google.de/books/about/The%5Fdivine%5Forder.html?id=J4hBAAAAIAAJ&redir%5Fesc=y&ref=merionwest.com) a chronicle of European history. Auster would include *The Divine Order* in a [“reading list”](http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/006256.html?ref=merionwest.com) of “personal favorites and recommended books” the following year. Despite this endorsement, some of his arguments run counter to Parkes’s account of European history. Auster emphasizes that the path to the relative flourishing of the High Middle Ages was paved by religiously inspired military action: “the Catholics of Europe, led by the Carolingians, were able to drive back the Arab Moslem invaders from France in the early 8th century, subdue the gangster realm of the Avars in Eastern Europe, and rescue the Papacy from the barbarian Lombards.” Auster’s mention of the Muslim invasion is problematic since Islam is partly based on Christianity. Would a similar creed have emerged among the Arabs, and inspired similar invasions, if Christianity had never existed? Perhaps, perhaps not. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### My Best Friend’s Sugar Daddy URL: https://www.merionwest.com/my-best-friends-sugar-daddy/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:21.000Z “waxen winter plants, an oil portrait of a stillborn son,/sensory deprivation tank” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Rooted and the Restless URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-rooted-and-the-restless/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:16.000Z There is a certain kind of madness in how people invest their money. They will tell you it is all rational: equations of risk and reward, trends, and percentages. They will talk about diversification and liquidity and convince themselves that every decision is carefully calculated. Rationality is the weapon we wield against uncertainty, but faith is really what carries us through the storms. An investment is, in many ways, an act of faith—faith in the future, in ourselves, and in a dream. The house, the stock, the bond—they are but vessels for those unspoken aspirations, the hope that the future will be better, safer, or at least more predictable than the present. I was born in the 1990s, into one of the countless middle-class Indian families that were sprouting like saplings after the rains, in the wake of the [1991 economic reforms](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-india-57939341?ref=merionwest.com). India was shaking off the dust of its socialist decades and finding its footing in a world suddenly wider and freer. The Soviet Union had fallen, and its long shadow over the subcontinent was gone. With it went the old certainties—about what was fair, what was possible, what the future could hold. When India opened its doors to the world, with the wind came in new goods, new ideas, and new dreams. The newspapers [called it LPG](https://indianexpress.com/article/upsc-current-affairs/upsc-essentials/knowledge-nugget-upsc-manmohan-singh-architect-death-lpg-reforms-9747050/?ref=merionwest.com) (liberalization, privatization, globalization), but to the man in the street, it felt like a rebirth. Where once people had saved coins in tin boxes or trusted the neighborhood jeweller, they now began speaking of the stock market the way they once spoke of harvests and monsoons—as something capricious but vital. And my generation, which grew up in the decades that followed, latched onto it. We are the ones who pack our lives into suitcases, jump from job to job, city to city, chasing better prospects and bigger dreams all the time. As a consequence, we have little patience for permanence. We like the stock market, and why would we not? It is quick, clever, and clean. If you do not like what you bought, you sell it with a click. A tidy little graph will show you how well—or how poorly—you are doing. Real estate, though, is something else entirely. It is slow, messy, and demanding. When my elders advise us to invest in land, many of our generation smile politely and then roll our eyes the moment they leave the room. Do they not understand? Property is not an investment; it is a liability. What if you get termites? What if the neighborhood goes bad? A house asks too much of you. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Midwestern Mice in Silk Kimonos: Yuki Tanaka’s “Chronicle of Drifting” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/midwestern-mice-in-silk-kimonos-yuki-tanakas-chronicle-of-drifting/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:47.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/COVER_Chronicle-of-Drifting.jpg) Copper Canyon Press > “\[Yuki\] Tanaka’s singular view, somewhat detached yet not lacking in compassion, soberly reckoning while allowing for flights of optimism, is, again, the product of the angle of vision of the flaneur, the stranger in town, the person who has seen it all but decides not to linger on individual premises too long.” It has been far too easy to forget how much one’s perception of the vast English-speaking world, and relative comfort within one’s own seemingly secure and stable knowledge of it, is based on linguistic translation. Our collective sense of what Western culture (aka our inculcated reality construct) is about can loosely be said to be predicated on certain essential texts: The Holy Bible, Homer’s *Iliad* and *Odyssey* and—let us not forget them—a corpus of Greek plays about murder, rape, incest, and other atrocities perpetrated by gods and persons of royal lineage. The first written-down Bibles were in Hebrew. Then as Greek became a common language, spoken by Jews in Egypt, the Septuagint was created, the Greek version of the New Testament, reigning for 600 years as the definitive biblical text, providing the core Christian liturgy and theology of the first three centuries AD. If we ventured to say we owe the basis for American democracy to the Greeks, essentially, we might well be said to have expressed our gratitude in English translation. For there is always something, someone, somewhere preceding us—not only in time, but in space. Language is the seed that accompanies the constant diasporic movement of humans across the globe, in the same way that pathogens introduce disease to new populations without immunity. That analogy implies no judgement, simply the inevitability of language’s irresistible throb, its genius for infiltration. Languages bleed into one another, creating new dialects, expressing the concepts underlying startling and fertile new syncretistic cultural expressions—poetry not least among them. No political policy, no matter how starkly repressive, has ever been able to stop in a permanent way this dynamic movement, nor will ever succeed in doing so. We may often not be free, in political and economic senses, but censors notwithstanding, our language at its roots is free to continue its inexorable and subversive mutations. You the censor may hamper my individual saying, indeed may punish it, but the linguistic root of my saying will survive, whether or not shorn of its foliage and stem, as it is an eternal phenomenon living in history, not limited to any individual or even collective instance of its expression. My former dissertation advisor, the genial and ingenious [John Felstiner,](https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/03/poetry-scholar-translator-john-felstiner-dies?ref=merionwest.com) used to say, with exquisite modesty, that “the translator operates under the aegis of the B+.” That is the most we can ever hope for, by virtue of not being the original sayer. Yet when one looks in a sustained manner at what literary translation has achieved, our shy tribe might let loose a spontaneous cry of pride. In no other way could so many literati and general readers have been exposed to the canon of the classics of world literature. Without [Arthur Waley’s](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arthur-David-Waley?ref=merionwest.com) astounding 1925-1933 translation of the 1216-page *The Tale of Genji,* 源氏物語, *Genji monogatari,* written by lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu, first translated into modern Japanese by Yosano Akiko, most of us would simply not have access to this robust tale of a disenfranchised emperor’s son. We would stare at the incomprehensible runes on each page and utter, inaccurately, and without irony, the phrase “It’s Greek to me.” Further, the original manuscript is lost, leaving only transcriptions and translations as evidence of its existence. As Walter Benjamin taught us, translation is a work’s afterlife. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Redefining College: Adapting Higher Education for the 2020s URL: https://www.merionwest.com/redefining-college-adopting-higher-education-for-the-2020s/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:48.000Z > “However, if a single mother wants a faster track to employment and signs up for a six-month ‘micro-pathway’ at a local community college to become, for example, a junior data analyst or fiber optics specialist, she will likely have to pay out of pocket.” My great grandfather (seven times over) was the son of an indentured servant, who managed to land a spot at Harvard in 1669\. Aptly named John Wise, he parlayed his degree into a storied career as an influential minister and launched his family into [generations of prominent standing](https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wise-2979?ref=merionwest.com). This is my ancestral college success story. Many of us have one. Together, these stories launched the brand of the four-year college degree as the best ticket to the American Dream. Millions of immigrants have followed John’s father to the United States to escape class-constrained countries. The degree model that transported my colonial forefather to the upper middle class has not changed much. Over the past 100 years, we have opened the gates of admission to women and, gradually, students of color, but we have never truly adapted the four-year degree to serve “new majority learners,” [the 62% of American adults who do not have](https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/employers-open-more-doors-to-workers-without-degrees-but-few-are-getting-in-732f1098?ref=merionwest.com) a degree, or [the nearly 40%](https://educationdata.org/college-dropout-rates?ref=merionwest.com) of college students who enter the gauntlet and give up before they earn the credential they are told is essential to getting what is commonly described as a good job. Recently, aspiration has given way to resentment. Universities have come under attack, not only from the politicians labeling them as [woke factories](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/07/22/a%5Fmodest%5Fproposal%5Ffor%5Freining%5Fin%5Fwoke%5Funiversities%5F146119.html?ref=merionwest.com) but also from unfulfilled or would-be graduates who are saddled with debt and working in fields or jobs that do not require a degree. The last decade has seen a [substantial decline in college enrollment](https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=College%20enrollment%20statistics%20indicate%20that,%2C%20enrollment%20has%20declined%2011.61%25.), down by almost 12% between 2010 and 2022\. While the latest numbers show a slight recovery, the growth areas signal that more learners are searching for workarounds and shortcuts in an age in which the average technical skill is said to last five years and artificial intelligence provides wide (if not deep) expertise in the palm of one’s hand. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Miscalculated URL: https://www.merionwest.com/miscalculated/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:20.000Z “For this, we built a star-searcher/and launched it/into the galaxies:/Mirror upon giant mirror/sifting through time” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Observance, 2022 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/observance-2022/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T03:03:37.000Z “Someone recently fell/into an industrial mixer at the latter’s factory./The company sent bread/from the same facility to her funeral.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Saints URL: https://www.merionwest.com/saints/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:29.000Z “What kind of light flames on them? What’s on fire—/A church? A shop? But also inward: desire” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Phantasmal Chaos URL: https://www.merionwest.com/phantasmal-chaos/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:47:30.000Z > “As geography is transcended, the feverish antipathy between ‘somewheres’ and ‘anywheres’ stands to be sublated…in that, from the standpoint of cyber-space, ‘somewhere’ already means ‘anywhere’.” As the age of global economic governance makes way for a new age of [“economic distancing,”](https://archive.org/details/covid-19%5Fgreat%5Freset%5Fschwab) two different but complementary trends take center stage. On the one hand, the neoliberal model of minimal government inaugurated in the 1980s has started to cohabitate with renewed forms of regionalist, quasi-Hobbesian statism, as the totalitarian capitalism of the [“crystal palace”](https://petersloterdijk.net/work/in-the-world-interior-of-capital/?ref=merionwest.com) (“the global dream” of “a transparent, enlightened space without borders”) buckles under the pressures exerted by its own unwieldy globalist logistics. On the other, [at the very moment](https://archive.org/details/covid-19%5Fgreat%5Freset%5Fschwab) when “countries turn inward and global companies shorten their super-efficient but highly fragile supply chains,” digitization seems to be reaching a new zenith in its long career, with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, centered around artificial intelligence, [threatening to replace](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/rise-cyber-city-work-home-walter-russell-mead?ref=merionwest.com) the sprawling “car cities” of yore with distributed “cyber cities”, which will purportedly “transcend geography” as such. What the simultaneity of these trends reveals is the illusory nature of the “turn inward,” which is better understood as a synthesis between formerly salient opposites. As geography is transcended, the feverish antipathy between “somewheres” and “anywheres” stands to be sublated (to use the polysemic Hegelian term) in turn—in that, from the standpoint of cyber-space, “somewhere” already means “anywhere.” What our brave new world brings to the fore may well be the consummation of [what Henry Adams thought](https://archive.org/details/degradationofdem01adam) would be the Ethereal Phase of human history, when “a change from the material to the immaterial” enables the contingent and the solvent to maximally intersect. What this would mean in terms of metaphysics is the final immanentization of an old deific motif. As Walter Russel Mead put it recently in [his marvelous essay](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/rise-cyber-city-work-home-walter-russell-mead?ref=merionwest.com) on the possible rise of the cyber city: “Like the description of God sometimes attributed to the philosopher Empedocles, the distributed city can be compared to an infinite circle whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere. The city and the countryside will be integrated, with human beings able to live anywhere from dense urban cores to remote rural retreats while fully participating in the economic, cultural, and political dimensions of urban life.” The infinite circle whose center is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, seems to have entered the lexicon of the modern West in the age of Giordano Bruno and later, Blaise Pascal, when it was first applied to nature instead of God. Since then, it has arguably served as [the descriptor par excellence](https://www.merionwest.com/itching-for-the-infinite/) of the Faustian insatiability and limitlessness of modern subjectivity. The cyber city would complete the metaphorical evolution by finally integrating the limitless into the punctum of everyday life (as previously only totalitarianisms have tried to do, albeit unsuccessfully). Central to this evolution, as intimated earlier, is the rollout of advanced artificial intelligence, the prospect of which has already ensorcelled the [rising Dionyso-promethean coalition](https://unherd.com/2025/01/welcome-to-americas-techno-military-future/?ref=merionwest.com). Influential organizations like the World Economic Forum have been singing the same tune a while longer, emphasizing the pivotal role that [“paradigm-shifting” developments](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/07/harnessing-the-power-of-large-language-models-for-untapped-ai-apps-in-manufacturing/?ref=merionwest.com) in generative artificial intelligence (AI) will play in the coming [transformations](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/10/ai-transforming-factory-floor-artificial-intelligence/?ref=merionwest.com) of [industry,](https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF%5FHarnessing%5Fthe%5FAI%5FRevolution%5Fin%5FIndustrial%5FOperations%5F2023.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) [employment,](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/ai-2025-workplace/?ref=merionwest.com) and [urban life](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/07/generative-ai-smart-cities/?ref=merionwest.com) more generally. As we continue our ascent to ethereality, the Midas touch of AI (and digitization more generally) is expected to affect more and more facets of our human condition, extending the logic of “civil society” (*bürgerlichen Gesellschaft*) to every as yet (miraculously) untouched nook and cranny of the modern lifeworld. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Getting to Better American Health Outcomes URL: https://www.merionwest.com/getting-to-better-american-health-outcomes/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:05:22.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-pixabay-208518.jpg) > “We should think about health inequity not as differences in outcomes across categories of individuals but as structural injustice that harms the health of everyone.” The broad contours of America’s poor health are widely known. Once among the world leaders in [life](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10257439/?ref=merionwest.com) [expectancy](https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/?ref=merionwest.com), we now trail all countries with comparable economies, erasing decades of progress and instead ranking highly in measures of chronic disease burden. This poor health, plus the dysfunctional way we finance and produce healthcare, feeds a massive amount of reactionary spending on personal healthcare, the [highest amount in the world](https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/health-spending.html?ref=merionwest.com). But all this spending seemingly provides little value, and it does not even guarantee healthcare access for everyone. Amid these problems, efforts to improve population health and health equity have focused primarily on healthcare systems, as well as on measuring health (in)equity primarily as social disparities—differences in health outcomes between socially better-off and worse-off categories of individuals. Although well intentioned, these efforts have had little measurable effect in improving outcomes. It is in this setting that my new [book](https://www.amazon.com/Equal-Care-Health-Democracy-Egalitarian/dp/1421448246/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=JDR6LONUWN9N&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bYdby3lldmOOKvQKtLoi3w.bFNxUcVcAtMygo93RaJKiM9b6I-5A0-QolOt4vrzc2Y&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=equal+care+seth+berkowitz&qid=1740797568&sprefix=equal+care+seth+berkowitz%2Caps%2C500&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com), *Equal Care: Health Equity, Social Democracy, and the Egalitarian State*, argues for a different way to approach these fundamental problems. In my work as a primary care doctor and health researcher over the last 15 years, it has become clear to me that social conditions are the real drivers of population health, and that health inequity stems from institutions, policies, and programs that undermine everyone’s fundamental moral equality. Ultimately, we should recognize, as I write in my book, that “health inequity is social failure embodied, and the only true cures are political.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Language for Throat and Tongue: Elise Paschen’s “Blood Wolf Moon” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/language-for-throat-and-tongue-elise-paschens-blood-wolf-moon/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:50.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Super_Blood_Wolf_Moon_46828015301.jpg) (Carol VanHook/Wikimedia Commons) > “\[Elise\] Paschen’s writing give new meaning to the term ‘ethnopoetics,’ taking it outside the boundaries of ‘traditional societies,’ ‘the informant,’ and the outsider who goes in to record ‘pre-literate narratives.'” The focus of anthropologists on fieldwork in oral history over the past century has been successful in its preservationist aspect regarding the narratives of “pre-literate” cultures. Ethnographers have performed sound recordings and transcriptions that collectively have made available a vast corpus of stories of traditional societies around the world, including ones threatened by disappearance or mutation by means of syncretism, documenting both continuity and change. Often, the focus has been on extracting information to be analyzed, to make sense of a societal configuration. Then, the field of ethnopoetics emerged in the 1960s, led in the United States by such figures as Jerome Rothenberg and Dell Hymes, who shifted some of the focus to performance in itself, thus treating indigenous verbal expressions as art. Yet even after this promising and fertile term—ethnopoetics—emerged as a category of analysis, “narrative” continued to be treated more for its storytelling or essay-equivalent signifying aspects than for its poetics proper. To date, there exists no consistently worked out poetic theory, or set of theories, which focus on form in indigenous verbal performance as a thing in itself. In the area most familiar to me, [Alison Krögel](https://liberalarts.du.edu/about/people/alison-krogel?ref=merionwest.com) has been in the vanguard, with her *[Musuq Illa](https://musuqilla.info/en/poem-author/alison-krogel-en/?ref=merionwest.com)* Quechua poetics project on the *harawi* song form, adopted by contemporary Peruvian writers, some urban, many mestizo, who are writing [contemporary poetry based on an ancient form](https://guides.loc.gov/weaving-community-narratives-andean-histories-library-collections/harawi?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Harawi%20as%20a%20practice%20represents,music%2C%20as%20well%20as%20literature.). Researchers such as Dennis Tedlock, with sensitive empathy, linguistic mastery of the Quiché language, and the benefit of long stints of fieldwork among that society, translated skillfully into entertainingly readable English such masterpieces of ancient art as the Mayan epic *Popol Vuh* and, in doing so, tacitly became a *literary* translator as well as expert ethnographer. Yet even Tedlock, in [“Toward an Oral Poetics,”](https://www-jstor-org.msmc.idm.oclc.org/stable/468297?searchText=dennis+tedlock+toward+an+oral+poetics&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Ddennis%2Btedlock%2Btoward%2Ban%2Boral%2Bpoetics%26so%3Drel&ab%5Fsegments=0%2Fbasic%5Fsearch%5Fgsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ab53c2652a3293e9bd7bf140d77ac56e2&seq=1&ref=merionwest.com) in speaking of more ancient narratives, asserts that “For the most part, the narrators in primary oral cultures do not sing stories but speak them. They do not memorize stories but remember them.” Yet, in truth, there is much song still to be accounted for in such performances. [Dell Hymes](https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/hymes%5Fdell%5Fhathaway/?ref=merionwest.com), a leading figure in the emergence of ethnopoetics in the 1970s, opened the door a crack to a more aesthetic mode of contemplation, going so far in his essay [“Anthropology and Poetry”](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00245765?ref=merionwest.com) as to analyze the minority phenomenon of professional ethnographers who also write poetry: “I can’t say that poets generally need to be ethnographers, though some obviously have ethnographic gifts. I do think it is clear that some kinds of ethnographic work require poetic gifts. There are several respects in which ‘poetry is a continuation of anthropology by other means.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Night Stalkers URL: https://www.merionwest.com/night-stalkers/ Last updated: 2025-06-10T17:09:19.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Moby Dick Still Teaches Us URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-moby-dick-can-still-teach-us/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T17:25:11.000Z The [Children’s Commissioner](https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/?ref=merionwest.com) for England recently released a report on the July, 2024 [riots](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/policing-response-to-the-2024-summer-riots/?ref=merionwest.com) that followed the horrific [murders](https://www.cps.gov.uk/mersey-cheshire/news/teenager-jailed-killing-three-children-dance-class-and-trying-kill-ten?ref=merionwest.com) of three young girls at a dance class in Southport. The riots, which lasted almost a week and included racially-motivated attacks, arson, and looting, were the largest incident of social unrest in England since 2011\. In a series of interviews, the Children’s Commissioner, [Dame Rachel De Souza](https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/about-us/the-childrens-commissioner-for-england/?ref=merionwest.com), found that children who took part in the riots were primarily driven by curiosity and the “thrill of the moment” rather than far-right ideology and social media misinformation, the initial culprits blamed by the authorities. De Souza’s [report](https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/resource/childrens-involvement-in-the-2024-riots/?ref=merionwest.com) noted that poverty and a lack of opportunity in their communities also contributed to the rioters’ involvement. Human beings need more than the satisfaction of their base desires. They strive for status, belonging, and meaning. They can find these in the service of political parties, religious creeds, non-nation-state groups; in the pursuit of wealth and possessions; in the creation of art, music, and objects of value; in building a family or a network of friends; and in adventure and thrill-seeking. When other opportunities to achieve status, belonging, and meaning are limited, the risk that increasing numbers will turn to the thrill of violence and law breaking will increase. [A 2018 study](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/10/political-violence?ref=merionwest.com) led by psychologist [Birga Schumpe](https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/s/c/b.m.schumpe/b.m.schumpe.html?ref=merionwest.com#Profile) supports the report’s insights. While previous research linked people’s search for meaning with their willingness to use violence for a cause, Schumpe’s research suggests that the search for meaning is strongly associated with a need for excitement, which, in turn, was associated with greater support for violence. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### I Thought I’d Live ‘til Ninety-five URL: https://www.merionwest.com/i-thought-id-live-til-ninety-five/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:15.000Z “I envisioned myself old on a mountain hike/a soft breeze lifting my long white hair/I thought I’d live ‘til ninety-five” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Asterisk* URL: https://www.merionwest.com/asterisk/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:52.000Z “Sinister pinwheel/stuck to a breezeless sentence/as sly ornament—” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Wake URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-wake/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:53.000Z “I swore I heard willows cry/through the zig zagged fields,/traveling through my universe/as quickly as the moon touches our light” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Haunted by the Sonnet: Erica Reid’s “Ghost Man on Second” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/haunted-by-the-sonnet-erica-reids-ghost-man-on-second/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:19:51.000Z In listing the “non-literary” analogs for form in certain kinds of contemporary poetry, Jonathan Holden [identifies a way in which](https://www.jstor.org/stable/40374635?ref=merionwest.com) contemporary writers recover lyric, while pushing it in newer directions. > “Deprived by the modernist revolution of any sure sense of what poetic form should be, poets have increasingly turned to non-literary analogs such as conversation, confession, dream, and other kinds of discourse as substitutes for the ousted ‘fixed forms,’ substitutes which in many cases carry with them assumptions about rhetoric which are distinctly anti-modernist. Indeed, it is through deployment of such relatively 'personal' analogues as conversation and confession that a substantial number of our poets are attempting to recover some of the favorable conditions for poetry that had seemed to obtain before the triumph of modernism.” This is good news for practitioners of fierce lyric, who wish to preserve the pre-modern virtues of lyric mode while not necessarily being overly constrained by the detailed requirements of specific forms. Erica Reid, author of [*Ghost Man on Second*](https://www.autumnhouse.org/books/ghost-man-on-second/?ref=merionwest.com)*,* recently out from Autumn House Press, offers such a flexible approach. Her poem “Hermitage,” for instance, is a series of 13 haikus with a wrinkle, using words provided to me as the possible opposite for “hive.” “Part of Me Hurtling Toward” consists of a grid of boxes, each containing words that can be read up, down, or diagonally: “Found in” can lead to “silence,” “answers,” or “foundering.” “Foundering,” in turn, can lead back to “found in,” or to “silence,” “answers,” “pushing away,” or “part of me.” It may be, but sometimes it is merely play for cognitive pleasure. In “If Ever There Were a Time for a Long Title This Would be It,” the prose poem that follows continues to be part of the title, as it instructs us to “throw out the old rules, even the ones you made for yourself…There was a time when birds could not nest inside you, but who can remember that other life?” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Moth URL: https://www.merionwest.com/moth/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T02:50:38.000Z “The city never sleeps: the isle of faces illuminated by cell phones/is proof its waking isn’t rising, only beeping, only static,/only the cashier in the convenience store, only flickering.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### When Student Disengagement Meets Worker Disengagement, and a Solution URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-student-disengagement-meets-worker-disengagement/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:05:24.000Z > “Engagement is inseparable from hope and motivation. The top quartile of students most engaged in school are more than four times as likely as the least-engaged students to believe they have a great future ahead of them.” Student engagement in K-12 schools drops dramatically as young people move from middle through high school. Evidence for this decline in involvement and enthusiasm—dubbed the engagement cliff—comes from the [Gallup Student Poll](https://www.gallup.com/175316/gallup-student-poll-methodology.aspx?ref=merionwest.com) of young people in grades five through 12, which began in 2009\. This engagement cliff can be seen in recent [Gallup polling](https://www.gallup.com/analytics/651674/gen-z-research.aspx?ref=merionwest.com) on Gen Z 12- to 18-year-olds and in a Brookings Institution and Transcend [analysis](https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/REPORT%5FThe-Disengagement-Gap%5FFINAL.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) describing a parent perception gap in student engagement. Unfortunately, the problem of disengagement is not limited merely to middle and high school students. [Gallup polling of workers](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/653711/great-detachment-why-employees-feel-stuck.aspx?ref=merionwest.com) paints a similar picture of today’s worker disengagement that it calls “the great detachment.” To be sure, record-high levels of student and worker disengagement from school and work are disturbing trends. However, these trends may be the symptoms of a rational response by students and workers to problems in their environments that must be solved. One solution lies in developing an economics of identity based on the hope cycle. **Student Disengagement** In 2023 and 2024, Gallup polled [Gen Z](https://www.gallup.com/analytics/506663/american-youth-research.aspx?ref=merionwest.com) 12- to 18-year-olds in a new annual *Voices of Gen Z Study* sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation. (Disclosure: The Gallup poll was funded by my former employer, the Walton Family Foundation, during my time there as a senior advisor.) The analysis found ample evidence of student disengagement from school. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Nostalgia URL: https://www.merionwest.com/nostalgia/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:22.000Z the gilded tree that glitters in dusklight/like an upside-down chandelier _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Myth of Neocon Anti-Nationalism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-myth-of-neocon-anti-nationalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:07:02.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Border_Wall_at_Tijuana_and_San_Diego_Border.jpg) (A 2006 image of the border barrier between Tijuana and San Diego/Tomascastelazo) > “However, it seems unlikely that this is because neoconservatism inherently favors open borders, as some critics have suggested. A more probable reason is neoconservatism’s penchant for compromise, pragmatism, and moderation.” There is a persistent myth that neoconservatism is ideologically committed to allowing large-scale immigration. A case in point is [this piece](https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/ditching-the-cadaver/?ref=merionwest.com) by Samuel Francis, which misunderstands just about every aspect of neoconservatism. Francis draws on Pat Buchanan, who also attributes an “agenda” of “open borders” to neoconservatives. Historian [Paul Gottfried](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/spencer-gottfried-alt-right?ref=merionwest.com) has been an equally assiduous promoter of such notions. “Insofar as Gottfried is concerned,” [summarizes](https://www.gbtribune.com/opinion/columnists/how-neocons-hacked-the-conservative-movement/?ref=merionwest.com) Joseph Cotto, “neocon ideology is repackaged lefty dogma,” as evidenced by its supposed “emphasis on open borders…and at times open support of multiculturalism,” among other issues. Whether one is for or against mass immigration, the fact remains that the Buchanan-Francis-Gottfried view is a distortion. Although neoconservatives are a highly heterogeneous bunch, as a whole they seem no more liberal on immigration than regular, unprefixed conservatives. The examples below should attest to this reality. “Neoconservatism” is a famously imprecise term. Still, a useful idea of what it means is found in [Irving Kristol’s essay](https://www.aei.org/articles/the-neoconservative-persuasion/?ref=merionwest.com) “The Neoconservative Persuasion.” For Kristol, neoconservatism puts much stock in economic growth but is less anti-government than most American conservatism. It deems state involvement in cultural matters legitimate. On foreign policy, it believes in “patriotism” and opposes “world government.” It believes that “statesmen should, above all, have the ability to distinguish friends from enemies.” It construes major powers’ national interests as extending beyond their borders and as including, in some cases, “ideological interests.” It holds that the preponderance of American power is grounds for leveraging said power abroad. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Witness. Target = Rubble URL: https://www.merionwest.com/witness-target-rubble/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:05:15.000Z “We thought there couldn’t be anything more./But hurricanes can collide with tornados, can join floods./Beautiful and horrific are the moment’s songs.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### AUTUMN 2025 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collection-i/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T21:11:39.000Z [ ▸ Learn more about *Merion West.*](https://www.merionwest.com/join/) ## Letter from Editor & Publisher > Dear members and old friends, > Much like a person can eat fast food every day, so can their minds regularly consume content that offers a momentary pleasure yet leaves them feeling unsatisfied in the end. This must be why some call it the "media diet." > If you are a long-time reader, you may have noticed that things have been changing at *Merion West*. Given that we are some of the last people on this Earth to view change as inherently good by itself, we believe this to be a necessary step forward in the service of our mission. About a year ago during a team meeting, a newcomer asked what it is about *MW* that we love. His inquiry was understandable. Why have we continued to publish this magazine–including nearly two thousand articles–against our better financial (and occasionally, social) judgment for nearly a decade? > Although we did not plan around it, the reasons that emerged proved edifying. While no ethos can be reduced to a tagline, the spirit of our mission can be described as something like this: > Even if attention spans are getting shorter by the year and moral confusion reigns supreme, critical thinking and the truth still matter. Even though the media operates increasingly like a factory producing clicks and retweets, integrity in writing still matters. > Therefore, it is our hope that you will find this publication a welcome oasis apart from contemporary media, which serves increasingly more junk than substance. In other words, please accept our first of many attempts to serve you with a multi-course meal that will leave your mind elevated rather than confused, your spirits refreshed rather than cast down. > Over the better part of this year, we have prayed and debated, felt excited and discouraged, even suffered threats and made new friends. Therefore, we hope that you will enjoy this first Collection, which was made possible thanks to the labors of our talented writers and poets exploring timeless truths and witnessing beauty. > Thank you for reading with us. > With gratitude, ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2024/12/sigs.svg) EDITOR & PUBLISHER ###### Featured ## [Year of the Plague: Jake Gardner and the Ghosts of 2020](https://www.merionwest.com/year-of-the-plague-jake-gardner-and-the-ghosts-of-2020/) Returning to a night in Omaha that rattled the nation, Matthew Chabin provides a different perspective of his old friend in the middle of the tragedy. An intimate meditation on the fragility of friendship in a black-and-white age, Chabin calls for understanding over condemnation. Featured Interview: [Senator Lankford's Timely Reminder of the American Ethos](https://www.merionwest.com/coming-soon-a-conversation-with-senator-james-lankford/) # Essays Personal & Reflective [ A Prison Love Story ](https://www.merionwest.com/a-prison-love-story/) Would you let your sister or daughter date, and then marry, an inmate? In this earnest love story, Antoine Davis shares how he, and other men in prison, find love against the odds. [ As I Think about Pope Francis ](https://www.merionwest.com/as-i-think-about-pope-francis/) Joe Weil, a poet, professor, and Catholic, reflects on the death of Pope Francis, what he loved about the man, and what he hopes the late Pope sees differently on the other side of this world. [ When Therapy Fails Artists ](https://www.merionwest.com/when-therapy-fails-artists/) As a challenge to conventional advice about rest and recovery, poet Nada Faris explains the importance of working amid suffering for those who derive meaning and inspiration from their craft. Shakespeare, Woolf, and Orwell did some of their best work in times of despair, after all. --- [ ▸ Learn more about *Merion West.*](https://www.merionwest.com/join/) Analytical & Literary [The Clash and the QuestIn this essay, Alexander Zubatov traces how the stories that fill the boundless canvas of Western canon are, in essence, reflections of two contrasting Homeric archetypes. Venturing beyond the literary, the motifs offer the frames through which one can interpret existence itself.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-17.png)Merion WestAlexander Zubatov![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-2.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/the-clash-and-the-quest/) [The Enduring Question at the Heart of Gone with the WindSadhika Pant revisits the 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, a book recently targeted for cancellation by certain activists. Pant suggests that Scarlett O’Hara and Ashley Wilkes represent two dueling approaches to living, and this dichotomy invites nothing short of civilizational questions.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-35.png)Merion WestSadhika Pant![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-18.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/the-enduring-question-at-the-heart-of-gone-with-the-wind/) [Engineering Morality in the Age of Driverless CarsOnce the realm of ivory tower thought experiments, the trolley problem is increasingly relevant in the real world as algorithms replace the human behind the wheel, argues philosopher Jimmy Alfonso Licon.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-23.png)Merion WestJimmy Alfonso Licon![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-8.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/should-your-tesla-kill-you-or-other-people/) [Rousseau, the Letter WriterA new book by Christopher Kelly and Eve Grace explores the letters of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, including many previously left unpublished. These letters provide insight into the mind of the French thinker, a man whose ideas influenced revolutions and political thinking the world over.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-25.png)Merion WestChristopher Kelly![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-10.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/rousseau-the-letter-writer/) Poetry - [Summer in the Mountains](https://www.merionwest.com/summer-in-the/) - [Stealing Baby Jesus](https://www.merionwest.com/stealing-baby-jesus/) - [How to Write a Poem](https://www.merionwest.com/how-to-write-a-poem/) - [At the Cardiologist’s](https://www.merionwest.com/at-the-cardiologists/) [Explore other poems in the Poetry section](https://www.merionwest.com/tag/poetry/) ###### More from Autumn Collection [Visions of Hell: What One Man Sees in October 7thHow does a French filmmaker best ivory-tower experts and global intelligence agencies? In this interview spanning both geopolitics and moral reckoning, Pierre Rehov shares the insights—and warnings—that led him to anticipate Israel’s surprise strikes on Iran in June.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-30.png)Merion WestJonathan Church![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-13.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/how-one-man-understands-october-7th/) [What an Exiled 19th-Century Economist’s Letters Tell Us about the Tariff DebatePerhaps there truly is nothing new under the sun. Robert Rich revisits the writings of Friedrich List, whose pragmatic views on economics were eclipsed by classical orthodoxy but, amid today’s debate over free trade and American exceptionalism, prove surprisingly resonant.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-31.png)Merion WestRobert Rich![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-14.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/what-an-exiled-19th-century-economists-letters-tells-us-about-the-tariff-debate/) [The Supreme Court Takes a Welcome Stand against Reverse DiscriminationJonathan Church, a long-standing critic of the excesses of the critical social justice movement, examines how a recent ruling dismantles the legal double standard that required some Americans to meet a higher burden of proof in discrimination cases.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-33.png)Merion WestJonathan Church![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-16.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/the-supreme-court-takes-a-welcome-stand-against-reverse-discrimination/) [The Movement James Burnham BeganDavid Byrne, the author of a recent biography of the mid-century conservative intellectual James Burnham, traces the thinker’s influence on Goldwater, on Reagan, on Musk.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-34.png)Merion WestDavid Byrne![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-17.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/the-movement-james-burnham-began/) [Four Questions to Ask Before Using Artificial IntelligenceProfessor Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, an expert on artificial intelligence, provides a four-point framework for thinking about whether or not to employ new AI technologies in day-to-day life.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/icon/MW-logo-small--1--2-32.png)Merion WestBenjamin Mitchell-Yellin![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/thumbnail/card_socialmedia-15.png)](https://www.merionwest.com/four-questions-to-ask-before-using-artificial-intelligence/) [ ▸ Learn more about *Merion West.*](https://www.merionwest.com/join/) ### Bruises Bloom Roses URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bruises-bloom-roses/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:45.000Z “Bruises bloom roses; the blind bird has fled./Ocean quiet bedroom night light turned dim,/the sting of his fist purple on her skin.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Common Sense or Academic Theory: America's Modern Political Divide URL: https://www.merionwest.com/common-sense-or-academic-theory/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T08:39:39.000Z On November 3, 2024, two days before Election Day 2024, the prominent journalist and podcaster Megyn Kelly was called to the podium at a Trump rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In [her cogent remarks](https://www.megynkelly.com/2024/11/05/megyn-kelly-full-speech-transcript-from-trump-pittsburgh-rally/?ref=merionwest.com) that day, she shot back at the Harris campaign’s aggressive push for women to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris due to former President Donald Trump’s stance on the issue of abortion, while, at the same time, brushing back at the Left’s derision of President Trump’s claim that he will be a protector of women: > “He got mocked by the left for saying he would be a ‘protector of women.’ He will be a protector of women, and it is why I’m voting for him…. > And ladies out there who want a bit of girl power in this election, let me tell you something. How can you win when the sons and the husbands and the brothers and the dads you love are losing? It’s not a win. > We care—young women and older—about the lives of our children, the safety of our children, and we need not get so obsessed with what happens when they’re in the womb that we forget about taking care of them once we’re here and they’re here and they’re loved.” During her podcast eight days later, Kelly [amplified the point](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/%5FAtlBHglwko?ref=merionwest.com), taking on the feminist left: > “I was open-minded. I was never a feminist…and then your absolute insanity radicalized me the other way: to stand up against you, to fight you with everything I have, because you’re destructive, and you’re deeply, deeply wrong, and my standing up for female empowerment, which I’ve done my entire life, does not require me to s—t all over American men. I knew what you leftists thought of feminism. It meant abortion and crapping on men, and most of us women over on the side of the normies don’t want that. We love our husband. We love our boys, our sons, our dads, our brothers, our male friends and colleagues, and we are not ready to consider this a zero-sum game where we must advance at their expense. Until you get that through your thick f—ing head, you’ll keep losing.” At the root of the distinction Kelly was making between the narrow leftist version of “feminism” and the more expansive version of “female empowerment” is a more deep-seated contrast between the manner in which conservatives (not libertarians but *conservatives*) and progressives (not classical liberals but *progressives*) see the world. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Speech of Herbs: Melissa Kwasny’s “The Cloud Path” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-speech-of-herbs-melissa-kwasnys-the-cloud-path/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:46.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-pixabay-46160.jpg) (Pixabay) > “Yet what might in lesser hands become mere effusions is tempered with a wise, sometimes steely, sometimes self-abnegating, sometimes mournful contemplative voice that speaks of philosophical and personal concerns combined…” The Romantic poets, who were the forerunners of what is now called eco-poetry, marveled at the splendor of the natural world—albeit one arguably less tainted by climate change, the massive elimination of species, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, tornados, and dense urbanization everywhere. Or were they simply naïve and idealistic, able to ignore the haze of emphysema-inducing coal dust that hung permanently over London in their time, companion to the sewage running down its streets? They evoke a sense of purity in poem after poem, such as Wordsworth’s [“She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways.”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45549/she-dwelt-among-the-untrodden-ways?ref=merionwest.com) ###### A violet by a mossy stone ###### Half hidden from the eye! ###### —Fair as a star, when only one ###### Is shining in the sky. In the 21st century, “nature poetry” continues to be written, though often with a more critical eye. As the 2008 anthology [*Environment: An Interdisciplinary Anthology*](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vkqnr?ref=merionwest.com) puts it, “poetry is the most distilled verbal expression of environmental awareness.” Rapture as such at the forest, mountains, rivers, and seas comprising Earth never goes out of style, yet it is more difficult today to discern whether that half-hidden violet is seen through a haze made of morning fog, or just polluted air. In [“Imagining Ecopoetics: An Interview with Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Evelyn Reilly, and Jonathan Skinner,”](https://academic.oup.com/isle/article-abstract/19/4/751/705058?ref=merionwest.com) the moderator, Angela Hume, reflects on this very process of development from Wordsworth et alii to now: “While eco-poetics may lead to a kind of ‘nature poetry’ reframed or re-conceived, it is still very much rooted in the soil of the earlier practices and of Romanticism…Eco-poetics may not necessarily be inspired directly by scientific evidence of human environmental impact. We can see, for example, what we might call an eco-poetic sensibility quite active in the work of the modernists- long before science could tell us definitively that we humans are responsible for a changing climate and a global water crisis. And yet: that moment came at which poets could no longer write ‘nature’ as something not entirely implicated in and by human society.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Woodpecker Pecks URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-woodpecker-pecks/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:57:59.000Z “the specific iteration of woodpecker pecking at yet/another juicy place, but I forgot to pack the guidebook” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Understanding Orwell on the Lesser Evil URL: https://www.merionwest.com/understanding-orwell-on-the-lesser-evil/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:03.000Z > “Five years later, Orwell published an essay called ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War,’ in which he states, ‘War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil.'” George Orwell was a foreign fighter in the Spanish Civil War. From January to May 1937, he fought on the side of the democratically elected republican government, against the fascist insurrection led by General Francisco Franco. Five years later, Orwell published [an essay called](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/looking-back-on-the-spanish-war/?ref=merionwest.com) “Looking Back on the Spanish War,” in which he states, “War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil.” Orwell understood that some things must be fought against, and there is no way to escape the fighting. That is why he saw right away the Spanish Civil War was not merely a small, localized conflict; the fascist countries were preparing for a global war on democracy, and the democratic countries, through their non-interventionist policies in Spain, were signaling they would not fight back. So, Orwell took it upon himself to go to Spain and fight back. From him I learned that if someone declares war on you, you are at war. It does not matter if you accept that you are at war. In fact, the surest way to lose a war is to refuse to acknowledge that you are in one. Cowardice guarantees the greater evil. I learned all this from reading George Orwell. But I did not learn it quickly. It took me 20 years to understand Orwell on the lesser evil. The first time I read anything by George Orwell I was 14 or 15\. My brother, a year younger than me, had read *Animal Farm* for school and recommended in the strongest possible terms that I read it as well. Our mother seconded his recommendation. I read it, and when I told my brother I had finished it he said something like, “Isn’t it great?” I said I guessed so, but I didn’t understand why the pigs were such d—s. My little brother then had to explain communism and satire to me. I had read [*Animal Farm*](https://www.amazon.com/Animal-Farm-George-Orwell/dp/0451526341?ref=merionwest.com) without realizing it was anything more than a story about talking animals; I think I thought it was like a mean-spirited *Dr. Dolittle.* I remember standing in our mom’s kitchen later that day, listening as she and my brother discussed the nature of political revolution and other lofty concepts I had been ignorant of until that moment. While they talked, I stared at the tiny Penguin paperback on the kitchen table. How were they getting all that from a story about talking animals? I acted like I understood the book. But it was an act. Orwell only started to make sense to me a couple years later when I read [his essay](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/?ref=merionwest.com) “Politics and the English Language.” It was assigned to me in multiple classes during the second half of high school. I could see why. As soon as I read it, I felt like I had been handed the Rosetta Stone of the grown-up world. It was a step-by-step guide for making sense and being sensible. And it explained why adults so often seemed to be self-contradictory rationalizers: They let others do their thinking for them. But it also explained why I was so bad at school: I did not do my own thinking either. The bit that hit me the hardest came near the end: “The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.” I knew as soon as I read this that I was an insincere student. I was constantly trying to convince teachers I understood what I was supposed to understand: why Gatsby was obsessed with the green light or why trenches were a deciding factor in World War I. But I did not know what I was talking about. So, I would smash together a bunch of parroted phrases and hope teachers did not see through me. They didn’t fall for it. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Second Thoughts on Airline Deregulation URL: https://www.merionwest.com/second-thoughts-on-airline-deregulation/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:04.000Z > “The deregulation of air travel and other sectors of the economy in the 1970s was (and continues to be), in my view, a profound mistake. While controversial, I assure you that this contrarian take is not (entirely) a product of big-government sentimentalism from a crabby online socialist.” There is not much to say about the life and legacy of President Jimmy Carter that authors and essayists have not already noted in a more eloquent way than I have. Suffice to say, the man was a rare specimen in the world of politics: a truly Great Man, more beloved after than during his time in power, who nevertheless set a standard for post-presidential life that no president in my lifetime is likely to surpass. Whatever people thought of President Carter while in office, his legacy will forever be tied [to his charitable endeavors performed](https://www.habitat.org/carter-work-project?ref=merionwest.com) in the shadows of the public spotlight. In that sense, I [agree](https://www.merionwest.com/jimmy-carter-a-man-ahead-of-his-time/) with writer Jonathan Church that President Carter was “a man who was ahead of his time.” But I do take issue with Church’s brief and laudatory discussion surrounding President Carter’s achievements while in office, specifically his role as the “Great Deregulator.” The deregulation of air travel and other sectors of the economy in the 1970s was (and continues to be), in my view, a profound mistake. While controversial, I assure you that this contrarian take is not (entirely) a product of big-government sentimentalism from a crabby online socialist. One can read more about the [structural](https://lbo-news.com/2012/06/04/airline-dereg-more-a-failure-than-matt-yglesias-says/?ref=merionwest.com) [problems](https://web.archive.org/web/20240329060810/https:/americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/02/the-airline-industry-after-covid-19-value-extraction-or-recovery/) [with](https://prospect.org/power/unfriendly-skies/?ref=merionwest.com) [airline](https://hls.harvard.edu/today/airline-deregulation-may-be-why-flying-is-such-a-miserable-part-of-holiday-travel/?ref=merionwest.com) [deregulation](https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/4/12/15247172/why-airlines-are-terrible?ref=merionwest.com) (and air travel [more generally](https://slate.com/business/2012/06/passenger-aviation-in-the-united-states-40-years-of-failure.html?ref=merionwest.com)) detailed by several eminent experts, including many who praise President Carter’s role as the “Great Deregulator.” In this essay, I will critique President Carter’s legacy regarding airline deregulation and explain why the free-market sentimentality around deregulation is shallow and ill-deserved. **Airline Deregulation was a Boon for Consumers….** It is worth discussing what my fellow pundits and I mean by “deregulation.” Concerning air travel, “deregulation” refers explicitly to the [Airline Deregulation Act of 1978,](https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/senate-bill/2493?ref=merionwest.com) itself part of a much larger packet of deregulatory reforms enacted during the Carter and early Reagan administrations. Before 1978, commercial aviation in the United States was [overseen](https://www.britannica.com/money/interstate-commerce-United-States-law?ref=merionwest.com#ref153437) by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), whose regulations on air travel structurally mirror those existing for utility industries such as gas, water, and power distribution. The CAB was one of many “alphabet soup” agencies created under the New Deal; its overarching prerogative was promoting and sponsoring commercial aviation development in the United States. Accordingly, the CAB controlled many aspects of the industry in ways that would be deemed “socialistic” by modern commentators (and not just Reaganite conservatives): It extensively used price controls to regulate airfares, centrally allocated flight routes to incumbent carriers, and even restricted the entry of new airlines from participating in the interstate travel market without official authorization. At the time, the industry was seen as a market with “natural monopoly” characteristics that merited utility-style [command-and-control regulations,](https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics/market-failure-and-the-role-of-government/environmental-regulation/a/command-and-control-regulation-cnx?ref=merionwest.com) which economists usually disfavor. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Villa 351 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/villa-351/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:05:14.000Z “The news we got at first was dire,/the damage bad though not entire” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Letter: On “Our Life-World, Its Enemies, and the Enduring Power of Common Sense” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/__letter-on-zubatov/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:47.000Z > “Vice President Harris’s phrase could be described as the animating principle behind the whole modern project, as well as much of what we think of as progress: The more we unburden ourselves from nature and history, the more human ideas can determine what can be.” In [his essay last month,](https://www.merionwest.com/our-life-world-its-enemies-and-the-enduring-power-of-common-sense/) “Our Life World, its Enemies, and the Enduring Power of Common Sense,” Alexander Zubatov observes that “the progressive worldview is becoming evermore ungrounded and unmoored from the reality of everyday life.” Our [presidential election this past November](https://www.cnn.com/election/2024?ref=merionwest.com) was a significant rebuke of the progressive worldview. President Donald Trump [claimed to represent the party of](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-gop-party-common-sense-during-contentious-bloomberg-interview?ref=merionwest.com) common sense, while Vice President Kamala Harris seemed to embody the forces of abstraction, the forces of no sense. Vice President Harris’s frequently invoked phrase, “What can be, unburdened by what has been,” has been [dismissed as](https://nypost.com/2024/09/03/us-news/kamala-harris-drops-unburdened-catchphrase-again-despite-mockery/?ref=merionwest.com) one more of her “word salads.” However, unlike many of her genuine word salads, this phrase is not a one-off—not a spontaneous response to a given moment. Rather, she [repeated this precise phrase dozens of times](https://x.com/RepMarkWalker/status/1815107555137597745?lang=en&ref=merionwest.com) to all kinds of audiences. It appears to have had much significance to her, and to her campaign. Although never becoming as iconic as successful presidential campaign slogans such as President Barack Obama’s [“Hope and Change”](https://www.c-span.org/clip/washington-journal/user-clip-barack-obama-2008-ad---hope-and-change/5030847?ref=merionwest.com) or President Trump’s [“Make America Great Again,”](https://www.instagram.com/realdonaldtrump/reel/DEQUHd%5Fxzhc/?hl=en&ref=merionwest.com) I believe her phrase does reflect our historical moment, as vividly depicted in Zubatov’s essay. Vice President Harris’s phrase could be described as the animating principle behind the whole modern project, as well as much of what we think of as progress: The more we unburden ourselves from nature and history, the more human ideas can determine what can be. But all human ideas, ultimately, are restrained by reality—or what Zubatov refers to as the “life-world.” What can be is *never* unburdened by what has been. Many of the great social catastrophes of the modern world are nothing less than delusional [attempts to destroy or escape history.](https://www.merionwest.com/a-brief-history-of-nothing/) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Hands Together Ghazal URL: https://www.merionwest.com/hands-together-ghazal/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:14.000Z “Seek mercy for eggs we scrambled in a youth/spent banging pots and pans together./For the telling of clumsy lies, our voices/cracking like pecans together.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Treachery of Poetry URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-treachery-of-poetry/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:40.000Z “How/it both is, and is not/a type of existence.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Still in the Holler URL: https://www.merionwest.com/still-in-the-holler/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:05.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-shanekell-1365110.jpg) (Shane Kell) > “If a stranger comes around, if he’s wise, he will keep to the road and announce his business soon, clearly and loudly, then you’ll see what’s what. You’re not against him, but you’re not automatically for him.” My father, whose namesake I am, was born in a makeshift cabin in a holler in Rockcastle County, Kentucky. It was called The Hainted Holler because haints, or ghosts, who died in a tannery fire, were said to dwell there still, lamenting their fates. Nobody else in the tiny farming community of houses littered along the narrow valley known as Clear Creek wanted that scary patch of land, so my penny-starved grandfather claimed the steep, rocky acreage for himself. I used to drive out that way when I returned to visit Kentucky, to gaze upon the one-room, white plank schoolhouse my grandmother taught all the grades at once in, and I’d stalk the Hainted Holler, half-hoping for a ghost to appear. As a young professor right outside Chicago, I co-wrote a musical, produced at Loyola University, set on Clear Creek in the 1930s. In one of its scenes, young women in long, white nightgowns holding lanterns, from behind a scrim walked out of that holler in half-light, toward the audience, singing in eerie and touching harmony how the Devil came to fetch each of them as his concubine. Some people in the audience wept for them. A couple of years after I wrote that play, my cousin wanted to sell her five-acre farm right down the road from the Hainted Holler, and I bought it. My plan was to use it as a writer’s retreat, though soon I’d take a job in South Florida and so I rented it out instead. Yet that area founded by my kin has kept a grip on my imagination and keeps reappearing in my writing. Even when all my ancestors had moved out, the place held me in thrall, and I’d find reasons to go back out there, to hike Anglin Falls, to visit a high school buddy who moved to Clear Creek, or just to drive its once-gravel, twisty roads, now paved and flanked by expensive houses where doctors and lawyers could build big, fancy abodes high on a hill, and have their privacy. In the end, everybody wants to live in the country. Most just want it to also be a city with all the amenities, where you can rent out your tobacco allotment and hire somebody to mow your acres of fallow fields. Everybody who immigrated to Appalachia from Ireland and Scotland was looking for relative solitude. They were used to living in hideaway places tucked into hills, where nobody would bother you—not your neighbors and not the law. Even the preacher couldn’t hike up all those inclines. For what is a holler? It’s an area formed in mountains or foothills by the folds they make—the hollows. It’s where the creeks flow down toward the bottomlands and their banks are populated with elms, oaks, spruce and cedars. It’s where you once could make moonshine whisky when the price paid for your corn cratered in the world market, and you were in the middle of the economic depression, and either the federal government wouldn’t give you a subsidy or help you out some other way—or else, you didn’t want them to, because of your damned Celtic independence and pride. A neighbor might holler up the holler to warn you that a revenuer was coming your way. You’d rather tote your rifle to shoot squirrels and opossums and rabbits and birds if you must, to feed your children, who are being taught by one single lady whom you’ve known for years, and you can predict exactly what’s going to come out of her mouth because it first went from God’s mouth to her ear. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Buster’s Hand: Sunni Brown Wilkinson’s “Rodeo” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/word-as-object-sunni-brown-wilkinsons-rodeo/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:48.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-andrew-foster-15695-2664938.jpg) Andrew Foster > “In her exquisitely physical *Rodeo,* Sunni Brown Wilkinson takes her place among those superb modernists, early and late and post, who recognize the combination of mutability and continuity across poetic epochs that is a key to lyric’s continuing strength and relevance…” Martin Heidegger offers a path to understanding the power of imagery within lyric poetry [in his essay](https://www.scribd.com/doc/96798132/Heidegger-Poetically-Man-Dwells?ref=merionwest.com) “Poetically Man Dwells.” He comments on “the way of poets to shut their eyes to actuality. Instead of acting, they dream…The things of imagination are merely made.” For many readers, the “merely” might sound dismissive. To the poet, it has the ring of coming to one’s senses. This oblique dreaming is not diffuse. It consists of palpable objects in the inner mind, as fixed points in a realm of ambiguity and polyvalence. Rather than instruct, the poet’s first task is to offer images as fascinating objects of contemplation, suggestive rather than limited by strict denotation. Often, they begin to manifest as concrete nouns rather than abstract ones; with the particular rather than the general or universal. As when a rabbit gives birth in a shallow depression in the ground, among underbrush, a hollow about the size of a woman’s hand, this nest covered with soft grasses and lined with tufts of the mother rabbit’s fur, her kits lie half-hidden from view, these offspring having a definite shape, perhaps to be glimpsed by a passerby, who cannot immediately make out what life form lies there—so do poets discern a word-object taking shape in their inner mind. They have not yet arrived at the point of saying anything. They can only sense a soft but firm object, as they wait to see when or whether it will spring forth and reveal itself. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How Close Are We to Escaping Dying? The Current State of Cryonics URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-close-are-we-to-escaping-dying-the-current-state-of-cryonics/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:06:58.000Z > “This mainstream acceptance raises a key question: If vitrification can preserve embryos and organs like kidneys, why wouldn’t similar principles apply to brain preservation of cryonics?” Most animals and organisms tolerate environmental changes. Few can tolerate extreme environments, especially freezing temperatures, without putting their lives in danger. Uniquely, the [wood frog,](https://peabody.yale.edu/article/frozen-frogs-climate-change?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Wood%20Frogs%20in%20Fairbanks%2C%20Alaska,might%20not%20freeze%20at%20all.) [woolly bear caterpillar](https://www.reconnectwithnature.org/news-events/the-buzz/why-woolly-bear-caterpillars-do-not-freeze-death/?ref=merionwest.com), [young painted turtles,](https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-abstract/51/3/199/256149?redirectedFrom=fulltext&ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=%28Table%201%29.-,Tolerance%20for%20cold,extracellular%20space%20%28Storey%20et%20al.) tardigrades, alligators, and iguanas are part of a group of animals that can survive freezing temperatures by naturally producing their own biological cryoprotectants. This means that these animals have evolved with a metabolism that protects them from temperatures that would normally freeze their bodily fluids. In other words, they naturally prepare themselves by producing antifreeze compounds of glycerol, antifreeze proteins (AFPs), and sugars. Humans do not have this ability. While I am not an expert scientist in this particular area, I do have specialized knowledge in the long-term memory [of simple animals undergoing biostasis](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4620520/?ref=merionwest.com). Outside of my scientific research, my innovative projects on longevity include academic courses, lectures, and [my own longevity practice as a hands-on innovator in the field](https://www.natashavita-more.com/longevitypractice?ref=merionwest.com). Being an innovator also means that I need to understand why a new science or technology is developed. This knowledge helps to find better loopholes and gaps, where advances in science and technology can potentially make the difference. With this in mind, I have learned that advances in the field of biostasis have followed the originations in nature and created very advanced cryoprotectants for cryonics [to eliminate ice formation that would cause](https://www.biostasis.com/vitrification-agents-in-cryonics-m22/?ref=merionwest.com) cellular damage. Recent innovations bring about a far greater degree of biological slowing and much more protection from the effects of cold temperatures. To be clear, for the purposes of this discussion, there are three important terms worth noting: biostasis, cryopreservation, and cryonics. Biostasis is the general concept of preserving biological material. Cryopreservation is a specific method of biostasis using very cold temperatures, and cryonics is the controversial application of cryopreservation techniques to entire human bodies, with the goal of future revival. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Bruegel, Columbidae, and Walking Home URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bruegel-columbidae-and-walking-home/ Last updated: 2025-06-26T14:14:39.000Z **Pieter Bruegel the Elder, *The Battle Between Carnival and Lent* (1559)** > I imagine them in mud, steaming people, bony > hands joined to the land, farming with fingers > clawing furrows in the earth, dreaming of rain. > Someone begat someone who begat someone, who > begat someone else (etc) then you and I which means: > look down and see them in a puddle’s rainbow. > Bruegel showed them wearing clean and bright clothes, with > wimples white, and horns on their caps, and masks > leering, cups spilling, playing dice, dancing. > Memento vivis: taste a thousand years > in a cup of wine, eternity in bread > there’s a harvest festival in our blood. **Columbidae** > Ice picks on black ice, scrabbling > the slate roof, my skull trepanned > lying in my teenage bed, coddled > listening to pigeons. > They were rock doves once, they lived in > cliffside roosts pecking sea salt spray > gathering hedge-berries inland > flying home by lay lines. > Cooing that sounds like *cruel* repeated > I feel honoured, like they have > gathered here to bow their heads > over me in feathered prayer. > We made them, or maybe say this: > we unmade them and we broke them > moulded their wildness and turned it > into a hopeless love > then abandoned them. Pigeons are > broken pieces of our scattered > conscience. Listen to them, up there > gathering again. **Walking Home** > On my walk home a tunnel of trees > narrow and enfolded, shifting green > in summer shimmering, tectonic > blue magma breaking through leaf fault-lines. > For a long time I walked home in sound > ears plugged with New York, Detroit, London > tape-hiss stroking cochlea, finger > on spring-loaded moulded plastic button. > In winter the tunnel was dark, tactile > the trees were stripped and shivering > an idea of giants overhead, sighing > eyes closed or open, I walked the same. > And then a tide of blood fell back in me > after that I walked with open ears > I found that the trees had voices, and > they sang like forgotten, sunless seas. > I know that something has gone from me > I don’t know what it is or where it went > I used to walk home gladly, with light steps > there was a last time, but it went unmarked. > I think of my parents at the far side > of that tunnel of trees—summer, winter: > the place the beginning seems to be > is where you will find the end*.* ### *Joseph Hunter is a fiction writer and poet based in Manchester in the United Kingdom. His writing has appeared with Fairlight Books, Crocus Books, and Willows Wept Review. He teaches at the University of Manchester, where he is completing a PhD. He is co-editor of The Manchester Review.* ### What James Lindsay Gets Wrong about “Right-Wing Postliberalism” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-james-lindsay-gets-wrong-about-right-wing-postliberalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:50.000Z > “Recently, however, James Lindsay has sparked a contentious debate on this topic by disparaging postliberals as ‘woke right.’ We will examine \[Alasdair\] MacIntyre in the context of this vibrant debate.” “Right-wing postliberalism” refers to a growing tendency of social and political thought in the United States and the West more generally. This tendency is discernible in both ordinary citizens and professional philosophers and pundits. In the former, it refers to the willingness of ordinary citizens to entertain and endorse thoughts and policy proposals that are judged illegitimate from the standpoint of certain liberal strictures of thought. It refers also to the diminishing influence of those strictures over the reactions and decisions of these citizens. Think, for example, of how the charge of [“racism”](https://medium.com/deep-code/situational-assessment-2017-trump-edition-d189d24fc046?ref=merionwest.com) has lost its bite as the belief grows that it has been overextended. Think also of the surging momentum of “nation” and “nationalism.” Philosophers and pundits aligned with this right-wing postliberal tendency offer justifications for at least some of these transgressions. They begin their project by attempting to articulate explicitly the liberal framework these citizens are leaving behind. They then offer an alternate way to think about people, society, and politics. They critique the liberal framework from a standpoint rooted in their own rivalrous concepts. Insofar as ordinary postliberal citizens adopt them, these rival concepts can serve to guide their reactions and decisions and to arm them with justifications for their social and political activity when challenged by protagonists of the liberal regime. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Spinoza and the Unrest of Capitalism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/spinoza-and-the-unrest-of-capitalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:43:38.000Z In [previous](https://www.merionwest.com/the-end-of-capitalism/) [essays](https://www.merionwest.com/the-paradox-of-capitalism/), I have explored in some detail how the dread of a pink slip in contemporary capitalist society exposes not only the anguish of anticipating financial hazards after losing a job, but also the existential self-doubts of losing the status that comes with having a “respectable” occupation. These vulnerabilities, however, are often accompanied by a profound ontological disorientation that suddenly comes to light when, except perhaps for the [“fortunate few”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/14/george-will-pursuit-of-happiness/?ref=merionwest.com) who love their work so much that they never work a day in their life, we reckon with the anomie in which we have been living by equating freedom and happiness with the size of our bank account. To be sure, we all need to pay the bills, and we should all learn how to manage our finances to ensure that we can weather the storms of life and enjoy some of the comforts that life in a capitalist society has been known to offer. But if we are to take seriously the cost-benefit mindset of *homo economicus*, the reified handmaiden of capitalism, then we would be remiss to ignore the costly [bad faith](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/202310/jean-paul-sartres-bad-faith-the-danger-of-denying-freedom?ref=merionwest.com) of occupational choices that turn a [being-for-itself into a being-in-itself](https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095456283?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Being%20for%2Ditself%20%28pour%2D,contingent%20being%20of%20ordinary%20things). Or, in other words, how surviving the selective pressures of capitalism empties the mind and soul of the self-assurance and optimism that we once cherished in our youth that our thoughts and actions would be those of an [authentic](https://eternalisedofficial.com/2021/02/10/authenticity-being-toward-death/?ref=merionwest.com) and autonomous self that feels at home in the world. In all the hustle and bustle of life in a dynamic and disruptive capitalist economy, serenity of the soul is not something that can be bought and sold, no matter how many [billions of dollars the self-help industry filches from the pockets](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unlocking-growth-potential-comprehensive-analysis-100800718.html?ref=merionwest.com) of unsettled souls exiled in this land of heteronomy. Aplomb is a byproduct of internal harmony that comes with mature reflection and reconciliation, if only we can learn how to harvest this perspective from the gift of reason with which we have been endowed by nature. But this is undoubtedly hard, if not impossible, to do when reason itself has been [eclipsed](https://www.amazon.com/Eclipse-Reason-Max-Horkheimer/dp/1614274134/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=197OCPT836AZZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.G6ae0IZT1W5TUhuhQoIFquNWj1qOsZCCARMDX5HKK4bDcgXr1URsyXt0of2JBesPHYDH0cfQO-OGcgrDl8Qm1ruI1y4LHqgWdNBoTFfBt7bvSq6sVTHG7wM6iOnDrUPYkkptyZAs3v8340wmRONti6n0gU11WS4In%5F05%5FMdT4MiZhaJ3IF7WzYvtIn5UZqz6WTyY2VMe0kC2N6QNcNyYJUPSe3PUUCVNK7mS6OMBdKM.XBqSlVCMrv%5FQR5-yCBZj2HdpR1Fh%5F8JyOjYcTLcNnF4&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=eclipse+of+reason&qid=1727789005&sprefix=eclipse+of+reason%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com) or, rather, stripped of its full powers of perspicacity by the distractions of trying to survive in a world of fetishized technology and unbridled commerce. Then, there is the daily grind of [making the donuts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyZtMfMWONI&ref=merionwest.com), nine-to-five cubicle life, graveyard shifts, or cacophonous commutes to stifling corporate beehives where well-paid, imperious executives and managers regulate the rules and routines of our working lives to serve the bottom line. And when we spend our time worrying about a dressing down from the boss, we do not spend our time interrogating whether the boss is berating us with a deserved comeuppance or infantilizing us into meek submission. We live a life of perpetual unrest in which the only way to avoid exile from society is to be exiled from ourselves. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Moon Bloom and Lithopedion URL: https://www.merionwest.com/moon-bloom-and-lithopedion/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:21.000Z “Night flower,/short-lived lover/of darkness,/offspring of cactus,/desert jewel/lulled awake/by moonbeams” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Three-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-three-state-solution-to-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/ Last updated: 2026-09-13T13:46:14.000Z “Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.” This is Charles Dickens in [*Hard Times*](https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9780141439679&ref=merionwest.com), the English tory socialist’s condition-of-England novel of 1854, a broadside against the crass, materialistic utilitarianism that defined the spirit of the age, dedicated to his reactionary friend, the fellow writer and labor sympathizer, Thomas Carlyle. Substitute “Interpretations” for “Facts” and add a question mark in brackets after the phrase “boys and girls,” and we have the spirit of the third decade of the 21st century. If Jeremy Bentham was the eminent grise of early industrial British society, then Friedrich Nietzsche, refracted, to be sure, through woke ideologues such as Judith Butler on the Left and juvenile neo-reactionaries such as Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin on the Right, is the guiding intellectual light of our time. [“There are no facts, only interpretations;”](https://www.cambridge.org/highereducation/books/nietzsche-on-the-genealogy-of-morality-and-other-writings/58F7463D69D77580CA8CB1BBBD1D6309?ref=merionwest.com#overview) facts, sorry, interpretations, are what the powerful say they are. Broadly correct, this fact—sorry, interpretation—is also deeply facile. However paltry the evidence, however dominant the [paradigm,](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo13179781.html?ref=merionwest.com) we cannot dispense with facts and the pursuit of objective knowledge. Just because truth can, it seems, only ever be provisional, that is no reason to thrust it aside in favor of simple assertion; yet thrust it aside we have. Nowhere perhaps is this more disgracefully clear than in the journalistic coverage of the current war Israel is waging on Hamas, after the Gaza-based terrorist organization’s cruel and deadly assault on Israeli citizens and security forces on October 7th of last year, an equally misreported event in international media. As the British journalist [Aris Roussinos has argued](https://unherd.com/2023/10/israel-is-no-longer-britains-war/?ref=merionwest.com), the conflict between Israel and Palestine has become a proxy for other tribal loyalties, relating to the misnamed culture wars which have divided many Western nations down the middle. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Jimmy Carter: A Man Ahead of His Time URL: https://www.merionwest.com/jimmy-carter-a-man-ahead-of-his-time/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:08.000Z > “It should be noted, however, that President Carter was not only the Great Humanitarian. He was also the Great Deregulator.” There is little we can say about former President Jimmy Carter—who [will lie in state in Washington, D.C.](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c878zglqx23o?ref=merionwest.com) in the coming days and be honored with [a National Day of Mourning](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/12/29/proclamation-announcing-the-death-of-james-earl-carter-jr/?ref=merionwest.com) on January 9th, after his passing on December 29th—that has not already been said elsewhere. He is widely regarded as a humble (he typically [insisted on being called](https://www.gpb.org/news/2025/01/03/always-call-me-jimmy-atlanta-family-remembers-five-generations-of-friendship-jimmy?ref=merionwest.com) “Jimmy”), deeply humane, and upstanding citizen who was faithfully married to Rosalynn Carter for 77 years; who [supported the civil rights movement](https://millercenter.org/president/carter/life-before-the-presidency?ref=merionwest.com) early in his career; and [who won the Nobel Peace Prize](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2002/summary/?ref=merionwest.com) in 2002 for his efforts on behalf of the Carter Center to advance the cause of human rights. His humanitarian efforts have won him acclaim during what is widely considered a successful post-presidency. His presidential term was marked by several controversies and a multitude of history-shaping developments, including [the Camp David Accords,](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/camp-david?ref=merionwest.com) [the Panama Canal Treaties,](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/panama-canal?ref=merionwest.com) [the beginning of the](https://www.britannica.com/event/Soviet-invasion-of-Afghanistan?ref=merionwest.com) Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, the [partial nuclear meltdown at](https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html?ref=merionwest.com) Three Mile Island, [the boycott of the](https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/qfp/104481.htm?ref=merionwest.com) 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the ending of détente, the energy crisis in [the aftermath of the](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo?ref=merionwest.com) Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo, stagflation, and [the Iran hostage crisis.](https://www.britannica.com/event/Iran-hostage-crisis?ref=merionwest.com) President Carter surely had his hands full. His [lower position in](https://web.archive.org/web/20060207050558/http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007243) presidential rankings, [his flagging approval rating](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/jimmy-carter-public-approval?ref=merionwest.com) in office, and [his decisive loss to](https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1980?ref=merionwest.com) Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election provide evidence of how presidential scholars and contemporaneous voters regarded his performance. It should be noted, however, that President Carter was not only the Great Humanitarian. He was also the “Great Deregulator.” Before President Ronald Reagan went on to define his own legacy by claiming that the government was not the solution but, instead, the problem, President Carter was paving the way for a long-lasting era of deregulation, one of three pillars—the others being privatization and free trade—that many associate with a decades-long process of [“neoliberalism”](https://www.merionwest.com/neoliberalism-is-a-delusion-of-marxists/) that is more closely associated with President Reagan. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### God’s in the Weeds: Daneen Bergland’s “The Goodbye Kit” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/gods-in-the-weeds-daneen-berglands-the-goodbye-kit/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:07:03.000Z > “Eve about to be cast out of the Garden kills as the mistress of straight-faced understatement. There is no fury, no rebuke, or if there is, it has not set in yet. Instead, we get rationalizing, looking on the bright side, and philosophical self-doubt.” This review is the third consecutive essay I have devoted to an author of [Airlie Press,](https://www.airliepress.org/?ref=merionwest.com) a publisher where the writers are also the editors. These talented poets are bringing a fresh look at contemporary poetry by focusing on poetry being written in Oregon, especially by women. As FC2 did years back for fiction, the writer-editors have taken matters into their own hands and produced exquisite editions, friendly to the touch and challenging to the mind and the senses. Of the three Airlie poets I have considered, Daneen Bergland is the most impish. To read her verse is willingly to hold a pack of firecrackers in your hand, light them, and get so busy watching them explode that you forget to put them down. Reading her work sent me back to James Tate, one of my early favorites, a prolific and changeable author I always felt was hemmed in by the descriptor “surreal.” The poet Charles Simic, interviewing Tate in the *[Paris Review](https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5636/the-art-of-poetry-no-92-james-tate?ref=merionwest.com)* for the Summer 2006 issue, holds a similar view to mine. “The critics usually deal with him by calling him a surrealist and leaving it at that. If he is one, he belongs to that native strain of surrealism to which Buster Keaton and W. C. Fields also belong. ‘It’s a tragic story, but that’s what’s so funny,’ Tate says in one poem. He is one of our great comic masters.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Down at the Ecoplex URL: https://www.merionwest.com/down-at-the-ecoplex/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:06.000Z “Doom is there staring, everywhere/I go, like a brazen coyote/dead center of the road/half-starved so it doesn’t care anymore.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Letter: Reflecting on “These People All Know Each Other” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/letter-reflecting-on-these-people-all-know-each-other/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:07:04.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/alcohol-bar-party-cocktail.jpg) > “Collegiality may grease the wheels of society, but when does it become dysfunctional or oppressive? Or, to raise another question, what are the advantages of rudeness?” Erich Prince’s November, 2024 essay, [“These People All Know Each Other,”](https://www.merionwest.com/these-people-all-know-each-other/) which was [just featured in the annual list of](https://www.merionwest.com/editors-choice-notable-articles-in-2024/) *Merion West’s* best articles of the past year, makes a compelling and provocative case regarding some of the pitfalls of “collegiality” and the advantages of retaining a degree of personal autonomy. Certainly, society itself would not be possible without a degree of companionship and a shared understanding of reality. Collegiality may grease the wheels of society, but when does it become dysfunctional or oppressive? Or, to raise another question, what are the advantages of rudeness? I have a good friend with whom I have engaged in many fruitful philosophical discussions over the years. These discussions have almost always taken place over a campfire during one of our many caving and river expeditions, mostly in Central and South America. Often our guides and cooks would join in: True philosophers, those who actually wonder at the spectacle of reality, are as likely to be found in the jungles of Guyana as in an Ivy League faculty lounge. Many of these campfire discussions with my colleagues could involve deep philosophical issues—the existence of God, the nature of evolution, etc.— but, unlike in a faculty lounge, they were usually devoid of the kind of politeness associated with collegiality. In fact, no good discussion (often fueled by rum) would proceed without the kind of crude personal attacks commonly found among workers on a construction site. No one tiptoed around fragile egos. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Editor’s Choice: Notable Articles in 2024 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/editors-choice-notable-articles-in-2024/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:54.000Z 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”](https://www.merionwest.com/americas-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.” [“Winds of the Great Shame”](https://www.merionwest.com/winds-of-the-great-shame/) 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. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### In Reply to Walter Block: Sticking with Democratic Socialism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-reply-to-walter-block-defending-democratic-socialism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:55.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/building-room-ruins-hospital-old-hospital-operating-theater-institute-of-traditional-chinese-medicine-848481.jpg) > “Of course, the question of whether *healthcare* should be socialized is only a small piece of my general disagreement with \[Walter\] Block on political economy. Still, it is a vivid enough example to stand in for all the bigger questions.” Walter Block has many ideas that seem strange and extreme. I do not just mean that many of his ideas seem this way to a democratic socialist like me, though they certainly do. I mean that, if one explained some of them to the first 100 people one meets on the street, I would be amazed if at least 95 did not react that way. I am not saying this as an *ad hominem* sneer or an excuse to dismiss his ideas without argument. Just the opposite, in fact. Bear with me while I give a sense of what I mean. Many Americans have pro-Israel views on the war in Gaza, for example, but very few of them support the outright mass deportation of the entire Palestinian population—men, women, and children, with no attempt at differentiating between fighters and civilians. Block does. [Explicitly.](https://www.merionwest.com/yes-to-a-palestinian-state-just-not-inside-or-right-next-to-israel/) Similarly, many people dislike excessive government regulation and/or think #MeToo went too far, but very few would forthrightly defend a “right” to private-sector sexual harassment. Block does. He has [written](https://www.academia.edu/1466719/On%5Fthe%5FWoman%5Fs%5FLiberation%5FMovement%5For%5Fthe%5FMale%5FChauvinist%5FPig%5Fas%5FHero?ref=merionwest.com) that harassment “that takes place between a secretary and her boss is not a coercive action like the pinching that takes place in the public sphere.” And most Americans are at least vaguely pro-capitalist (at least in the minimal sense of not advocating the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production), but very few would support “anarcho-capitalism.” That is Block’s position. In Block’s utopia, no one would be educated at a public school because he regards the taxation that funds those schools as a form of theft. There would be no public fire departments, though one would presumably be free to pay to contract the services of a private fire brigade like the one operated by [Marcus Licinius Crassus](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcus-Licinius-Crassus?ref=merionwest.com) in ancient Rome. There would not even be public sidewalks. The late philosopher David Lewis, who (in his own, very different way) adopted some deeply strange positions, once said that he knew how to refute every objection to his views except “an incredulous stare.” It would be easy for me to respond to Block’s views with nothing but an incredulous stare. Instead, though, in all of my interactions with him, I have done him the courtesy of taking his arguments seriously and doing my best to refute them point-by-point. I did that four years ago when he came on my podcast for a debate on anarcho-capitalism. And I [even did that](https://www.merionwest.com/in-reply-to-walter-block-relocation-should-be-off-the-table/) when he wrote an article here advocating for outright ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Hand URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-hand/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:35.000Z “The hand drops a fresh globe/into the scoured skull, secures breath upon/the hemispheric nostrils and stands back,/appraising…” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Sand, Ash, or Mud: Valerie Witte’s “A Rupture in the Interiors” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/sand-ash-or-mud-valerie-wittes-a-rupture-in-the-interiors/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:23:57.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/pexels-technobulka-3342676.jpg) (Stanislav Kondratiev) > “As for most poets, \[Valerie\] Witte’s writing is intensely personal, whatever form it may take. No ‘experimental’ poet could be more candid and direct about her intention of ‘examining in a new way’ matters close to her heart.” Valerie Witte’s [skin-deep collection from Airlie Press](https://www.airliepress.org/valerie-witte-a-rupture-in-the-interiors?ref=merionwest.com) is a tonic for those allergic to avant-garde poetics. Its first section, “In the Coils,” begins with ambiguous simplicity: \[ The invention of skin a preliminary sorting when what lies dormant recalling the loss between opening was a simple mouth \] The poem’s rapid visual descent sets the pace for a relatively swift journey through issues of skin, its marring, dissolution, regeneration. Yet we have questions. How can skin be invented? Who invented it? Why is it being sorted? What does a mouth have to do with it? Poetry being poetry, all questions will be answered, but not necessarily in the order they occurred, or in the way we want or expect. To proceed, we must lean toward the poem, trust its good intentions. Readers who encounter linguistically adventurous verse sometimes suspect that they are being had or simply that the investment in “cracking the code” of associative chains of phrases is not worth the effort. Is what is being offered obfuscation or tantalizing mystery? Even seasoned savorers of more conventional poems may accuse a bolder author of being gratuitously abstruse, of reveling in nonsense or liminal sense, and feel that a betrayal of sorts has taken place. They forget that Percy Bysshe Shelley, in [“A Defence of Poetry,”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry?ref=merionwest.com) enjoins poets to “awaken and enlarge the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Vigilantism and the Sex Offender Registry URL: https://www.merionwest.com/vigilantism-and-the-sex-offender-registry/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:24.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/free-photo-of-entrance-of-house.jpeg) > “Social media and online articles about these incidents boast ten or even 20 comments praising the vigilante for each one condemning the act of violence.” Portez Smith arrived outside Jesse Grover’s Pennsylvania duplex early on Sunday, November 17th of this year, yelling through the closed door, “Grover, you’re a f—ing pedophile.” When Grover opened the door, Smith pulled out a gun and [shot him to death.](https://tinyurl.com/sstx2e5s?ref=merionwest.com) Grover was registered on [Pennsylvania’s sex offender registry](https://parsol.org/10-important-and-surprising-facts-about-pennsylvanias-megans-law/?ref=merionwest.com) as a Tier I offender. This holiday season, [ Grover leaves behind](https://www.mcgoniglefuneralhomeandcrematory.com/obituaries/print?o%5Fid=9130252&ref=merionwest.com) his wife, parents, four siblings, four stepchildren, and numerous other family members. He is remembered for his sweet smile and as a beloved family member, a good friend, and a lover of reading, cooking, and music. Grover’s murder is not the first registrant to face such a fate. Gary Blanton was a young married father living in the state of Washington when, in 2012, [Patrick Drum shot him to death](https://tinyurl.com/ydd2nxs2?ref=merionwest.com) for being on the Washington registry for a consensual sexual act with another minor from 12 years prior. Drum then went to the home of registrant Jerry Ray and killed him. With the Washington sex offender registry in hand, he was on the way to shoot a third registrant when apprehended. [Charles and Gretchen Parker](https://tinyurl.com/zjpyweu3?ref=merionwest.com) were at their South Carolina home when Jeremy and Christine Moody stopped in front of their house and raised the hood of their car. Charles was a mechanic and went outside to help. The Moodys entered their home and slaughtered both Charles, a South Carolina registrant, and his wife Gretchen (who was not on a registry), with a gun and knife. Like Drum, they already had targeted their next victim, another person on the sex offender registry, when they were apprehended. In the wake of these murders, the [National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL)](https://narsol.org/?ref=merionwest.com) [asked then-Governor Nikki Haley](https://tinyurl.com/ypj5ah83?ref=merionwest.com) to have the home addresses of registrants removed from the public view of the online registry. The request was disregarded. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Mannequin Exposé URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mannequin-expose/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:18.000Z “Among a murder of mannequins/the guilty can’t be picked out of a lineup.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Rejoinder to Ben Burgis: The Case for Laissez-Faire Capitalism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/rejoinder-to-ben-burgis-the-case-for-laissez-faire-capitalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:02.000Z > “According to that tried and true statement, ‘wealthier is healthier.’ Free enterprise leads to greater wealth and, thus, to greater health and longevity, ceteris paribus.” I am grateful to *Merion West* for its publication of Ben Burgis’s recent [article](https://www.merionwest.com/the-case-for-democratic-socialism/) making the case for democratic socialism. It gives me the opportunity, once again, to bash socialism. I shall consider, and refute, this author’s claim that socialism is better, more just, leads to greater prosperity, etc. by quoting from his essay and then indicating his errors. Consider the following statement of his: “I’m a democratic socialist. That means the core of my politics is about seeking to overcome the domination of society by wealthy interests. I want to empower the working class.” Under pure laissez-faire capitalism, the system I defend against socialism, there is no force or fraud. Those are crimes. How is it supposed that the “wealthy interests” gain their station in the first place? There is one possibility—and only one possibility: They make an offer that the recipient of the offer “cannot refuse.” Why cannot he refuse? This has nothing to do with *The Godfather*. He cannot refuse because it is not in his best interest to refuse. For example, suppose we start off under a system of perfect financial equality. All people in the society have the same amount of money. They are all independent entrepreneurs, each one working solely for himself. Each is as productive as every other person. However, A saves part of his funds and B does not. A then offers B an employment contract. “Come work for me,” says the former to the latter, “and I will pay you $X.” $X is more than B can earn for himself on his own, so he agrees. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Skwentna, AK URL: https://www.merionwest.com/skwentna-ak/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:03.000Z “The woods sigh. And then, a thousand miles away,/I’m in your arms again. Your breathing is an ocean./I’m drifting away. You whisper.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Start Making Sense: “Say Hello to Metamodernism” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/start-making-sense-say-hello-to-metamodernism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:59:47.000Z > “Just as \[Greg\] Dember’s generation inherited modernism and felt a need to rebel, today’s younger generations have inherited postmodernism and no doubt feel the same urge to keep the sense of cultural evolution progressing.” Sometime in the early 1980s, there was a point when rock bands noticeably stopped taking themselves so seriously. Rather than presenting a clear message, the music started being about attitude and style. Out with Joni Mitchell, in with the Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. As Greg Dember, author of the newly-released book [*Say Hello to Metamodernism!,*](https://www.amazon.com/Say-Hello-Metamodernism-Understanding-Reflexivity/dp/B0DHGFKZ8W?ref=merionwest.com) writes, “It was music for smart people, but music that urged smart people not to think more, but to dance more. As David Byrne sang, to… ‘Stop Making Sense.’” This was part of a broader cultural trend toward postmodern sensibilities: less sincerity and belief in grand narratives, more irony and lack of faith in clearly defined truths. Dember is a Seattle-based writer and musician who studied literature at Yale University. In his new book, he describes the thrill of going to college in the 1980s during the height of—as he terms it—the postmodern episteme. Dember writes, “All of this postmodernism stuff was exciting because it was a liberation from the burden of some kind of presumed truth…It was about seeing the world as it was coming to seem to actually be: a fractured, self-referential jumble of mutually contradicting points of view. There was nothing solid to stand on, so the game was to toss humor and cultural details back and forth as we bounced past each other in some kind of aesthetic bumper-car ride.” The world today is even more fractured, even more of a jumble of contradicting points of view. Yet this reality has lost all sense of being exciting or liberating. Just as Dember’s generation inherited modernism and felt a need to rebel, today’s younger generations have inherited postmodernism and no doubt feel the same urge to keep the sense of cultural evolution progressing. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### For Your Penance URL: https://www.merionwest.com/for-your-penance/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:12.000Z “There is a fervor that I do not surge with,/A saintliness with which I do not sing.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Little Engines of Self: Joy Manesiotis’ “Revoke” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/little-engines-of-self-joy-manesiotis-revoke/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:17.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Revoke_Cover_v.4.0_front.jpg) Airlie Press > “It is a remarkable feat of poetics to create epic sense out of the most micro of human materials.” In tracing the origins of lyric from the monody of Greek melic poems [to Emily Dickinson’s](https://poets.org/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260?ref=merionwest.com) “I’m Nobody!/Who are You?” [David Baker](https://www-jstor-org.msmc.idm.oclc.org/stable/26445765?searchText=lyric+as+epic&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dlyric%2Bas%2Bepic%26so%3Drel&ab%5Fsegments=0%2Fbasic%5Fsearch%5Fgsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A6852e5b0463fe773dfb1bde8be4ea9ef&seq=6&ref=merionwest.com) reminds us that “lyric poetry is never merely about a self but is always also a social performance…Interiority is—the ultimate paradox—one of our most conjoining gestures.” Does that also imply perhaps that there exists a path for the leap from lyric to epic, those famously counterpoised modes? Not everyone possesses the skill to vault back and forth across that canyon from private to public—yet it can be done. We commonly understand *epic* to mean long, heroic, and mythic or historical. Given, the term *hero* has been so overworked that one now only need be a first responder doing their everyday job, or a rank citizen who rescues a distraught cat to be designated a *hero*, thus the term’s falling off into a trite trope. Perhaps what needs rescuing first is the term itself. For the purposes of poetry, I suggest it denotes a temperament forged of resolve, subtlety, and steely but supple wisdom in the face of a significant obstacle, as personified in a poem’s speaker. That could mean confronting whatever life dilemma originates in but resonates beyond the self (the conjoining gesture). The dilemma does not have to be universal, only common. It is enough to make us feel that one suffers, alone, in the way that many suffer. Long since in the genre of poetry, have we ceased to posit “great” destinies (kings, nation builders) as the sole significant avatars of heroic action. Does that then mean it is no longer a going value? The inner life offers sufficiently ample scope for any individual of sufficient depth and reflective power to resonate like [El Cid:](https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/introtoworldliteratureanthology/chapter/from-the-poem-of-the-cid/?ref=merionwest.com) “With tearful eyes he turned to gaze upon the wreck behind.” William Shakespeare’s [Hamlet:](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/48958-o-god-i-could-be-bounded-in-a-nutshell-and?ref=merionwest.com) “O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space.” The making relative of what qualifies as sufficiently exalted status does not necessarily mean a diminishment of endeavor. What counts are qualities of mind and heart. Instead of taking up a lance or sword and mounting a horse, or poisoning a corrupt uncle-king, we say, [as Thomas Merton did,](https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1711.Thomas%5FMerton?ref=merionwest.com) “Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war.” The enemy lives within, as does the hero. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Case for Democratic Socialism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-case-for-democratic-socialism/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:17.000Z > “Capitalism has done much to develop the economic machinery of the modern world to the point where all of this is possible. But it is long since time to move past the capitalist phase of our history and institute something better.” In a recent [article at MSNBC](https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-assassination-attempt-ben-shapiro-stochastic-terrorism-rcna171406?ref=merionwest.com), I wanted to give readers a quick sense of my worldview, so I wrote: “I’m a democratic socialist. That means the core of my politics is about seeking to overcome the domination of society by wealthy interests. I want to empower the working class.” That is about as much depth as I felt like I could go into for a short article on an unrelated topic. But the editors of *Merion West* have been kind enough to ask me to expand on that here. Much like “liberalism,” “libertarianism,” “conservatism,” “feminism,” “democracy,” and damn near every other political label that is important to large numbers of people, the precise meaning of “socialism” is contested. Broadly speaking, though, it has two meanings. When Senator Bernie Sanders or certain politicians in Western Europe use the s-word, they are primarily talking about what is sometimes called “socialism within capitalism,” or more commonly “social democracy.” They are talking, in other words, about policies that would make parts of our society “more socialist” while leaving the fundamentals of capitalist property relations in place. I am certainly a socialist in this sense. I believe, for example, that it should be a deep source of national shame that the United States is, as Senator Sanders often [points out,](https://quotefancy.com/quote/1015928/Bernie-Sanders-We-are-the-only-major-country-on-earth-that-doesn-t-guarantee-health-care?ref=merionwest.com) “the only major country in the world” that does not provide all of its citizens in one way or another with basic health services “as a right” outside of capitalist market structures. As I mentioned in my last article here, that is a reason why cash-strapped diabetics [sometimes die](https://rightcarealliance.org/activities/insulin/?ref=merionwest.com) in the United States when they try to ration their insulin, while, as far as I know, this is not something that happens in, for example, Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, or Sweden. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On the Trump Coalition URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-trump-era/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:18.000Z > “The economic situation during the Biden administration eroded and degraded the average American’s ability to participate in the life of the nation as an economically self-sufficient citizen.” The result could not be clearer: President-elect Donald Trump decisively won the presidential election of 2024\. With the former President at the top of the ticket, Republicans won the Senate, retained the House, and [led a nation-wide swing](https://x.com/AstorAaron/status/1854041766556491791?ref=merionwest.com) to win the popular vote. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris, the cipher for the left-wing of the managerial elite, failed to outperform President Joe Biden [in all but a few counties](https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/politifactwisconsin/2024/11/14/claim-that-biden-outperformed-harris-in-every-county-in-america-false/76292070007/?ref=merionwest.com) in the United States. Instead of smashing the glass ceiling, the Harris campaign turned out to be standing on a glass floor. President-elect Trump smashed through this, sending the remnants of the Obama coalition, which Vice President Harris attempted to mobilize, tumbling into electoral oblivion. President-elect Trump achieved this by becoming the Caesar (a term I will discuss more later) for the disaffected middle of America. Between 2020 and 2024, President-elect Trump [gained ground](https://archive.is/incF9?ref=merionwest.com#20160934) in all but two states. He won approximately [56% of white voters](https://apnews.com/article/election-harris-trump-women-latinos-black-voters-0f3fbda3362f3dcfe41aa6b858f22d12?ref=merionwest.com) and over 30% of the ethnic minority vote. This included almost half of Latino voters, seen most starkly in swing states like Michigan and [Arizona](https://x.com/rakibehsan/status/1854485916485599591?ref=merionwest.com) and [border states](https://x.com/MaxNordau/status/1854189321751798081?ref=merionwest.com) such as Texas. The Texas election result [demonstrated](https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1854189406946558447?ref=merionwest.com) that the [racial de-polarization seen from 2016-2020](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/12/2020-election-analysis-democrats-future-david-shor-interview-436334?ref=merionwest.com) has only continued. Meanwhile, [gender polarization actually lessened](https://www.thefp.com/p/democrats-picked-the-wrong-womens?publication%5Fid=260347&post%5Fid=151342877&isFreemail=false&r=766ls&triedRedirect=true&ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=But%20a%20wider,the%20Republican%20Party%29.). Men aged 18-29 [shifted right around 30 points from 2020](https://x.com/souljagoytellem/status/1854172606318166315?ref=merionwest.com), while women aged 18-29 also shifted toward the right, [by over ten points](https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/1855224102035902596?ref=merionwest.com). The 11-point gap in the Republican/Democratic female vote [mirrored the marriage gap](https://x.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1853993316083278294?ref=merionwest.com). The trans issue was also [far more important](https://x.com/JoshKraushaar/status/1854518466029527410?ref=merionwest.com) than many pundits assured voters it was, and the Trump campaign [expertly highlighted it in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVU7pYq3WHw&ref=merionwest.com) its advertising. On election night, [it became apparent that](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/06/trump-victory-election-kamala-harris-america-republicans/?WT.mc%5Fid=e%5FDM449009&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi%5FFAM%5FNew%5FES&utmsource=email&ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Across%20counties%20where%20median%20household%20income%20was%20between%20%2425%2C000%20a%20year%20%E2%80%93%20roughly%20equivalent%20to%20the%20federal%20poverty%20line%20for%20a%20family%20of%20four%20%E2%80%93%20and%20%2475%2C000%2C%20the%20US%20average%2C%20Trump%E2%80%99s%20vote%20share%20was%20above%2070%20per%20cent.) the counties with a median household annual income between $25,000—$75,000 saw President-elect Trump’s vote share climb above 70%. The Democrats are now the party of high education and high income. The [net worth](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/06/democrats-trashed-the-economy-of-course-they-lost/?ref=merionwest.com) of the bottom half of American households grew by 8.5% in real terms during President Biden’s term. Meanwhile, this figure was 127% during President-elect Trump’s first term. Furthermore, the average disposable income of Americans grew by around 12%. This shrank to 4% under President Biden. This was [reflected in the fact](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/07/why-inflation-impossible-for-the-democrats-cling-to-power/?WT.mc%5Fid=e%5FDM449009&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi%5FFAM%5FNew%5FES&utmsource=email&ref=merionwest.com) that, according to data compiled by *The Telegraph,* city grocery prices rose by 22% since January, 2021\. On top of this, a gallon of fuel rose by 37%. In mid-2022, this rose to 123%. While this was going on, rents in cities also increased by 23%. The working and lower-middle classes were hardest hit. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Butter Weed URL: https://www.merionwest.com/butter-weed/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:04.000Z “Having just emerged from her tv and ac,/she was too sun-shocked and asphyxiating/to hear ‘it’s a lovely shoot’/as my spade severed the root.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Itching for the Infinite URL: https://www.merionwest.com/itching-for-the-infinite/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:04.000Z > “Further examples abound, but suffice to say, at least as far as these prominent modern thinkers were concerned, *epicureanism for the masses* does seem to denote something quite real.” *Editor’s note: All of the italicized words within quotations constitute the original emphasis intended by the quoted author.* If we look beyond everyday reversals in fashion trends, discursive fads, and the like, beyond even the rise and fall of entire political regimes, cultures, and religions, a bird’s-eye view of world history reveals only a few fundamentally distinct epochs which, as far as their overall profiles are concerned, can be delineated with remarkable precision. At the highest level, real historical change always involves a radical reorientation of human [being-in-the-world](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/?ref=merionwest.com) such as only seldom occurs. At least three major orientations can be discerned. In regard to the earliest—often referred to as *prehistory*—any conception we may have of human activity at this stage barely surpasses the merely speculative. Holistically, prehistorical humans may be said to have been in thrall to Nature in the ancient sense of [phusis](https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/nomos-and-phusis?ref=merionwest.com), as that which spontaneously wells up without much extrinsic involvement. Prehistory as such is the realm of storied time, the earliest recorded glimpses of which are available only through mythology. After prehistory comes antiquity, broadly conceived—which is really history as we tend to understand it, up to and including the Middle Ages and roughly coterminous with agricultural modes of development. In this second phase of world history, we encounter a welter of more or less sophisticated management stratagems, all devised to facilitate “the reign of man over man,” or [what Karl Marx calls](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/grundrisse.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) “relations of personal dependence”—those, to be sure, that have evolved beyond the “entirely spontaneous” (as in prehistory). History proper is followed by an age with a distinctively post-historical flavoring. Post-history itself, however, is merely postulated as a virtual terminus of what is more commonly called modernity, the period we still inhabit today (pace postmodernists of various persuasions). The way [Marx tells it,](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/grundrisse.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) modernity coincides with the emergence of civil society, in which “the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means towards his private purposes.” In civil society, “personal independence founded on *objective* dependence” becomes the dominant social form—the form of the isolated individual or the social atom—such that “the social connection between persons is transformed into a social relation between things.” This “great form” is enabled by “a system of general social metabolism,” a “general exchange of activities and products, which has become a vital condition for each individual.” Compared to what came before, the modern age has an unmistakably insatiable quality to it. Modern man “strives not to remain something he has become, but is \[always\] in the absolute movement of becoming.” “The modern,” [in short](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/grundrisse.pdf?ref=merionwest.com), “gives no satisfaction; or, where it appears satisfied with itself, it is *vulgar*.” In fact, having forfeited even the pretense of “satisfaction,” “the modern” often amounts to a protracted exercise in deliberate disorientation, as it proactively oversells the radical indeterminacy of human existence from its own “limited standpoint”—namely, that of civil society. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Europeans Don’t Understand about Trump URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-europeans-dont-understand-about-trump/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T08:39:41.000Z While Americans have lived every day with the consequences of the Biden presidency, Europeans have felt these as a more remote matter, even though they are nearer to one of them, namely the war still being waged on Europe’s eastern doorstep. This remoteness makes many of them incredulous that Donald Trump is back, and back with a vengeance. The things that so many Europeans do not understand about President-elect Trump could in fact, if written down, fill a five-volume set, but here I should like to concentrate on three things, with the first two being closely related: Europe’s post-historical nature, its moral purism, and its relative lack of positive visions. I shall treat them in this order. As I have written in [various](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/america-is-still-the-freest-country/?ref=merionwest.com) [contexts,](https://merionwest.com/2024/07/10/the-french-election-and-europes-post-historical-collapse/?ref=merionwest.com) all of Europe except the east has been off the geopolitical stage of storm and stress for many decades now. I will not repeat here the full point about Europe that I have made from the point of view of the philosophy of history, but suffice it to say that European countries have ceased to be great, historical powers, and, this being the case, that Europe’s influence on world events is minimal. As a result, Europeans have forgotten that politics is, in its most heightened form, a matter of life and death. While no one in Tehran or Beijing particularly cares who sits in the Riksdag in Stockholm, or even in the Paris Elysée or Bundestag in Berlin, who sits in the White House in Washington, D.C. makes an enormous difference, since America is at an earlier historical stage than Europe and is still a great power. While I, like many, considered the former President’s victory the likelier outcome, I was still nervous about the possibility of an upset by Vice President Kamala Harris, and a German friend of mine told me to relax, saying that, after all, it’s “only politics.” And I pointed out to him that in his country, politics is indeed only politics, while in mine politics is a matter of life and death around the world, reminding him that because President Trump lost in 2020, Russian forces were encroaching upon eastern Europe, with [deaths well in excess of a hundred thousand](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/18/ukraine-russia-war-battlefield-deaths-rise?ref=merionwest.com), over a thousand Jews were slaughtered in Israel, and Afghan women were enslaved and [Afghan gays stoned to death](https://afghanlgbt.com/en/content/yB6D/?ref=merionwest.com). ## "...those who have real responsibility tend to understand that moral purism is impractical." That is, many Europeans, because they themselves no longer exercise world influence, have forgotten that the world needs a strong America to hold things together. Having forgotten this, it is easy to concentrate on lesser things, such as Trump’s sometimes crude jokes or other seemingly offensive remarks. Worrying about a leader’s meanness or gruff ribaldry is a luxury that post-historical peoples have, historical ones not. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Appreciating America’s Distinctly British Heritage URL: https://www.merionwest.com/appreciating-americas-distinctly-british-heritage/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:19.000Z > “The United States’ British roots also have value because they provide a link to a history older than any homegrown alternative the United States possesses.” University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Wax has been embroiled in controversy [since at least 2017,](https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/commentary/paying-the-price-for-breakdown-of-the-countrys-bourgeois-culture-20170809.html?ref=merionwest.com) facing frequent condemnations of her [comments and points of view](https://www.merionwest.com/the-breakdown-of-american-culture-an-interview-with-prof-amy-wax/). In September of this year, the university took the unusual [step](https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/university-pennsylvania-suspends-amy-wax-law-professor-c055cfd8?ref=merionwest.com) of suspending Wax for one year, at half her normal salary and in spite of her tenure. (Other penalties were also imposed.) Last month, Wax made some bold comments about the makeup of the American population. In conversation with Glenn Loury, Wax [argued](https://glennloury.substack.com/p/does-america-require-an-anglo-protestant) that the United States should have “one dominant demographic,” which would ideally be “Anglo-Protestant” in nature. Wax has drawn fire with similar remarks in the past. In 2017, fellow scholar Jonathan Klick [criticized](https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/i-dont-care-if-amy-wax-is-politically-incorrect-i-do-care-that-shes-empirically-incorrect/?ref=merionwest.com) her for “claims regarding the superiority of Anglo-Protestant norms.” Klick made some good points, and one can certainly argue over details. But on the whole, Wax, in my view, is right. As she suggested to Loury, Anglo-Americans did make the United States successful, and the country would be better off with a strong Anglo-American presence. As Garett Jones observes in [*The Culture Transplant*](https://books.google.de/books/about/The%5FCulture%5FTransplant.html?id=1E6GEAAAQBAJ&redir%5Fesc=y&ref=merionwest.com), “there’s at least some evidence that, based on patterns around the world, being a British colony was a net economic plus.” That is compared to colonization by other European powers. Jones also casts Britain as the birthplace of the “right to property,” which he says “goes back to Magna Carta.” For hundreds of years, there has been little danger of expropriation in Britain. In Jones’s view, “that low British risk has planted its Deep Roots in North America.” This was surely due in part to the British origin of many Americans. Jones explains that immigrants tend to bring their cultures with them, and such ancestral culture partly overrides that of the countries to which they move. To an extent, “people matter more than places.” In [“Why Anglos Lead,”](https://nationalinterest.org/article/why-anglos-lead-871?ref=merionwest.com) Lawrence Mead similarly contends that American predominance in international affairs dates back at least to World War II and “continues a British primacy that dated back at least to 1815.” (However, I hasten to add that, as William Wohlforth has [shown](https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/stability-unipolar-world?ref=merionwest.com), American hegemony is greater than any Britain ever achieved.) For Mead, Anglo leadership stems from several causes. One is a friendliness to economic freedom that goes back to medieval Britain. Another is “good governance” and judicial independence, which, likewise, was already present in 12th-century England. Moreover, Anglo politics promotes freedom at home and abroad, which is why Anglo states are trusted by other countries. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Fire Island URL: https://www.merionwest.com/fire-island/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:08.000Z “I scatter the sandpipers who/run from me/but not/the tides.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### At Home in the War URL: https://www.merionwest.com/at-home-in-the-war-2/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:05.000Z > “At the end of the summer, I got a bit too close to a Russian artillery round, a mistake that earned me a week in Kharkiv Regional Hospital. When the doctors cleared me, I walked home.” I am moving out of my apartment in Kharkiv today. While I drink coffee and wake up, I stare out my bedroom window for a long, last time. It overlooks a narrow street five stories below where I can see three tattoo parlors, a hipster barbershop, two coffee shops, a post office, a shawarma stand, a pharmacy, and a skate shop that specializes in custom skateboards and Carhart apparel. There is also a bridal boutique that sells beautiful designer gowns. The front of the boutique doubles as a café, where three young women are currently sitting. They will sit there for most of the day. The women change daily, but their routine is always the same. They will nurse americanos, smoke e-cigarettes, and scroll their phones. Eventually a young man in military uniform will arrive. One of the women will kiss him passionately and the whole group will enter the store. An hour later they will all leave, and there will be one less gown in the window. As I watch the shopkeepers and the people walking their dogs before they go to work, it is hard to remember that Kharkiv was being evacuated six months ago. Russia’s second offensive on Kharkiv Oblast started on May 10th of this year. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the objective was to establish a “sanitary zone” in the northeast of Ukraine. One did not need to be a military strategist to understand why he said this. The first battle of Kharkiv had been a great embarrassment for the Russian military. They attempted to occupy the city of Kharkiv in February of 2022, but despite months of fighting, they never took control of it. They changed tactics a bunch of times. Nothing worked. In the small towns that they did capture, the resistance was fierce. In Izium, some old Ukrainian ladies fed poisoned cake to their Russian “liberators.” In Velykyi Burluk, resisters car-bombed the Russian-appointed administrator. The Ukrainian army took back the whole region in September of 2022\. Now, in spring of 2024, the Russian military was not going to risk being embarrassed in Kharkiv again. There would be no occupation. They were going to rubble the whole place. Within a week of President Putin’s “sanitary zone” announcement, the government of Ukraine began evacuating the region. When the news broke, my unit was at a training facility, getting ready for our next rotation at the front. We were sent to Kharkiv as soon as the evacuation was called. When I got to the city, my Belarusian roommate, Mischa, and I hired a realtor to help us find an apartment. It felt odd to be haggling with a realtor in a region that was being evacuated, but we knew it was the best way to find a good place when our unit moved to a new sector. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Notes on Kitsch: Janice Harrington’s “Yard Show” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/notes-on-kitsch-janice-harringtons-yard-show/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T07:22:20.000Z > “As witness of this exaltation of the gaudy, the poet reclaims kitsch as a redemptive force, a vital stream of art, when it is mindfully connected to a set of local traditions, the heritage of a group that had to strive hard to find its native expression using the materials at hand.” I used to teach a literary theory course titled “Camp, Kitsch, and Folklore: The Modern Search for Tradition.” These three terms were treated as modes for art and literature as they exist within culture, especially popular imagination. Susan Sontag’s 1964 [“Notes on Camp”](https://monoskop.org/images/5/59/Sontag%5FSusan%5F1964%5FNotes%5Fon%5FCamp.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) was one of the readings. In it, she defines a “cult” of aficionados, in this case gay men from New York City. In that way, she establishes how a proper understanding of certain concepts relies on considering the sub-group of humanity from which it is issued. Meaning is created, not sub specie aeternitatis but, rather, as a function of the lived historical experience of a particular group. “A sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about; but there are special reasons why Camp, in particular, has never been discussed. It is not a natural mode of sensibility, if there be any such. Indeed, the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric—something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Shadow URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-shadow-is-all-he-wants/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:31.000Z “her body, between the buildings/behind her and the parked cars/in front, throwing a coal-black shadow/on the ground the color/of tarnished silver…” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Does America Have a New Natural Governing Party? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/does-america-have-a-new-natural-governing-party/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:20.000Z > “These are not new principles. They defined the Republican Party for most of its history, a party that had always included a progressive element.” Political parties die. Who now is a Federalist? Where are the Whigs today? The Federalists became Whigs, and the Whigs became Republicans, but this time it feels different. There is no sure and certain hope of a resurrection, and for the current iteration of the Democratic Party it looks like the long goodbye, having decisively lost the presidential election this month, along with the Senate and the House of Representatives. (This was all accomplished [while dramatically outspending](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-15/trump-harris-and-musk-how-money-did-and-didnt-affect-the-election?ref=merionwest.com) Republicans.) Think of the Democratic Party of today’s core beliefs and ask whether any part of them will be thought worth preserving. The pre-modern identity politics, the obscenely paid football stars [who took a knee,](https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/GettyImages-618397140-1-e1591126522112.jpg?w=1150&ref=merionwest.com) the Women’s March attendees in their hats in the shape of the female genitalia, will we ever see them again? Will anyone miss the maddened Antifa mobs or [the “mostly peaceful” riots](https://www.merionwest.com/these-are-not-peaceful-protests-their-violent-rhetoric-incites-violence/)? Whatever happened to the defund the police movement? Where are the diversity trainers and the lectures on unconscious bias? Remember Vice President Kamala Harris’ [proposal for](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/oct/18/donald-trump/harris-support-for-prisoner-access-to-transgender/?ref=merionwest.com) transgender surgeries for illegal aliens in our prisons? There were so many great ideas, just a few short years ago, and now they are permanently consigned to the dustbin of history. The Democrats have become the party of illiberalism. The idea that we should be judged as individuals and not as members of a race or sex was tossed out the window. Free speech rights were all very well and good when the Left was in the dissenter role, but not after it ascended to power. Then the dissenters were on the Right, and the Left became the censors. At one time a patriotic respect for our founding principles might have restrained some on the Left. Those principles constitute our identities as Americans, and that which is not liberal is not American. But for Democrats American patriotism [was jettisoned when](https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/24/us/thomas-jefferson-statue-removed/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) the Founders were revealed to be irredeemable racists. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### These People All Know Each Other URL: https://www.merionwest.com/these-people-all-know-each-other/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:46:16.000Z At a book launch party I attended with a handful of *Merion West* editors and writers not long ago, they were all there: The people I had followed on Twitter for the better part of a decade, writers whose columns I had forwarded to friends since college, familiar faces from the podcast circuit. It was much the same at another party I attended not long after—and seems to be the case more and more. Now that *Merion West* has been around for nearly a decade, many of these commentators I see at events such as these have interacted with the magazine once or twice. They have joined me or one of our contributing editors for an interview, submitted an article, or politely declined an email request to weigh in on an issue of their expertise. But more than that I recognized them, they all seemed to recognize each other, embracing instead of shaking hands, asking if they plan to attend such-and-such event the following month. I know what they mean now when they say “the circles are small.” Charles Krauthammer used to pride himself on not going to cocktail parties, instead preferring to be at home with his wife quietly reading, writing, doing whatever. And he was probably better for it. The more I watch the collegiality on display at various forums and events, the more I imagine how difficult it must be to respond dispassionately to the ideas or the works of other members of the scene. As such, I have to think—as unoriginal a thought as it is—that those writers who remain something of outsiders really do retain an advantage when it comes to writing as truthfully as possible. Now surely, having close relationships with fellow writers or commentators can have its benefits. Just as Saul Bellow [would help](http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14309/1/594600.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) a then-largely unknown writer named Cormac McCarthy secure a MacArthur Fellowship, which provided McCarthy the money he needed to research *Blood Meridian*, writers today recommend their friends (and friends of friends) for positions or to editors. This gives them a foot in the door they would likely not otherwise have or puts them on the right person’s radar. This is all the more important for up-and-coming young writers. The right introduction or mentor can make the difference between being a prodigy that didn’t pan out or becoming a respected author. (1) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ben Jonson’s Prison Conversion URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ben-jonsons-prison-conversion/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:01.000Z “You had time to contemplate its masonry/and recall that other jail, the temple/of muscle and flesh built by your trade/of bricklayer, now turning wan and idle.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Winds of the Great Shame URL: https://www.merionwest.com/winds-of-the-great-shame/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:07.000Z > “And as she lay on her death bed, as she must have felt a cancerous tumor slowly taking her life, she would also have looked around her and seen the stern and damaged but also joyous legacy she would leave behind.” My mother died in the small house she and my father bought in 1959, the house in which she had raised nine children, and from which she had watched her husband drive away. It was a mild afternoon with light cloud cover, but the small room full of adult bodies was warm, and the sun was directly overhead, so the light was dim. Ruth Lillian Jackson Overby lay in a hospital bed provided by the hospice service, sedated and relieved by a combination of her daily drops of CBD oil and just the amount of morphine she could manage while remaining lucid. The nine of us gathered around her that day have nine very different personalities, and thus had nine very different responses to the moment, from the boisterous and pointed to the somber and silent. We were there for more than an hour before she drifted off to sleep, the divisions in our large family set aside, surrendering to shared laughter and reminiscence. Later, when I had my private moment with her, I leaned in close, knowing this was a final goodbye. She spoke fondly of my wife and my siblings, and, no surprise to me, she recounted distant memories of her father. “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.” I had known this—it was something she had told us before—but in that moment, our last moment together, the thought of it raised questions in my mind. The image of Frank Jackson admonishing his third child, my mother, had always been a vague one that I’d spent far too little time imagining or interrogating: my mother, a young, beautiful woman—I’d seen many photographs—and her father, an incurable, though gentle, alcoholic, expressing his ambition for her. How would he have expressed it? What ambition might he have had for his other seven children? And most of all, how did a man like Frank Jackson, a man of Irish descent who had died from the drink at the young age of 57, how did this man muster ambition for his daughter in the midst of what must have been a shameful existence of his own? \* \* \* My mother, the third of Frank Jackson’s eight children, was 20 when he died. He was, by all accounts, an affable, unremarkable man whose wife Lillian, my grandmother, never remarried after his death. At Lillian’s funeral, a family friend described Frank Jackson to me as “just a really, really good person who unfortunately had that one demon,” by which he meant alcohol. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Europe Can Learn from the American Election URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-europe-should-learn-from-the-american-election/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:28.000Z In recent weeks, Europe has faced four major events—three of which occurred in the same week—that have unsettled many on the continent: the decisive [victory](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/trump-wins-presidency.html?ref=merionwest.com) of President-elect Donald J. Trump in the United States, the [collapse](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/06/europe/germany-government-scholz-finance-minister-intl-latam/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) of Germany’s coalition government, pogrom-like [anti-Semitic violence](https://www.reuters.com/world/israels-pm-aware-very-violent-incident-against-israelis-amsterdam-his-office-2024-11-08/?ref=merionwest.com) in Amsterdam, and unprecedented [flooding in parts of Spain.](https://apnews.com/article/flash-floods-spain-valencia-climate-change-what-to-know-f942142b82de24f5b4a18867bc32ae00?ref=merionwest.com) These events underscore the urgency for Europe to find its bearings on both internal and external affairs, including when it comes to anti-Semitism, radical Islam, and environmental policy. It is time to make Europe great again. At the European Union summit in Budapest on November 7, 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron [articulated](https://x.com/emmanuelmacron/status/1854606082473148791?s=46&ref=merionwest.com) the need for such a Make Europe Great Again (MEGA) movement: “I think that our role here in the European Union is not to comment on the election of Donald Trump, to wonder if it is good or not. He was elected by the American people, and he is going to defend the interests of American people and that is legitimate and that is a good thing. The question is whether we are ready to defend the interests of Europeans.” It is crucial, however, to contextualize the results of the American presidential election carefully and to draw reasonable conclusions for Europe. Many of Europe’s mainstream media pundits misinterpret President-elect Trump’s widespread appeal and the unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris, revealing not only a somewhat unfavorable view of the American public but also a broader blind spot regarding the interests of ordinary people. The prevailing narrative suggests that only a racist misogynist would have voted for the President-elect and that Vice President Harris’s failure to win is likewise attributed to racism and misogyny. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Long Live the Queen: 1926-2022 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/long-live-the-queen-1926-2022/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:29.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2c/bf/2cbf55d5-edac-4019-bf5c-bf6b4bf7d745/content/images/2024/12/queen.png) The Queen has died, and Britain has been lifted out of the river of time, to rest on the banks of history and to wonder at our fate. Since her death at 96, [announced on the BBC at 6:30 in the afternoon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDMXeDaZ-iM&ref=merionwest.com) on Thursday, September 8th, the country has awoken to a world changed while it outwardly remains the same. The most significant part of this change is taking place within the hearts of the Queen’s, now King Charles III’s, subjects. The fallen condition of the human soul has been confronted with what it means to live a good life, one dedicated to duty and service to God and her people, each redeeming and sanctifying the other. It is too much to say that the world will [not see her like again](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.1.2.html?ref=merionwest.com); there is within all of us the potential to aim for the higher moral life that the Queen embodied, if we engage in the striving that she did that is necessary to attain this. But it is true to say that the Queen’s death signifies the passing of an age, the bells that sounded out yesterday ringing out an old world and pealing in the new. What sort of world this becomes will be shaped by the actions of the families, communities, and the nation of Britain, led by its government and ruled by the new king. The grief is all-consuming, but this is only right. The Queen, our matriarch and grandmother to the nation is now gone, and she has taken something with her that we will only now begin fully to comprehend in the passing. Tears for her are just, and they are tears for what we have lost. But these tears will dry and reveal through clearer vision the glory of life itself, the goodness of the world shining through its fallenness, illuminating our souls. ## "It is too much to say that the world will not see her like again; there is within all of us the potential to aim for the higher moral life that the Queen embodied." For me, so overwhelming is the Queen’s death that it is difficult for a repressed Brit such as myself to express fully the depths of emotion I am currently experiencing, coursing through me like a raging torrent. The Queen exemplified the fidelity to duty, comportment, and strength of character that seem less and less the norm in both public and private life today. The Queen leavened the gravity of her situation with a quiet good humour that cut through from the exalted to the ordinary, elevating both in the process. My feelings are still raw, but this rawness, if expressed with the restraint for which Her Majesty was so well known, helps to dignify what would otherwise be unseemly. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How to Read Poetry URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-to-read-poetry/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:08.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/fish-2580208_1280.jpg) Marcelo Kato > “If I have become something of an expert reader of poems, it is in part because long ago, I learned to linger on the surface of things, rather than push past their specifics in order to arrive quickly at instant profundity.” Poetry is best read as it is best written: first with the ear, second with the eye, third with the mind. This holds true whether one is speaking of formal or “informal” poetry (free verse), whether traditional or experimental. An impediment gets removed as well when one tries not to discern immediately what is going on behind poetry, whether that is symbolic content, literary references of the kind signaled by the many footnotes in the *Norton Anthology of Poetry,* or any other type of intertextual decoding. Do those aspects of it exist? Of course they do. But when they become obstacles to reading, that is to say, experiencing poetry, they are best left alone until one is ready. You can always get to esoterica later, if you get comfortable enough to want to nerd out on poetics. If I have become something of an expert reader of poems, it is in part because long ago, I learned to linger on the surface of things, rather than push past their specifics in order to arrive quickly at instant profundity. I snorkel the coral reef, brimming with brilliant schools of small, radiant fish, rather than scuba dive to the black expanses in the lower depths of the sea. Basic technical knowledge of how poetry works is as useful to the casual reader as to the poet, however informally and unsystematically that is acquired. Often it can be gleaned through the sheer experience of careful, patient reading, inductively. Many things in life we learn intuitively and by exposure. For yes, that is the one thing poetry requires—patience—whether we are speaking of the epic verses of William Carlos Williams’ [*Paterson*](https://archive.org/stream/PatersonWCW/Paterson-William%5FCarlos%5FWilliams%5Fdjvu.txt) or Hart Crane’s [*The Bridge,*](https://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Paperback-1992-Hart-Crane/dp/0871402254?ref=merionwest.com) or the modest yet indirect musings of Emily Dickinson. Poetry is a somatic experience, enlivening the body as well as the mind, the way love does, or excellent food, or a single, delicious glass of wine. What is a line? What is a stanza? What is the difference between a couplet, a tercet, and a quatrain? (Stanzas of one line, two lines, three lines, four lines.) What is each apt for? What can it do? If you figure out from listening to the blues that its stanzaic structure consists of one line, which then gets repeated as the second, followed by a third line, a “zinger” that puts a punctuation point on the emotion expressed, and you understand such a song consists of a series of tercets that can go on for any length of time, but usually for five or six minutes with an instrumental break in the middle, you will have no trouble listening to a blues tune and enjoying it without complicating your life unnecessarily. You have more or less figured out, in terms of stanzaic form, what makes a blues song simultaneously down to earth, and philosophical. The music helps you feel the poem and keeps you from overly intellectualizing or stressing that you do not get what it is “really” about. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Following Bishop, This Excess Our Sentience, and Amnesia Palace URL: https://www.merionwest.com/following-bishop-this-excess-our-sentience-and-amnesia-palace/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:10.000Z “The far shore wore a gauzy veil of rain./Dark thunderheads rose over Evian/and shook the silver surface of the lake,/ruffling like shot silk.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why Most Americans Didn’t Buy the Harris Campaign URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-most-americans-didnt-buy-the-harris-campaign/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:22.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Kamala_Harris_48571349961.jpg) > “Hard as they tried to suck us through the black hole leading to their alternative-facts universe, inundating us in a steady stream of misinformation even as they, again ironically, accused us of peddling misinformation, we resisted.” In the waning days of the 2024 Presidential election, *The Atlantic*, running an assortment of purely delusional articles engaged in wild factual distortions and rampant and incendiary name-calling and fearmongering, played host to [one especially unhinged piece](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/11/swing-states-election-democracy-tight/680491/?ref=merionwest.com) by David A. Graham titled, in an echo [of comments made shortly beforehand by Michelle Obama](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT0NJoGxJ-4&ref=merionwest.com), “How Is It This Close?” Well, we can now say that, in the end, it was *not* especially close, though I doubt this will be of much solace to Graham and his ilk. For some time now, [research has shown](https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/research-summary-education-ideological-prejudice/?ref=merionwest.com) that, contrary to the common presupposition that education opens minds, our “educated” elites trapped in the corporate media bubble labor under a total inability to understand and empathize with “the other side.” From widely discussed books [caricaturing and demonizing rural Americans](https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/the-woking-class-vs-the-working-class?ref=merionwest.com) to former President Barack Obama’s recent [tone-deaf hectoring of “the brothers” for their purported misogyny](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/barack-obama-lectures-the-brothers/?ref=merionwest.com) in not sharing his enthusiasm for Vice President Kamala Harris to [another recent Atlantic article](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/trump-campaign-cruelty/680498/?ref=merionwest.com) in which Adam Serwer subdivided Trump supporters into three categories, all of which shared the characteristics of delusion and denial, the elites’ approach to this election has been a mix of misapprehension, disinformation, and condescension. The media, academia, and the celebrity class, of course, had worked overtime on Vice President Harris’s behalf, doing its darndest to insulate the Vice President from criticism and scrutiny and trying to paint their transparently incompetent candidate as the second coming of President Obama even as she spent her limited time away from the teleprompter meandering in circles around predigested talking points. The Media Research Center found that coverage of this election [was the most lopsided in history](https://www.foxnews.com/media/coverage-trump-harris-presidential-race-most-lopsided-history-85-negative-trump-report?ref=merionwest.com), with broadcast evening news coverage of Vice President Harris being 78% positive and of former President Donald Trump being 85% negative. And, with the media seemingly marching in lockstep with her campaign all the way to the finish line, those of us not hypnotized by the elite monoculture’s hall of mirrors definitely felt the substantial slant as they went from telling us she was the “joy” candidate in contrast to those “weird” Republicans, to their unambiguously biased “moderation” of the last two debates. They never bothered to hold her feet to the fire in probing her non-answers during the rare interviews she gave. There was [*60 Minutes*’ outright duplicitous editing](https://nypost.com/2024/10/10/media/ex-cbs-staffers-call-for-outside-probe-of-60-minutes-interview-with-kamala-harris-amid-editing-scandal/?ref=merionwest.com) to make her incoherent word jumbles seem slightly more coherent. There was then the implosion of the “joy” campaign in favor of a hatred-and-division-stoking fear campaign premised on calling now President-elect Trump a would-be authoritarian fascist who, if elected, would, among other things, crack down on free speech and weaponize law enforcement against his opponents (never mind the obvious ironies of such charges coming from the people whose administration had cracked down on free speech and weaponized law enforcement against the President-elect). _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Dead Are Difficult: Jenny George’s “After Image” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-dead-are-difficult-jenny-georges-after-image/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:23.000Z > “The tone of *After Image* is simultaneously calm and feverish, as the bereaved one moves along a spectrum from numb to utterly passionate, up and down, yet never hysterical, never heaping ashes on her head.” A hallmark of elegy is that its lament of grief be both private and public. Its three typical stages are lament, praise for the dead, and consolation of the aggrieved. These stages can be seen not only in classic poems such as John Milton’s [“Lycidas”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44733/lycidas?ref=merionwest.com) but in modern ones such as W.H. Auden’s [“In Memory of W.B. Yeats.”](https://poets.org/poem/memory-w-b-yeats?ref=merionwest.com) Yet what if the poetry offers no public aspect as such, other than the fact that anyone who might read the poem stands as a working public? And what if that is because there exists no definitive and final consolation to be had? Has the poet given in then to pessimism? Does that make the supposed elegy a mere complaint? Or does the lack of a tacitly listening, consoling public rather open up new possibilities for the function of elegiac poetry, renewing the form and giving it a more nuanced, less outwardly facing and less showy purpose? Could the insularity of going it alone represent a more realistic, believable strategy for getting to the heart of things? When I went back to Auden’s poem recently, one I remembered as affecting, it struck me as overly didactic in parts, even sanitized, in its eagerness to instruct us in how to think and behave. In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise. What if I am not ready to heal after a dozen stanzas? What if I do not want to receive aphorism-based marching orders? One cannot but admire Auden’s poetic skill in general, but what has most hardily survived in this most famous of his poems is the meme-ready assertion “Poetry makes nothing happen,” a phrase that has been debated as much as the rest of the poem has been forgotten by contrast. That is the problem with maxims and imperatives. They apply to too many cases, on account of their universalizing thrust. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Disappearing Sonnet URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-disappearing-sonnet/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:34.000Z “Cicadas, dirty oil, dogs, Venus, gloves/clouds, manholes, fled storms, black notes, harmonies/float indiscriminate as my head throbs/then disappear on the next wisp of breeze” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Dueling Cases for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-dueling-cases-for-donald-trump-and-kamala-harris/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:30.000Z A *Merion West contributing writer and editor respectively make the case for each candidate for President of the United States.* *Editor’s note: Given the endless discussion about the upcoming presidential election in the United States and the fact that such coverage can be found at nearly every media outlet and that few undecided voters remain among those who typically read publications such as this one, Merion West has generally limited the amount of discussion about the election in its pages. With that said, before the election, we would be remiss not to publish the respective case for each candidate. The case for former President Donald Trump has been authored by Merion West contributing writer Tony D. Senatore, and the case for Vice President Kamala Harris has been written by Merion West international relations editor Michael D. Purzycki. The ordering of the pieces was determined by a coin flip.* **The Case for former President Donald Trump** **By Tony D. Senatore** The 2024 United States presidential election is less than two weeks away. Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are basically [tied nationally,](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/dead-heat-trump-pulls-even-harris-nbc-news-poll-rcna174201?ref=merionwest.com) as well as [in the swing states](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/?ex%5Fcid=abcpromo&ref=merionwest.com) that will ultimately determine the election result. As such, whichever party [makes the best case to independent voters](https://www.npr.org/2024/09/19/nx-s1-5118393/undecided-voters-kamala-harris-donald-trump?ref=merionwest.com) will win the presidency and other key down-ballot races. As a [(new)](https://www.merionwest.com/why-i-left-the-democratic-party-to-support-donald-trump/) Republican who is anti-war and skeptical of foreign interventionism and as someone opposed to the leviathan surveillance state and the entrenched interests that run it and also profit from it, I would like to offer four critical reasons why former President Trump is the candidate worthy of independent voters’ support. **Prioritizing Americans** The first reason is that President Trump seeks to end the idea of exporting democracy as the guiding principle of American foreign policy, which has been in place since the end of the Cold War. He wants to replace it with his America First agenda. Of course, his detractors [use the phrase America First as a](https://fpif.org/the-ugly-origins-of-trumps-america-first-policy/?ref=merionwest.com) pejorative. Still, his supporters understand it for what it is: a plan for the United States to rebuild its infrastructure, become energy independent, and end American tax dollars [being used to finance war](https://www.cato.org/commentary/suffering-through-neocon-moment-warmongering-nation-building-dont-work?ref=merionwest.com) and [nation-building](https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-op-ed-no-neoconservatism/?ref=merionwest.com). One of the many ways President Trump would accomplish this [is by making European nations pay more](https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/07/trump-nato-europe-russia-defense-spending/?ref=merionwest.com) for their North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) security, avoiding putting American troops on the ground abroad, and correcting our current trade imbalances with China (and shifting them in favor of the United States via tariffs). Although some economists [claimed that](https://www.cfr.org/blog/tariffs-and-trade-balance-how-trump-validated-his-critics?ref=merionwest.com) tariffs would do more harm than good, the Biden administration [left](https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/14/biden-raises-china-tariffs-on-evs-solar-panels-batteries-.html?ref=merionwest.com) tariffs initiated by the Trump administration firmly in place, as[ President Trump pointed out in his debate with Vice President Harris](https://www.youtube.com/live/VgsC%5FaBquUE?si=d1b1FulCZJYQ0-3A&t=950&ref=merionwest.com). This speaks for itself. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Discontents of Capitalism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-discontents-of-capitalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:09.000Z > “Why, in fact, do we feel compelled to ask if capitalism is failing? Why do we wonder if capitalism is moral? Why do 57% of respondents in an Edelman Trust Barometer survey believe that ‘capitalism as it exists today does more harm than good in the world?'” *Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of short essays by Merion West contributing editor Jonathan Church exploring the idea of capitalism, as practiced today in the United States.* Capitalism, [whatever it is](https://www.merionwest.com/the-end-of-capitalism/), is deservedly recognized as a dynamic economic system that rewards the kind of innovative enterprise that has [spawned](https://blog.bham.ac.uk/cityredi/capitalism-and-its-impact-on-global-living-standards/?ref=merionwest.com) substantial improvements in material living standards over time. If we assume—probably correctly, though the counterfactual eludes us—that advances in the material conditions of life in the last few centuries would be absent (or noticeably attenuated) without the emergence of a capitalist way of life, it would be foolish to believe that we cannot learn from, and should not seek to preserve, what it is about a capitalist way of life—business, profit, and so on—that tends to generate such remarkable innovation and material prosperity. After all, we presumably would refuse, if asked, to abandon a world in which electricity, refrigerators, indoor plumbing, automobiles, air planes, computers, the Internet, and innumerable other accommodations of modern life are taken for granted. Even ascetic folk, with their predilection for a minimalist lifestyle and indifference to extravagance or convenience, can appreciate that communism lost the Cold War and that markets, money, and the mayhem of speculative finance have a useful role in getting resources to where they are needed, or at least wanted. In the same vein, it would be counterproductive to cast aside the insights of Adam Smith—the intellectual [forefather of *laissez-faire* capitalism](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adam-Smith/The-Wealth-of-Nations?ref=merionwest.com)—in a cavalier belief that neoclassical economics, to which [*The Wealth of Nations*](https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Nations-Adam-Smith/dp/1494844737/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=10G3CUV5JMZ60&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.S4Wvi1jsP%5FndLprYQKUdWO7PvdSbNvj9TN%5F9zUHPAsXvGwMn8hXF0bo2FPa2L87vnFHpE9ID%5FbQ1IDOt3wlkodxPGhrKtcjY7JH3LzjgC20JVrWaWAQZpoGCpZk0GPBAndrDL9VTtFHZlT251vPhyUMNNX7cmq%5F80lsQC4eexY1gLKcZ%5FpBTeBquPMuFu72lGIy35lP0HYYCkg44iqIUaKBTXzkHi5zlXYfVQ-YyMys.kXtNLJ7LDBfZDe6nJTlN-Q5oK9Of0yXghVPKEqVtuH0&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=the+wealth+of+nations&qid=1720532346&sprefix=the+wealth+%2Caps%2C89&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com) gave birth, is merely ideological. It may be that no one solves calculus problems to figure out what they should buy when shopping on Amazon. We may grin ironically when the authors of a textbook on [Chicago price theory](https://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Price-Theory-Sonia-Jaffe/dp/0691192979/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=1YG2W0G7EEK7I&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.S1Ps-yiZ-96I76d1eT4f6dsG0rdogS6g5Fz%5FJB5vMNAgcRbgghxmig85tDjAXO2%5FwPz64sHBMVix1sbNYVAcoUn-gz5sHPBmO32fESVWluQRlvgMjMjCOQAgw2wRORs4xU85NVkg6a7adVFWfbgKEESF-TU5ertOsX92aIeAp%5F%5FcLMblaQvme-sPff6PPACVr6NffPcphYX4REkhSeEMygELoeUaVLG8lHwI2wasYE0.ANuL79fdHXnQkhF4Csq5SESiPR27XUx0T0WzYhDE4OE&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=chicago+price+theory&qid=1720532281&sprefix=chicago+price+theory%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com), a quintessential exegesis of free market economics, acknowledge that “it turned out that people’s expectations (about the housing market prior to it 2007-08 collapse) were wrong relative to what happened” but then insist (with a straight face) that the question we must ask is: “were people wrong about what *could* have happened?” Nevertheless, the material benefits of capitalism do not give us reason to deny that modern economic theory is a significant advance in our understanding of efficient resource allocation. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Lecher’s Lament URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-lechers-lament/ Last updated: 2025-05-28T15:22:08.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Blues Run the Game URL: https://www.merionwest.com/blues-run-the-game/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T05:30:42.000Z > Try another city baby another town > Wherever I have gone > Wherever I’ve been and gone > Wherever I have gone the blues come followin’ down I remember the first time I heard it. It was with a friend of mine from school. Maybe she liked me, maybe I liked her, it was hard to say, but nothing ever happened. I’d taken her on a drive out to the ocean one night, well past midnight, to look out over the sea—as Robinson Jeffers [might put it](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=57&issue=3&page=3&ref=merionwest.com) “to watch the stars go over the lonely ocean.” She was in a downward spiral and was in danger of failing out with just a semester to go, unable even to get out of bed to haul herself to class. She perked up a bit on the drive over, the promise of the destination bringing a brief respite from what was increasingly clearly depression. But the grimness returned just as we were pulling up to the overlook, almost the instant the first glimpse of the water came into view. I’d take another friend on a similar drive years later when his mother was ailing and had little time left. The ocean, I’ve always felt, is a provider of perspective. It seems to tell us: No matter what one is going through, or in the case of Jeffers’ poem, whatever the world is going through, the ocean has been there for millions of years before we were born and will be here for millions of years after we are gone. But perhaps this message is better received among those suffering from an anxious mind rather than the sort of depression that tells one: Nothing matters, especially you; I *should* have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas. The girl I drove out to Long Island Sound that night must have been in the latter camp, and as we merged back on the highway to go back to school, only a few hours now before classes were set to start for the next day, she reached over and plugged in the aux cord of my phone, and it started to play: > Catch a boat to England baby maybe to Spain > Wherever I have gone > Wherever I’ve been and gone > Wherever I have gone the blues are all the same One encounters this idea of escape—of reaching a place where one’s troubles don’t follow him— periodically in music, in literature, or in the sort of pie-in-the-sky conversations one has either in adolescence or just as that fourth beer starts to hit. In Desert Solitaire, a book [I have in parts](https://quillette.com/2019/03/05/thoreau-and-the-primitivist-temptation/?ref=merionwest.com) praised and deplored, [Edward Abbey writes:](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2058909-we-need-wilderness-whether-or-not-we-ever-set-foot?ref=merionwest.com) “We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there. I may never in my life get to Alaska, for example, but I am grateful that it’s there. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.” For Abbey, the idea of being able to go elsewhere is what can keep the overworked, cubicle-bound office worker from flipping his lid, from becoming Lester Burnham. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### My Red Schwinn and Bird Shot URL: https://www.merionwest.com/my-red-schwinn-and-bird-shot/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:22.000Z “While others cycled to dusty fields,/sported bats and mitts, shouted to claim/their favorite positions, I was alone,/my red Schwinn and me—no/deception of ritual, no useless chatter,/no bad calls, no vicarious parents.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Hair Clip URL: https://www.merionwest.com/hair-clip-and-dread-talk/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T03:32:45.000Z > I found my hair clip under the red armchair. > It felt cold in my hand living in that dark > underworld, like an old woman > who rocks to the tick of a clock, > waiting for that visit, for that warm touch, > for that chance to weave an angel’s hair > between her weathered fingers, > to hear that sweet chipmunk > sound, *thank you, Grandma*, > ending that abyss of loneliness. ### Nancy Byrne Ianucci is the author of four chapbooks, [Temptation of Wood,](https://www.amazon.com/Temptation-Wood-Nancy-Byrne-Iannucci/dp/0999397184?ref=merionwest.com) which was released with Nixes Mate Books in 2018; [Goblin Fruit,](https://www.amazon.com/Goblin-Fruit-Nancy-Byrne-Iannucci/dp/1914130332?ref=merionwest.com) which was released with impspired in 2021; [Primitive Prayer,](https://thebluebirdword.com/primitive-prayer-by-nancy-byrne-iannucci/?ref=merionwest.com) which was released with Plan B Press in 2022; and [Hummingbirds and Cigarettes,](https://bottlecap.press/products/hummingbirds?ref=merionwest.com) which was released with Bottlecap Press this year. ### America’s Return to Industrial Policy URL: https://www.merionwest.com/americas-return-to-industrial-policy/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T08:39:42.000Z President Joe Biden, despite disagreeing with former President Donald Trump on most issues, kept his predecessor’s tariffs. Indeed, he doubled down on them, most recently with the prohibitive [100% tariff on Chinese electric cars](https://apnews.com/article/biden-china-tariffs-electric-vehicles-solar-254546e92f823a78220c195a0a42a10e?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Under%20the%20White%20House%20action%2C%20tariffs%20on%20EVs,EVs%20grew%20by%2070%25%20from%202022%20to%202023.). Previously, [with the CHIPS Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/4346?ref=merionwest.com), the [Bipartisan Infrastructure Act,](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684?ref=merionwest.com) and the (misnamed) [Inflation Reduction Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/5376?ref=merionwest.com) (IRA), President Biden imposed the largest domestic, civilian industrial policy initiatives since the Great Depression. Clearly, 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. In our opinion, the return of industrial policy is a very good thing. Industrial policy is what grew the American economy from a backwater colony to a global economic superpower, and, if coordinated properly, it is what will allow us to compete successfully with global competitors in China, Korea, and elsewhere. We need new initiatives like the CHIPS Act to support innovation and retention of advantageous industries such as computer chips, semiconductors, and nanotech. We also need trade and tariff policies to protect these fledgling industries from imports and to pressure foreign governments to reduce the obstacles they place on American exports. 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. Make no mistake: Despite what some people say, the decline of America’s industries, especially manufacturing, is very real. From 1998 to 2010, [6 million manufacturing jobs disappeared](https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES3000000001?ref=merionwest.com). Many–3.5 million between 1991 and 2019 alone–are estimated to have been [lost due to imports](https://www.csis.org/analysis/do-not-blame-trade-decline-manufacturing-jobs?ref=merionwest.com). (That is where tariffs come in.) In 2023, the United States’ trade deficit in goods [exceeded $1 *trillion*,](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IEABCGA?ref=merionwest.com) about 4% of GDP. The United States runs an annual [$200 billion-plus deficit](http://census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/ft900/ft900%5F2401.pdf.?ref=merionwest.com) in Advanced Technology Products, the very industries in which *we* were the innovators. In 2022, the share of manufactured goods sold in the United States that is made here sank to [a record low of 66%](https://prosperousamerica.org/u-s-domestic-market-share-index-hits-all-time-low/?ref=merionwest.com). _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Continue to Support the Mises Institute at 99% URL: https://www.merionwest.com/continue-to-support-the-mises-institute-at-99/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:24.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Mises_Institute_Campus_3-2-1.jpg) (The Mises Institute Campus in Auburn, Alabama) > “This is not the first time libertarians have disagreed with one another.” If you donate $100 per year to the [Mises Institute](https://mises.org/?ref=merionwest.com) (MI), cut it back to $99\. If you contribute $1,000, reduce it to $990\. If $100,000, then make it $99,000\. Why should you reduce your support for this libertarian organization by 1%? Because they have mistreated me, a long-time member of the MI community. This would be a good protest against their unjust actions. They have taken away my Senior Fellow status. I have written, oh, maybe 100 or more articles on [LewRockwell.com](https://www.lewrockwell.com/?ref=merionwest.com) (LRC), and these have all disappeared. I tried to access them, to no avail. I asked Lew to send them to me. No response. Why this harshness? It is due to the fact that I have supported Israel vis-à-vis Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthies, Iran, etc., and the MI takes the opposite position. This is not the first time libertarians have disagreed with one another. Murray Rothbard was pro-choice. Former Congressman Ron Paul was pro-life. They could not both be correctly deducing these positions from libertarian principles, since these two libertarian leaders contradict one another. Yet, neither has ever come within a million miles of being cancelled, as I have been, and abortion is at least as important an issue as is the one concerning Israel and its enemies. In addition, leading libertarians also sharply disagree on immigration, voluntary slavery, reparations for slavery, and many other issues. Never have any cancellations arisen over these other important matters. Why, then, should one continue support for the MI at the 99% level? It is because even considering this grievous error of theirs, they (I am saddened by the fact that I must use this word, instead of “we”) are still by far the best institution which carries the banner for libertarianism, Austrian economics, and human prosperity. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Wrackable as Arguments: Anne-Marie Turza’s “Fugue with Bedbug” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/wrackable-as-arguments-anne-marie-turzas-fugue-with-bedbug/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:24.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/fractal-1864285_1280.jpg) Barbara A Lane > “\[Anne-Marie\] Turza shows dramatic flair for summoning our attention, that of a town crier or carnival barker who was handed a surprise announcement at the last possible minute, and now must sell its premise before a skeptical gathered audience with all the bravado she can muster.” Surrealism is not difficult to understand. One of the reasons for that is inherent, the other historical. Inherent: We all have dreams and chances are they are absurd, disturbing, and disjointed. We accept this sleeping reality, as we are all post-Freudians, and he gave us a convenient set of explanations, boiling down to the fact that we are working out unconscious, unresolved issues as we sleep. Yet we tend to forget those dreams quickly (unless we tell them to our mate or our co-workers) and go about our day, generally accepting that even the strangest and most violent chains of imagery in our dormant minds have their own quasi-independent, private logic, one we could potentially puzzle over forever without necessarily getting to the bottom of them. Thus, we let them go and let odd new dreams take their place. Thus pass our lives. The second reason, as said, is historical. Surrealism, which began as an outgrowth of Dadaist pranks, grew into a deeper, more earnest study of the dreamlike aspects of reality, and artists such as Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso created visual representations of liminal waking states of consciousness, often with obliquely suggestive erotic content. David Lynch’s quirky [1977 film](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074486/?ref=merionwest.com) *Eraserhead* stands as an apotheosis of surrealism in cinema, leaving us in the autoerotic, anxious murk of human intention, first announced in Luis Buñuel’s [1929 short film](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020530/?ref=merionwest.com) *Un chien andalou,* with its famous eyeball split by a razor blade. At the same time, beginning at least as early as 1928 with [Felix the Cat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNv4Bvu9b20&ref=merionwest.com), cartoons got into the game, channeling that original Dadaist party spirit, reminding people not to get too wrapped up in abstruse intellectualizing. If it’s not fun, don’t do it. If it is, run riot. In this way, surrealism has, over the span of a century, become one of the most powerful and popular of all artistic movements, able to satisfy both lovers of esoteric high art and fanboys and fangirls of popular fare. It can be disturbing or squeaky clean. Everybody may not actually love Raymond (Queneau), but they all love surrealism in one shape or another—in poetry, prose, visual art, cinema. Warner Brothers would not have been the same studio without it, nor Disney, which has relied heavily on surrealist tropes and visual gags throughout its long existence. The [Cartoon Network](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305826/?ref%5F=ls%5Fi%5F1&ref=merionwest.com) would not have lasted a year without rampant surrealist animation because children (and often the parents watching alongside them) quickly learn to embrace spirited illogic in an alternate world where nobody actually gets hurt. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Orthodox Church of Ukraine Reschedules Christmas and Judges 9:45 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-orthodox-church-of-ukraine-reschedules-christmas-and-judges-945/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:38.000Z “After supper,/God burps through his heartburn, eyes Gabriel/and—as expected—punishes: Two thousand years/hard labor for your antics, errand boy.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why We Should Still Read Charles Bukowski URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-we-should-revisit-charles-bukowski/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:12.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2024-09-26-at-1.01.46-PM.jpg) > “The author of this essay is the proud owner of 25 books, poetry collections, and short story anthologies written by the man widely recognized as the godfather of the literary movement known as ‘dirty realism.'” When it comes to famous writers born in the 20th century, the class of 1920 boasts some illustrious names: Ray Bradbury, Frank Herbert, and Howard Nemerov. The American poet Charles Bukowski is one name that often stands out as being conspicuously absent, despite the fact that he occupies the hearts, minds, and bookshelves of hundreds of thousands of lost and tortured souls. I may easily be referred to in that last sentence. The author of this essay is the proud owner of 25 books, poetry collections, and short story anthologies written by the man widely recognized as the godfather of the literary movement known as “dirty realism.” Although Bukowski has sold millions of books and had his work translated into over a dozen languages, he is often regarded as a literary outcast. “He is not a mainstream author and he will never have a mainstream public,” [said](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/03/14/smashed?ref=merionwest.com) Black Sparrow Press founder John Martin, who gave Bukowski his start. This paradox is a major factor in Bukowski’s attraction and the continued interest in his writing. Although he was shunned by mainstream literary critics, he went on to have a hugely successful career spanning five decades. For Bukowski, [writing came easily:](https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-charles-bukowski-20140812-story.html?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=) “The wine does most of my writing…I just open a bottle and turn on the radio, and it just comes pouring out.” Shut away in his cheap, dilapidated Los Angeles apartment, he would type nonstop into the early hours of the morning, cigarette ash constantly falling onto the keys of his Underwood typewriter. He would only stop for his favorite beverage, [the Boilermaker,](https://www.anglerstonic.com/2010/01/drink-of-the-week-bukowskis-boilermaker/?ref=merionwest.com) which was a tall glass of beer with a shot of bourbon poured in. He was rarely troubled by hangovers. Despite his heavy drinking, Bukowski was a prolific poet; dozens of volumes of his poetry and prose have been published. There are also six novels and more than a dozen collections of short stories. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Richard Dawkins Wins in the End URL: https://www.merionwest.com/richard-dawkins-wins-in-the-end/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:13.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Dawkins-Final-Bow-SF.jpg) (Richard Dawkins in San Francisco on October 3rd/Peter Clarke) > “Admirably, Dawkins continually made it clear that his objective was to promote a clear understanding of the world as discovered through the scientific method, and if scientific facts caused offense with anyone, then so be it.” For much of my life, merely hearing the name “Richard Dawkins” made my blood boil. Growing up as a Christian, Dawkins was the embodiment of evil, flooding the world with dangerous ideas about evolution and naturalism. Worse still, he was smug about it. With his quick wit and highfalutin Oxford accent, he was a Hollywood archetype of the brilliant professor. It is hard to express how much this irked me. But that was decades ago. I have changed. The world has changed, a lot. Last week, I reflected on the magnitude of this change while sitting at the top of Dolores Park in San Francisco. A soft orange light blossomed around the city’s skyline. Moments later, a dreamy, violet haze settled in as the sun sank into the Pacific. I was a long, long way from the small town where I grew up. Picking up my phone, I clicked on the Waymo app and summoned a driverless taxi to pick me up and drive me to the Masonic Auditorium, where Richard Dawkins was about to speak as part of his final tour in America. I could not imagine trying to describe any of this to a younger version of myself. At the event, Dawkins took the stage to a standing ovation. Michael Shermer, the publisher of the magazine *Skeptic*, facilitated the conversation with Dawkins. Shermer began the discussion by holding up a copy of Dawkins’s new release, [*The Genetic Book of the Dead*](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300278095/the-genetic-book-of-the-dead/?ref=merionwest.com). Shermer advertised it as a “bookend” to Dawkins’s first work, [*The Selfish Gene*](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152?ref=merionwest.com), which was first published in 1976\. Dawkins replied that he had not thought of it that way, but, yes, he liked the idea of it as a bookend to his early work. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Origins of a Partisan URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-origins-of-a-partisan/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:26.000Z > “Citizens wore red and white, the colors of the Pahonia, the traditional flag of Belarus, a symbol made illegal in 1995 shortly after President Aliaksandr Lukashenka came to power.” Sonia was a kindergarten teacher when the revolution started. It was May of 2020, and he was 27\. After the presidential election was called and the Belarusian KGB arrested opposition leader Sergei Tikhanovsky, numberless citizens took to the streets, and Sonia was one of them. All that summer he went to the rallies in Minsk, always pushing to the frontline of the demonstration, pushing so far forward that he could not know if he was protected by the relative safety of the crowd, or if he would be dragged away by the OMON, the brutal crowd control troops of the Ministry of the Interior. He had never been political before, but now he truly understood the corrupted country his generation was inheriting. He had been called. On the morning of August 9th, election day, Sonia and his parents walked to School No. 180 where they stood in line to vote. Bluetooth speakers blared protest songs into the streets from the windows of Soviet apartment blocks. Citizens wore red and white, the colors of the Pahonia, the traditional flag of Belarus, a symbol made illegal in 1995 shortly after President Aliaksandr Lukashenka came to power. The voter in front of Sonia wore a Pahonia COVID mask, defiance strapped across his face. Sonia ticked the box next to the name of Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya, the woman running as the opposition candidate in place of her imprisoned husband. Like most other voters, Sonia and his parents each took a picture of their completed ballot and immediately posted it on Telegram, the one part of the internet the KGB had not managed to block on election day. By lunchtime, voters were being arrested for photographing their ballots. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why Postmodernism Still Matters URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-postmodernism-still-matters/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:27.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/JuergenHabermas-1.jpg) (Jürgen Habermas/photo by Wolfram Huke) > “Finally, postmodernism influenced numerous intellectual variants that today are popular public philosophies, and we need to understand the intellectual foundations of such systems of thought if we want to evaluate them properly.” “Among all the mutations that have affected the knowledge of things and their order…only one, that which began a century and a half ago and is now perhaps drawing to a close, has made it possible for the figure of man to appear. As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end. If those arrangements were to disappear…then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea.” Michel Foucault, *The Order of Things* The 20th century French philosopher Michel Foucault ends his 1966 book [*The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/55033/the-archaeology-of-knowledge-by-michel-foucault/?ref=merionwest.com) by predicting the end of a universalist idea of man. While the image of a bald renegade French postmodern philosopher wrecking the accomplishments of the Enlightenment continues to fascinate, the most enduring insights of postmodernism had been made by the 1970s. By now, those arguments have been discussed *ad nauseam*. Is there any value in continuing to read the postmodernists? Whether the ideas are viewed as absurd and wrong, or obviously correct, postmodernism is still relevant. For one, regardless of whether its effects are positive or negative, some of its ideas are meaningful contributions to human thought. Moreover, it continues to be relevant because radical technological innovations have affected the status of knowledge, leading the world in an increasingly postmodern direction—a direction that postmodernism is both a response to, and one that it arguably exacerbates. Furthermore, postmodernism’s criticisms of modernity’s effort to increase human autonomy arguably advanced the cause of freedom, or at least revealed some weaknesses in modernity’s armor. Finally, postmodernism influenced numerous intellectual variants that today are popular public philosophies, and we need to understand the intellectual foundations of such systems of thought if we want to evaluate them properly. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Hair Clip and Dread Talk URL: https://www.merionwest.com/hair-clip-and-dread-talk-2/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:14.000Z “and I send her sunflowers on a sunny day./and I think of her children./and I sing with the Wailers.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### You Can (and Perhaps Should) Repeat Yourself URL: https://www.merionwest.com/you-can-and-perhaps-should-repeat-yourself/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:46:17.000Z In a forthcoming review of Rob Henderson’s [recent book](https://www.amazon.com/Troubled-Memoir-Foster-Family-Social/dp/1982168536?ref=merionwest.com) *Troubled*, I invoked a passage from C.S. Lewis’ *Mere Christianity*. [It reads:](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/LewisCS-Mere-Christianity-3.3.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) “Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that. As Dr. Johnson said, ‘People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.’ The real job of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple principles which we are all so anxious not to see…” I discussed this passage because I believed Henderson deserved credit for putting forward—both in his memoir and [in his social media posts](https://x.com/robkhenderson?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor&ref=merionwest.com) (how most people have to come to learn of his work)—self-help advice that tends to honor time-tested principles. Instead of resorting to parroting the latest gimmick or fad, Henderson—like Jordan Peterson and Naval Ravikant—frequently shares and reshares the basics: eat healthy, don’t drink to excess, exercise each day even when you don’t feel like it, and, perhaps most importantly, don’t waste your time. (1) We know this already, at least most of us do. But how often do we forget the basics, the key points, amid the endless barrage of tweets, never-ending news articles about far-away things outside of our control, and the daily tasks that populate so much of our lives: oil changes, running out of stamps, maintaining relationships, going to work? Just as there may only be so many essential truths about what is conducive to having a contented and productive life—with more information beyond the basics tending to confuse rather than refine one’s approach—one wonders if a similar phenomenon takes place in the world of ideas. Most immediately, certain truths or realities are fundamental and already tend to be known to most of us (presented to us long ago either by attentive parents or contained within the basic teachings of many philosophies or religions, or even in vaunted aphorisms). (2) And, relatedly, one also begins to wonder if there are certain ways of phrasing the key points that have already been formulated, capture them perfectly, and, thus, cannot really be improved upon. During the early pandemic months, with social events cancelled, I found myself with more time to read than normal. Just a few months prior, in June of 2019, George F. Will had published what we might come to call his magnum opus [*The Conservative Sensibility*](https://www.amazon.com/Conservative-Sensibility-George-F-Will/dp/0316480932?ref=merionwest.com), an incredibly thorough summary of his political philosophy in his late 70s, a more libertarian worldview quite removed from the one he championed decades before in works such as his 1983 book [*Statecraft as Soulcraft.*](https://www.amazon.com/Statecraft-as-Soulcraft-George-Will/dp/0671427342?ref=merionwest.com) After finishing *The Conservative Sensibility*, I turned my attention to some of Will’s other works, including [his 1995 essay anthology](https://www.amazon.com/Leveling-Wind-Politics-Culture-Other/dp/0140247025?ref=merionwest.com) *The Leveling Wind: Politics, the Culture, and Other News*. Reading the essays within, most of which were once *Washington Post* columns, one after the other, I was struck by how phrases and examples first explored in these essays (and others) were replicated just about exactly in his later book, decades later. Although initially eyebrow-raising, perhaps, upon further reflection, it can be understood as such: the replicated lines or points indeed bear repeating. A reader might need to be reminded that “the most important four words in politics are: up to a point”; that so many American political figures are rhetorically Jeffersonians but, in practice, Hamiltonians; that far too much power is concentrated in Washington D.C. and its surrounding counties; and that Will believes America is a creedal nation. (3) And as much as at first blush, one might be tempted to accuse an author of being unimaginative in recycling previous work or, worse yet, of self-plagiarism [of the sort Fareed Zakaria has been accused](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/06/fareed-zakaria-copied-his-own-graduation-speech.html?ref=merionwest.com) (a different matter), I choose to see it that sometimes one already found the best words or examples, and they ought to be emphasized rather than modified for variety’s sake. (4) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Reading Samuel Moyn’s “Liberalism Against Itself” in an Election Year URL: https://www.merionwest.com/reading-samuel-moyns-liberalism-against-itself-in-an-election-year/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:29.000Z > “It becomes apparent that, while not a Marxist himself, Moyn regrets Marxism’s arguable descent into irrelevance, if only because its extended dialogue with liberalism enriched the latter while spotlighting liberal failings and hypocrisies.” These are not optimistic times. The banality of this observation should only drive the point home. Perhaps nowhere is this dearth of optimism more gaping than in contemporary liberalism. The banner ideology of the Enlightenment has seemingly tumbled from self-anointed pinnacle of historical development to one contestant among several on a dangerously level global playing field, all within the past generation. Within the Western heartlands of liberal democracy, self-doubt appears omnipresent. The world in general seems to grow less enlightened every year. In addition to anxiety, such conditions tend to spur intellectual soul-searching. In Samuel Moyn’s [recent book](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300280128/liberalism-against-itself/?ref=merionwest.com) *Liberalism Against Itself*, the historian and law professor traces the roots of liberalism’s doldrums further back, into the mid-20th century. Cold War liberalism, as he calls it, marked a sea change; an ideology previously defined by whiggish optimism and creativity grew noticeably dour and risk averse, paving the way for neoliberalism and neoconservatism to dominate the present and foreclose the future. “Cold War liberalism was a catastrophe—for liberalism,” Moyn declares in the opening sentence. In some ways, liberalism has never fully recovered from this Cold War bottleneck—when postwar fears about communism melded with memories of fascist atrocities to produce a singularly fearful and anti-utopian outlook. Unsurprisingly, it also found God for a time. The more immediate context of the book, of course, is our era of former President Donald Trump, Brexit, and liberal reactions and overreactions to both. Moyn explains early on that the volume is his response to years of liberal defensiveness and catastrophism in the wake of 2016\. Patrick Deneen’s [2018 book](https://www.amazon.com/Why-Liberalism-Failed-Politics-Culture/dp/0300223447?ref=merionwest.com) *Why Liberalism Failed* in particular provoked numerous [counternarratives](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/11/21/patrick-deneen-blaming-liberalism/?ref=merionwest.com) that liberalism had not, in fact, failed, or at least that it bore little real responsibility for its own troubles. For the most part, these efforts simply doubled down on Cold War liberal orthodoxy without addressing the deeper sources for its crisis of faith. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “No One Is Ever Really Just One Thing”: Laurel Nakanishi’s “Ashore” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/no-one-is-ever-really-just-one-thing-laurel-nakanishis-ashore/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:14.000Z > “What stands out in Nakanishi is that she possesses an acute awareness of the root poetic traditions of her native islands and brings them forward with respect while also being influenced, as she herself professes, by poets such as Californian Gary Snyder—whose verse, like hers, is thoroughly immersed in the natural world.” In a nuanced first full-length collection of poetry, Hawaiian-born Laurel Nakanishi [unapologetically gauges](https://www-jstor-org.msmc.idm.oclc.org/stable/23721931?searchText=ti%3A%28%22He+Lei+Ho%27oheno+no+n%C4%81+Kau+a+Kau%22%29&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dti%253A%2528%2522He%2BLei%2BHo%2527oheno%2Bno%2Bn%25C4%2581%2BKau%2Ba%2BKau%2522%2529%26so%3Drel&ab%5Fsegments=0%2Fbasic%5Fphrase%5Fsearch%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A5d58f455a63d09581af2498f1f09ac01&ref=merionwest.com) the perceived complication of ethnic multiplicity in the poem “Mixed.” “I will not hide the hollow bodies of my prairie ancestors, those wrapped up in gun-smoke out where it is never really blue or cloudless.” Then again, “And the Japanese blood? They never quite made it to America…From them: my dark hair, slim neck, but no certain turn of the eyes…In Montana, I’m not-quite-white, but white-enough.” As for her being or not Hawaiian “enough,” she has [this to say](https://www.thelitpub.com/reviews-interviews/an-interview-with-laurel-nakanishi?ref=merionwest.com): “Although I am not Kanaka Maoli \[blood Native Hawaiian\] I have still been shaped by many Hawaiian teachers and values, in addition to the ecological abundance of these islands. Along with Kanaka Maoli influences, the poems have also been inspired by Hawai‘i’s multicultural heritage and my own background as a poet of multiple ethnicities.” What a refreshing thought! That identity is not so much a “what” but a concatenation of “where’s.” The good news for extended family and larger communal lineages that get broken off, intermarried, and reformed is, “wherever you go, that’s who you are.” In an ideal world, one would also belong there and be accepted, as each generation gets reshaped around new “blood” realities blending with the old reality. And those new beings play a part, if they wish, in this syncretistic realignment, helping to preserve what may undergo significant cultural change, but does not have to get lost. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Gods and Angels and Other Poems URL: https://www.merionwest.com/gods-and-angels-and-other-poems/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:13.000Z “The Sistine Chapel hived billions/of microbes, moss piglets/throbbing on God’s finger, frescoes flooded/with bacteria, angels fruiting cocci.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Paradox of Capitalism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-paradox-of-capitalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:29.000Z > “For example, how many retirees can relate to Jack Nicholson’s professional exile in About Schmidt, a film about a man trying to find purpose after a career as an actuary, when the title character returns to the office one day in a pathetic last-ditch effort to show he is still relevant?” *Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of short essays by Merion West contributing editor Jonathan Church exploring the idea of capitalism, as practiced today in the United States.* As [fear of a potential recession](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-08-02/market-selloff-trigger-recession-fears-closing-bell?ref=merionwest.com) continues, it is easy to be reminded once again that [income insecurity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bldeaDRWJYc&ref=merionwest.com) often entails a persistent and frightening cloud of anxiety that hangs over many people in the [age of “neoliberal capitalism”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dULs7w8b-0&list=PLh9mgdi4rNeyViG2ar68jkgEi4y6doNZy&index=9&ref=merionwest.com) that we are said to be living in. Losing a job in the United States, where [two-thirds of people live paycheck to paycheck](https://www.marketwatch.com/guides/banking/paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Paycheck%20to%20Paycheck%20Statistics%3A%2066.2%25%20of%20Americans%20Report%20Struggling%20Between%20Paydays&text=Nearly%20two%2Dthirds%20of%20Americans,a%20recent%20MarketWatch%20Guides%20survey) and [the wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealthiest-10-americans-own-93-033623827.html?ref=merionwest.com), can induce immediate, suffocating worry about not being able to pay rent, meet mortgage payments, buy food, obtain health insurance, make car payments, or keep the lights on. Or, in the case of [high-earning spendthrifts](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/11/why-even-americans-making-more-than-100000-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html?os=vbkn42%5F%5F%5F&ref=merionwest.com) who also live paycheck to paycheck, they might not only be unable to make ends meet but also be unable to keep charging up the credit card to live large. Dire as this is, however, people must also cope with the emotional disorientation of job loss as they try to survive in a bourgeois society where dignity and self-respect feel inextricably and thoroughly intertwined with having the privilege of routinely punching the clock in exchange for a paycheck (and a *thank you* if one is lucky), otherwise known as “gainful employment.” The angst of layoffs, furloughs, and terminations can feel almost like a form of exile. Moreover, even retirees with a pension and maybe a cushion of savings cannot count on spending their golden years without a sentimental yearning for the perfunctory self-esteem derived from being able to list an occupation when filling out paperwork at the doctor’s office. This may also be true, perhaps even more so, for those retirees who have been fortunate enough to have sustained a remunerative career without being ruined by the risks of a dynamic capitalist society (with a fickle stock market) that scoffs at a comfortable safety net lest it give people permission to relax. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Darryl Cooper: Revisionist History and Misplaced Empathy URL: https://www.merionwest.com/darryl-cooper-revisionist-history-and-misplaced-empathy/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:59:48.000Z > “Perhaps it is because of my own bias toward \[Darryl Cooper as a friend, but the responsibility for such imprecise talk is something I place on \[Tucker\] Carlson, not on his interview subject.” I have, for many years, recommended Darryl Cooper’s hit podcast [*Martyr Made*](https://www.martyrmade.com/about?ref=merionwest.com) to the relative handful of people kind enough to listen to [my own show *History Impossible*](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-impossible/id1450885141?ref=merionwest.com) and read my thoughts on various publications, including [my own Substack](https://historyimpossible.substack.com/). And not fully to bury the lede, I still do, though admittedly with a little more reservation than I might otherwise have only a month earlier. The reason why there is any reservation on my part can be summed up in the following email I received a few days before writing this essay: “You’ve previously recommended the Fear & Loathing in New Jerusalem series by the Martyr Made podcast as a good resource for learning about the Israel-Palestine conflict. In light of Darryl Cooper’s recent Holocaust denial, would you still recommend that podcast?” This is one among several messages I have been receiving in recent weeks. I was not surprised when they started coming in—I have been producing a historical podcast since 2019 and occupied a similar space (that is, until 2021) as Cooper (a space one might presumptuously call the “Dan Carlin School of Podcasting,” with long-form episodes lasting anywhere from two to six hours). I had even [collaborated with Cooper once in 2020](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-67-ripples-of-history/id1038514498?i=1000570565301&ref=merionwest.com), and he and I had developed something of a friendly relationship and occasionally (but playfully) antagonistic banter online. This friendly relationship was solidified when he offered to fly me back across the country to my hometown of Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s death to be with my mother while “neighborhood incursions” were taking place in my childhood home’s immediate vicinity (I grew up five blocks from where Floyd was killed). By then, I knew he and his work were controversial but does that not matter less than someone who would offer a kindness he had no obligation to offer? Thanks to this experience, I find myself, as a historical podcaster with at least some audience crossover with Cooper’s, in a strange space, after [Tucker Carlson’s now-infamous interview with Cooper](https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1830652074746409246?ref=merionwest.com) has been given time to gestate and be reacted against. Thanks to one of our conversations, I had known Cooper was planning to discuss World War II from the German perspective for some time at that point, and while I thought it was a potentially interesting and illuminating angle on which to tackle our world’s most famous conflict, I immediately knew this would not go over smoothly, whenever it happened. Fast forward to September 2, 2024, it indeed happened, and not in a way that I believe Cooper necessarily wanted or was prepared for. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Bruce Springsteen Turns 75 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bruce-springsteen-turns-75/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:16.000Z Bruce Springsteen turns 75 today. It is always jolting to hear of someone one associates with being young having lived now for three quarters of a century, first Paul McCartney, then Mick Jagger, and now Bruce Springsteen. I remember how he looked, long hair flowing, on the cover of *Born to Run*, and how he sang of being young in tracks like “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” which he recorded when he was just 24\. It reminds me of what Charles Krauthammer[ wrote on the occasion of the death of his brother,](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/01/27/marcel-my-brother/40d9c66a-5c2d-46d9-b466-29189cfda159/?ref=merionwest.com) Marcel, unable to imagine him aged and, then, gone: “Whenever I look at that picture, I know what we were thinking at the moment it was taken: It will forever be thus. Ever brothers. Ever young. Ever summer.” Springsteen certainly won’t be remembered for his vocals. And many friends of mine, once fans, have tired of Springsteen over his outspoken political views. He will be remembered, though, for his anthems about ordinary Americans in the second half of the 20th century (a staunch egalitarian, [he used to hate being called](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-bruce-springsteen-hates-being-called-the-boss/?ref=merionwest.com) “the Boss”), as well as his unending affection for his home state of New Jersey. (New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy [has declared](https://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/562023/20230415a.shtml?ref=merionwest.com) September 23rd “Springsteen Day.”) And he has always been a rocker—in his 70s, just as in his 20s. It is perhaps for that reason that many of his fans thought he was being so true to himself when, for his second marriage, he wed Patti Scialfa, a longtime member of the E Street Band, instead of another model or European beauty queen. For me, though, [like with John Prine,](https://www.merionwest.com/on-the-music-of-john-prine/) I appreciate Springsteen foremost as a lyricist. He has that rare talent among songwriters of being able to tell a story while also leaving one with the most quotable of lines, a lyricist of both the narrative and the aphorism. Think [“Thunder Road,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2X0Gf9jfz8&ref=merionwest.com) in the minds of perhaps most listeners, his enduring masterpiece: “The screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Étude: Perspective Photo Lyric URL: https://www.merionwest.com/etude-perspective-photo-lyric/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:05:16.000Z Beyond a life of seeing, saying, being, by sparest nudge or shimmer, I shall cease. I ask what for, the dying, what the living. I start recording. I collect and keep. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Making Sense of Germany’s Migration Deal with Kenya URL: https://www.merionwest.com/making-sense-of-germanys-migration-deal-with-kenya/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:36.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Olaf_Scholz_profile_2023.jpg) (Source: EP—Laia Ros) > “Chancellor’s Scholz’s Germany-Kenya deal fails to address these core issues, and with Kenyan skilled workers favoring English-speaking countries, it may not even alleviate Germany’s skilled labor shortage. Nevertheless, it represents a step in the right direction, as it has German interests at heart.” Amid crescendoing [calls](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-growing-dissatisfaction-with-migration-policy/a-66961728?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=A%20majority%20of%20Germans%20want,with%20the%20government%20remains%20high.&text=The%20European%20Union%20is%20planning%20a%20major%20reform%20of%20its%20asylum%20laws.) to tighten immigration, it seems paradoxical that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz would strike a [migration deal](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/14/europe/germany-kenyan-workers-migration-deal-intl/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) with Kenya, inviting Kenyan workers to come to Germany. As the BBC recently [reported,](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gegkkg14ko?ref=merionwest.com) “Immigration is a huge issue in Germany at the moment, following the rise in popularity of the far-right anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).” So, what is the rationale behind Chancellor Scholz’s approach? Incidents like the recent Islamist [knife attack](https://www.dw.com/en/solingen-knife-attack-prompts-tough-security-measures-in-germany/a-70092549?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=On%20August%2023%2C%20an%20alleged,illegal%20immigration%20and%20weapons%20legislation.) at a city festival in Solingen had centrist politicians bending over backwards to assure voters that they would [crack down](https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/EN/2024/09/binnengrenzkontrollen%5Fen.html?ref=merionwest.com) on “irregular” immigration. Yet most acknowledge that Germany still needs immigration to address its [skilled labor shortage](https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2024-03-20/germanys-shortage-skilled-workers-eases-slightly?ref=merionwest.com). Complicating matters further, deporting migrants without legal status has proven difficult, as many countries of origin are [unwilling](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/recalcitrant-uncooperative-countries-refuse-deportation?ref=merionwest.com) to take them back. Chancellor Scholz’s deal with Kenyan President William Ruto aims to address these challenges by allowing controlled, targeted migration. This benefits Kenya as well, as the country faces difficulties in providing employment and adequate income for its young professionals—a problem more pressing than potential concerns about [“brain drain.”](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brain%5Fdrain.asp?ref=merionwest.com) The agreement will also streamline the process for Germany to repatriate Kenyans residing without legal status. Chancellor Scholz has [called it](https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/afrika/kenia-migrationsabkommen-102.html?ref=merionwest.com) a “win-win situation.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Mythos Americanos: Who Took the Grit out of Integrity? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mythos-americanos/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:18.000Z > “Trying to nail down the source of the intensity of my response, I kept coming back to a sense of a deep, existential nostalgia for what I could only think of as integrity.” Integrity is a troubled word these days. People seem to think that there is not much of it around anymore. And without it, trust becomes difficult, which leads to all kinds of social problems and a general cynicism that undermines faith in basic political processes. The idea of integrity goes back a ways. It played a key role in determining an array of the modern world’s forms-of-life where the individual was a crucial, foundational concept and when integrity established the basis for relations between individuals. A [literal definition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/integrity?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=%3A%20the%20condition%20of%20being%20free,of%20being%20complete%20or%20undivided) of integrity is intact wholeness (out of integral), the opposite of duplicity’s dishonest doubleness. From this troubled moment in late or postmodernity where we now find ourselves, the basic underlying ideas that would make such an opposition meaningful, ideas like fact, truth, evidence, [seem to be disintegrating,](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/informed-societies/posttruth-world-misinformation-and-information-literacy-a-perspective-from-cognitive-science/22444A09EA786DF73DC07C9D02BD56A9?ref=merionwest.com) if not already gone. Who, then, can one trust? The invocation of integrity in the mouths of perennially duplicitous officials and politicians has contributed significantly to a general, at best mistrust, at worst downright disbelief, about the continuing relevance of the word in our daily lives. The revelation of outright government duplicity—the [Pentagon Papers](https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers?ref=merionwest.com), or [Watergate](https://www.britannica.com/event/Watergate-Scandal?ref=merionwest.com)—has only intensified general mistrust and a deep feeling of the loss of any (perhaps illusory) sense of integrity, other than in reference to marketing communications and brand integrity. As a concept applicable to current USAmerican public life, integrity has become meaningless, a view widely shared, as was evident in the response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) public health crisis. We live in the midst of the disarray, if not breakdown, of modernity’s array of meanings and its components, components that also include democracy and equality, and that extend to the institutions based on them. I found myself thinking about this in relation to my response to a television show called [*Yellowstone*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4236770/?ref=merionwest.com). I did not begin to watch it until its fourth season when I heard it was the [most-watched show](https://www.wideopencountry.com/yellowstone-is-the-most-watched-scripted-show-on-television/?ref=merionwest.com) on television. Not knowing anything about it (other than it starred Kevin Costner), I was surprised by the intensity of my emotional response. Almost immediately, I was swept up in a roller coaster of feelings that started with excitement at the action. I was stunned by the embrace of deep moral ambiguity. I grew fascinated with the characters and my reaction to them (especially Beth and Rip, and Jimmy). I admired the treatment of animals and the humans’ relation to them. I was impressed by the representation of Indigenous people and their struggles, and I increasingly recognized an intellectual dimension to the narrative that spoke to a long USAmerican conversation about the origin and meaning of the idea of America. Trying to nail down the source of the intensity of my response, I kept coming back to a sense of a deep, existential nostalgia for what I could only think of as integrity. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### America’s Housing Dilemma: Building for a Future with Fewer People URL: https://www.merionwest.com/americas-housing-dilemma-building-for-a-future-with-fewer-people/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:10.000Z > “Bringing this back to the United States: While we need to address our current housing crisis, the goal should not be to build, build, build anywhere at any cost.” America [needs more](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing-gap-cost-affordability-big-cities/672184/?ref=merionwest.com) housing! This is no longer the mantra of only YIMBYs or cash-strapped Millennials. Suddenly, the most prominent figures in American politics have taken up the call to build, build, build. In her run for President of the United States, Vice President Kamala Harris takes every opportunity to [acknowledge](https://www.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/theres-a-serious-housing-shortageas-president-i-will-work-in-partnership-with-in/1054735846012852/), “There’s a serious housing shortage.” Former President Barack Obama echoes this sentiment, even calling for a [housing market revolution](https://www.newsweek.com/barack-obama-calls-housing-market-revolution-increase-supply-homes-1942291?ref=merionwest.com). Likewise, former President Donald Trump (and current GOP nominee) [stated:](https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/16/business/harris-housing-plan/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) “We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.” I fully support this cause. Until recently, I was paying comically high rent to live in San Francisco. When my daughter was born and daycare costs came into the picture, there was no question: We had to move to a more affordable city. We found ourselves in Sacramento, which is lovely, but the [median home price](https://www.redfin.com/city/16409/CA/Sacramento/housing-market?ref=merionwest.com) is still over half a million dollars. The politicians are right: American families should not have to live like this. The rent is too damn high. And as YIMBYs love to [remind the world](https://x.com/AlecStapp/status/1832855037111927188?ref=merionwest.com): “Housing supply up, rents down.” There is, however, one major caveat to my enthusiasm for the call to build, build, build. It is the fact that, by all accounts, our population is on the brink of declining rapidly. The global population, currently at 8 billion, is projected to [peak at 10 billion](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/learning/whats-going-on-in-this-graph-nov-15-2023.html?ref=merionwest.com) in 2085, and then it will collapse. Unless fertility rates somehow pick up globally, within a few centuries, the human population will slide back down to the numbers of the pre-industrial era. [(See graph.)](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/learning/whats-going-on-in-this-graph-nov-15-2023.html?ref=merionwest.com) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Scribe in Disguise: Amy Beeder’s “And So Wax Was Made and Also Honey” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/scribe-in-disguise-amy-beeders-and-so-wax-was-made-and-also-honey/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:32.000Z > “\[Amy\] Beeder’s nimble adaptiveness and ability to key her lexicon to a wily set of speakers and dramatic personae in *And So Wax Was Made and Also Honey* are what make this rare book command attention.” To get a handle on Amy Beeder’s [*And So Wax Was Made, and Also Honey*](https://www.tupelopress.org/product/and-so-wax-was-made-also-honey/?ref=merionwest.com), which was released with Tupelo Press in 2020, one need go no further than the title of John Keats’s poem *[Fancy](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44471/fancy?ref=merionwest.com)*. Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Like to bubbles when rain pelteth; Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her: Open wide the mind’s cage-door, She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar. How to get out of that confounded cage-door that traps our mind in banal, humdrum, daily thought? Fancy, a corruption of the word *fantasy,* portends imagination and sheer invention; as the mind is given free rein, both soar cloudward. Such an inventor is Beeder, ever seeking “the thought still spread beyond her.” Pleasure in composition lies everywhere in her writing—the scribal other face of suffering—and wander she does, through styles, myth, historical periods, profitably pilfering what sometimes reads like found text and making it her own, even if it already belonged to her to begin with. Much has been made of Beeder’s superb and inventive lexicon throughout her poetic career, but that is only the beginning of the discussion. What animates that lexicon are a range of qualities of voice, running through each line of verse like the low hum of an electromagnetic field. For in the end, they are all animated by a single voice. The hum of fancy unifies what might otherwise be, in lesser hands, a series of jokey ventriloquistic set pieces. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Old Men Coughing URL: https://www.merionwest.com/old-men-coughing/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:19:16.000Z “Coughing, ululating, barking, whooping./Can he cough out the memory of a lonely/girl waiting, wanting, watching, waiting?” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Christopher Ruddy: Newsmax Is Eyeing an IPO URL: https://www.merionwest.com/christopher-ruddy-newsmax-is-eyeing-an-ipo/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:33.000Z > “We never relied only on advertising. I think one of the keys to our success is we had a very good and robust mixed revenue model. And that has \[helped\] us over a long period of time.” Earlier this summer, Newsmax CEO and founder Christopher Ruddy [announced plans for](https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/chris-ruddy-newsmax-ceo/2024/06/11/id/1168392/?ref=merionwest.com) an initial public offering, which aims to take place this year or in early 2025\. Having founded the company in 1998, Mr. Ruddy has since grown Newsmax into a multi-faceted media company that distributes its content through its website, a print magazine, and a cable television channel called Newsmax TV. [According to Reuters,](https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/newsmax-confidentially-files-us-ipo-2024-09-05/?ref=merionwest.com) “the company reaches more than 40 million Americans through its television, streaming, online and print platforms,” and, in his conversation here with *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince, Mr. Ruddy affirms his desire for Newsmax to continue to compete strongly with the traditional big three in cable television news: Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. In their conversation, Mr. Prince and Mr. Ruddy discuss Newsmax’s business model, the company’s competitors, methods of content delivery, and the demographics of the television news business. **To set the stage, can you give us the latest? I understand you have this private placement, and I understand you’re eyeing an IPO.** Erich, thank you very much for having me. Newsmax, as you know, has been around for a long time: 25 years, a long time for the Internet world. We’re one of the pioneers of conservative media online. And \[Newsmax\] has done very well through the years. We entered the TV world about 10 years ago and now have a very significant cable news channel and TV operation. And we felt like maybe this is the time for us to go public \[when\] we’re so close to overtaking CNN in our ratings. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Quan Yin URL: https://www.merionwest.com/quan-yin/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:27.000Z “Wife of himself/she taught him how to be in this world/as all women teach. The woman in you/will teach you, man king,/how to be.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why Transhumanism Is Unrealistic and Immoral URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-transhumanism-is-unrealistic-and-immoral/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:06:57.000Z > “Utopians often produce evil because their movement’s aspirations become *paramount*—that is, more important than avoiding acts ‘traditionally perceived as immoral.’ If enough people follow Istvan on the transhuman roller coaster, people could eventually get hurt.” “I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” – Woody Allen In 2016, transhumanism proselytizer [Zoltan Istvan ran for president](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151127-meet-zoltan-the-strangest-candidate-running-for-president?ref=merionwest.com) promising to defeat death while touring the country in a bus redesigned to look like a coffin. It was a great gimmick that made him, perhaps, the most famous transhumanist in the world. I know and like Istvan. I admire his indefatigable work ethic that has him writing hundreds of transhumanist-boosting columns [and engaging in](https://humanize.today/podcast/zoltan-istvan-on-transhumanism-good-eugenics-and-immortality/?ref=merionwest.com) countless interviews (including by opponents like me). But [his recent piece](https://www.merionwest.com/when-were-overly-optimistic-about-the-pace-of-life-extension-research/) in *Merion West* “When We’re Overly Optimistic about the Pace of Life Extension Research” took a dark and disturbing turn. He warns that at the current pace of life-extending research, the transhumanist goal of living indefinitely will not be attained during his lifetime (based on a formula he concocted he calls “the senescence inference”). In 2131, he moans, our expected lifespan will “only” be 165 years, and it will take “well over a millennium to attain Methuselah-like lifespans nearing 1,000 years.” That won’t help Istvan! The prospect of dying so terrifies him that he would detach transhumanism from proper ethical imperatives. Writing that “morality is defined by the amount of time one has to live”—!!!—and insisting that “realistic transhumanists know only that the most extreme measures, acts, and diligence can have a chance to save those alive today”—he justifies “extreme utilitarian acts” as “philosophically justified”—”even those that are illegal or traditionally perceived as immoral, such as civil disobedience, stealing property, and even starting wars…so long as they seem reasonable and tangible measures actually to increase the speedy success of life extension goals.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Fierce Lyric in Karla Kelsey’s “Blood Feather” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/fierce-lyric-in-karla-kelseys-blood-feather/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T05:30:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/kite-on-fire-2757526_1280-1.jpg) “*Blood Feather* stages scenes of both unexpected victory and chronic defeat in the three featured lives, while allowing us to imagine an alternative history for these women, had they been listened to and given latitude to exercise their rightful prerogatives in the culture at large, rather than retreating into conventional expectations of femininity.” The first thing one looks for in a poet’s work is intelligence. That quality can take many forms. Some poets are not necessarily great thinkers and work instead by feel, summoning memorable imagery and showing a melodic ear for language. That can be enough for many, perhaps most, tastes. Yet poets with a keen analytic mind complementing more conventionally lyric qualities exert a particular fascination. This is the case of *Blood Feather.* Whether celebration or lament, lyric mode has often been suffocated by limiting itself to personal introspection without a larger context of history, myth, science, and the like. Although long, complex poems such as Kelsey’s have always been in existence. The last two centuries largely have let the poetry of expansive social thought fade in favor of plumbing the inner depths of the individual human psyche, notwithstanding the Romantics’ “cosmic” cries to their secular gods. To recognize this fact is not to hearken nostalgically back to the age of Pope and Dryden, whose essay-like long poems, while often forceful, witty, and self-assured, could not infrequently come across as obvious, dry, didactic longueurs, or neat, self-satisfied enunciations of “universal truths,” as in Alexander Pope’s [“Essay on Man.”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44899/an-essay-on-man-epistle-i?ref=merionwest.com) “In human works, though labour’d on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God’s, one single can its end produce; Yet serves to second too some other use.” In the *21st* century global diaspora that is poetry in English, no purpose is served in returning to English proverbial wisdom. Rather, one yearns for a contemporary sharp intellect whetting itself against doubt, imbued with an open spirit of quest, and tendering redemption one can believe in. Such a poetics can be found in Karla Kelsey’s ambitious and extraordinary [*Blood Feather*,](https://www.tupelopress.org/product/blood-feather/?ref=merionwest.com) which was released with Tupelo Press. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Shifting Patterns and The Rose URL: https://www.merionwest.com/shifting-patterns-and-the-rose/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:32.000Z “Ever human-centric/We self-aggrandized/Anthropomorphized/And now agonize.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Portrait of a Stubborn Ukrainian URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-portrait-of-a-stubborn-ukrainian/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:34.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Dead_flowers_37059070316-1.jpg) (Rolf Dietrich Brecher) > “He was flanked by fields of dead sunflowers that could not be harvested because of the renewed Russian offensive.” I remember an old man pushing a bicycle down a dirt road last fall. He had a plastic bag of what appeared to be potatoes hanging from his handlebar. We were about 120 kilometers east of Kharkiv. He was walking in the same direction we were driving, east, toward the invaders. As our battered pickup truck came up behind the man, our Ukrainian driver honked his horn, and the man turned. Recognition lit up his deeply lined face. He had to be well into his 70s. He waved. The driver pulled up alongside him and stopped the truck. From our perch in the bed, the other foreign fighters and I could not understand a single syllable the old man unloaded into the cab. He spoke Surzhyk, a pidgin language used in the east of the country. It is part Russian, part Ukrainian, and part utter disdain for grammar, pronunciation, consistency…Disdain for rules of any kind, really. It is spoken mostly by older, more rustic people. It sounds ugly and unpleasant, especially in contrast to the rhythmical Ukrainian spoken by the well-educated young officer in the front passenger seat of the cab. The old man looked as incomprehensible as he sounded. He wore work pants, a flannel shirt, a battered jacket, and tall rubber boots—a kind of uniform among the old men in the rural areas. You see them everywhere in the markets. But this man was far away from the nearest market, and he was walking his bicycle toward the front. Even seeing him was surprising to me, given that my colleagues and I had pulled over several kilometers ago to don our helmets and body armor. Most of us were already wearing our ear protection. Our rifles were loaded. This old man did not have protection from the rain, let alone the war. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Eighty-Five Years of the Dark Knight URL: https://www.merionwest.com/eighty-five-years-of-the-dark-knight/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T17:25:20.000Z > “It is precisely because we all break our rules that we enjoy this story about this man who never breaks his rules. The knight in shining armor, or in this case the Dark Knight, is the hope that there is someone who can remain good no matter what.” Crime boss Carmine Falcone sits in his limousine at the Gotham city docks at night. He has paid off the cops, and his men are unloading his latest drug shipment. But then it all starts to go wrong. Falcone hears a quick flapping, screams, gunshots, and thuds from among the maze of shipping containers. He grabs a shotgun. He loads the shotgun. He looks out into the dark. He searches every shadow for whoever, whatever, is stalking him. He grits his teeth and hisses out into the dark: “What the Hell are you?” It lands atop the car’s roof. Its hands break through the skylight. It tears Falcone out of his seat and up through the shattered skylight and stares the gangster in the face. “I’m Batman,” it says. But who is Batman? Bruce Wayne? Yes, but that is not all. “Batman isn’t a man. He’s an ideal. He can’t die,” one version of the character (who is not Bruce Wayne) said in the animated television show [*Batman: The Brave and the Bold*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213218/?ref=merionwest.com). That idea that Batman cannot die is a source of some great dramatic lines. “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne,” Christian Bale says in the film [*Batman Begins*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372784/?ref=merionwest.com). “As a man, I’m flesh and blood. I can be ignored or destroyed but as a symbol—as a symbol I can be incorruptible, everlasting.” What he says may very well become true. [Batman debuted 85 years ago](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/batman-comic-debuts-1939?ref=merionwest.com) in *Detective Comics #27* on March 30, 1939\. The 1930s was when superheroes [began](https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/truth-justice-and-the-birth-of-the-superhero-comic-book?ref=merionwest.com). Pulp comic writers and artists—like Batman’s creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger—started the mold for all superheroes that would follow in the 20th century. These heroes fought villains and saved innocent damsels just like the old gallant knights, but unlike Sir Lancelot and Robin Hood they did it dressed in capes, tights, and masks and with fantastic powers or amazing gadgets. Yet Batman is one of the few who has endured. Others like the Shadow, the Spider, and the Phantom can still be found in reprints and reboots if you know they exist. With Batman there is no if. It is hard not to know he exists. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Where an Anti-Aging Theory Goes Right (and Wrong) URL: https://www.merionwest.com/where-an-anti-aging-theory-goes-right-and-wrong/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:34.000Z > “We need more visionaries and integrated fields…because just as the human body is a complex interplay of atomic, molecular, cellular, and systemic processes, so too must be our approach to increasing healthy lifespan.” While reading [Zoltan Istvan’s perspective on what he calls the senescence inference,](https://www.merionwest.com/when-were-overly-optimistic-about-the-pace-of-life-extension-research/) I found several key points to be insightful, though some aspects could benefit from further clarification. If the goal of his senescence inference is to develop an objective system for calculating or predicting life expectancy, with the aim of attracting more resources, research, and effort toward extending healthy lifespans, then this is undoubtedly a worthwhile and necessary endeavor. However, the current perspective on senescence inference relies on two well-known concepts that, while adaptable, may not be entirely aligned or effective in achieving the optimal outcome for this goal. These two well-known concepts in question are (1) Moore’s Law, which suggests an exponential increase in computation rates over time as an example of doubling growth, and (2) the applied use of Period Life Expectancy at Birth (Period LEB) as a measure for quantifying life expectancy. Let us begin with [Moore’s Law](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/resources/moores-law.html?ref=merionwest.com). While drawing a comparison between senescence inference and Moore’s Law is clever and ambitious, it is fundamentally flawed from the outset. Moore’s Law is an observation [developed in 1975](https://www.britannica.com/technology/Moores-law?ref=merionwest.com) for predicting the doubling of transistors on microchips every two years, applicable to computational machines. This observation was—at one time—considered to be highly effective, but it is less effective today due to the laws of physics and to physical limits, as well as maintaining energy efficiency amid increasing complexity. Briefly put, a tenfold increase in the number of scientists working on the problem of aging paired with a tenfold increase in the amount of money spent on anti-aging does not necessarily mean that there will be 10 times more positive outcomes. Multiplying the number of scientists working on a problem will not produce the same increase in output if, for instance, the additional scientists are less skilled. Multiplying the amount of money will not produce the same increase in output if the promising areas for using that money are shrinking. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Reading Alasdair MacIntyre’s “After Virtue” in Modern New York URL: https://www.merionwest.com/reading-alasdair-macintyres-after-virtue-in-modern-new-york/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:35.000Z > “The change with *After Virtue*, however, is that in an important sense \[MacIntyre\] turns against modernity as a whole. He argues that the move to modernity involves the destruction of morality—that in modernity we no longer know what we’re talking about when we deploy moral language.” Dan Addison, a philosophy professor living in New York, joined *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince to discuss why he decided to teach a course at Hunter College focused on Alasdair MacIntyre’s [1981 book *After Virtue*](https://www.amazon.com/After-Virtue-Study-Moral-Theory/dp/0268035040?ref=merionwest.com). Dr. Addison, who moved to the United States from Australia in 2003, [completed his PhD in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh](https://philpeople.org/profiles/daniel-addison-1?ref=merionwest.com) in 2013\. His dissertation was on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s critique of Immanuel Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Dr. Addison did not discover MacIntyre’s work until he was teaching philosophy himself after completing his studies. In the time since, Dr. Addison has argued that *After Virtue* is *the* essential text for understanding polarization and fragmentation in the modern United States, and this coincides with *After Virtue* receiving increased attention from a number of thinkers at present, including [in the post-liberal movement](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/08/the-new-right-patrick-deneen-00100279?ref=merionwest.com). In their conversation, Dr. Addison and Mr. Prince discuss the book’s central claims, including emotivism; how his students have reacted to engaging with MacIntyre’s ideas, given that they so often contradict popular messaging today; and the idea of community and incurring obligations. **Dan, can you start by telling me about Alasdair MacIntyre and describing his background?** He’s from Scotland. He published his first book, *Marxism*, in 1953 and is still alive at the age of 95\. He was first drawn to both religion and political Marxism in his youth. I think he considered entering the Presbyterian church when was young, but politics won out, and he was—for decades—a committed Marxist. He moved from Scotland to England, and he came over to America in around 1969\. His early works are in academic philosophy but also deeply involved in sociology and history and philosophical history, which of course is very central to everything that happens from *After Virtue* on. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Hidden Obstacles of Parenting from Prison URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-hidden-obstacles-of-parenting-from-prison/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:21.000Z > “But enhancing the experience of children with incarcerated parents does not require a wholesale restructuring of prisons. Most parents in prison desperately want more contact with their kids, hoping to break the destructive cycles they have been caught in.” I have been a better father in prison than I ever was on the outside. That is not because prison officials make it easy to parent from behind bars but rather because of what I have learned about myself, parenting, and society since being incarcerated. In the nearly two decades since I was sentenced to 63 years as an accomplice to murder, I have tried to face not just my own mistakes but the corrosive cultural norms that defined my youth. Conservatives and liberals often debate the role of personal responsibility and social forces in shaping our lives. To understand why I am separated from my children, and how I can make amends for that, I have to look at both factors. My childhood was routinely chaotic and dysfunctional. Estranged from my biological father, I was raised by a stepfather who personified “toxic masculinity.” I also lived in a neighborhood where drugs, gangs, and gun violence left many of us believing those were necessary to survive. Most of my adult male role models, including my stepdad, spent little time with their children. Instead, they ran the streets—womanizing, abusing drugs, and selling dope. When my first child was born, the 18-year-old Antoine emulated those same behaviors, never considering the effects on others. In an incident I will always regret, my anger and desire for retribution led me to be involved in a man’s murder. Almost immediately, I realized that the street life I had chosen had not only cost a life but would place a burden on my kids, who would grow up with an incarcerated father. I could not erase those mistakes, but I could learn to be the kind of father I never had. I read books on masculinity, family, and faith by authors such as Eric Mason, Dennis Rainey, and Gene Getz. They inspired me to become a parent who loved and supported my children, even from behind bars. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Ekphrasis and Eugene Datta’s “Water and Wave” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/ekphrasis-and-eugene-dattas-water-and-wave/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:22.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/matt-paul-catalano-0QEG_xOoY7Y-unsplash.jpg) > “Once the speaker’s psyche and voice are introduced via questions, the photo in a sense begins to dissolve, becoming secondary, important, vital in its own right, but not ultimately defining. Thus the fecund faithlessness of poetry.” May poetry improve us by instruction, the way soap scrubs away dead skin in a shower, or does verse most reach our being like sunlight reflected off lake water, warming us indirectly? Virgil, in his [*Georgics*](https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/VirgilGeorgicsI.php?ref=merionwest.com)*,* opts for the former, as he instructs the citizen forthrightly in the tilling of land. Likewise alternate years let our cut fields lie fallow, And the idle ground hardened with neglect: Or sow yellow corn, under another star, where you First harvested beans rich in their quivering pods. Eschewing this Latin classical view, early modernist [William Carlos Williams](https://poets.org/poem/asphodel-greeny-flower-excerpt?ref=merionwest.com) rather suggests that we might as readily be enlightened by the sheer phenomenality of a threatened, but prematurely dispersed, summer thunder shower, one that disappears before it begins, yet we register its presence. The storm has proven abortive but we remain after the thoughts it roused to re-cement our lives. For Williams, the ideation resulting from a poem is more accidental than intentional. Is art best pedagogical, or sheer sensory experience? Indian-born poet and journeying journalist Eugene Datta’s peripatetic writing stands poised between attraction to the high-art manner of ekphrasis and the straightforwardness of documentary. Many poems in [*Water and* Wave,](https://redhawkpublications.com/Water-&-Wave-p651681588?ref=merionwest.com) which was released by Redhawk Publications this year, exemplify this tension and raise a question about the nature of these two modes, which have long served as twin, competing paths for art. Ekphrasis is the use of detailed description of a work of visual art as a literary device. Typically, in the modern age, such sources have been paintings, known (excepting religious art) more for decorating space and stimulating the senses than for any directly edifying use. One immediately thinks of such poems as Williams’s [“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,”](https://poets.org/poem/landscape-fall-icarus?ref=merionwest.com) by Brueghel, or Sylvia Plath’s [“The Disquieting Muses”](https://www.internal.org/Sylvia%5FPlath/The%5FDisquieting%5FMuses?ref=merionwest.com) by de Chirico. Such poetry tends to be perceived as ultra-aesthetic, art wrapped in art, less gesturing to a social or theological world outside its confines than to reflection on art as such, like an ars poetica, or as a vehicle for strictly private concerns, as the poet “confronts” the painting, which in turn reverberates in his or her psyche in the form of writing. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Paying For Pleasure URL: https://www.merionwest.com/paying-for-pleasure/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:19:16.000Z “The old man had paid dearly/he could still get lost in dreams” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Homelands URL: https://www.merionwest.com/homelands/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:15.000Z “The bright green of summer wheat/with the brown of the ducks that stalk the fair/dykes where the raft spiders search for things to eat.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Optimism vs. Reality in Longevity Science: Analyzing Zoltan Istvan’s Senescence Inference URL: https://www.merionwest.com/optimism-vs-reality-in-longevity-science-analyzing-istvans-senescence-inference/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:37.000Z > “Although \[Zoltan\] Istvan’s general pessimism is understandable, the Senescence Inference takes the pessimism too far for a number of reasons.” Zoltan Istvan, a prominent figure in the transhumanist movement, recently wrote an [article](https://www.merionwest.com/when-were-overly-optimistic-about-the-pace-of-life-extension-research/) at *Merion West* explaining why many in the transhumanist community are “overly optimistic about the pace of life extension research.” Despite recent advancements in this field, Istvan’s down-to-earth assessment is most likely correct. There remains a vast chasm between lab studies that [extend the lifespan of mice](https://x.com/alexkesin/status/1816692910471151851?ref=merionwest.com) and the goal of extending the lifespan of humans—let alone the objective of reversing the aging process and unlocking immortality. Even as an overly-zealous proponent of the life-extension movement, I have to admit that the current pace of progress does not seem sufficient to warrant anything beyond cautious optimism. As Istvan writes, “biological humans are likely to be mortal for centuries more unless a dramatic increase in both resources and life extension scientists is marshaled.” Istvan’s pessimism is grounded in a concept he developed called “the Senescence Inference,” which he describes as a kind of [Moore’s Law](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/resources/moores-law.html?ref=merionwest.com) for longevity. Just as Moore’s Law observes that the number of transistors in a chip doubles every year, the Senescence Inference, properly calibrated, would observe how the human lifespan expands as medical technology improves. To quote Istvan’s figures, someone born in 1901 had a life-expectancy of roughly 48 years, while people alive today can expect to live roughly to 72\. This, Istvan writes, is a 1.5x lifespan expectancy gain from 1901 to today. Projecting this forward, someone born in 2021 can be expected to live to 110\. This estimate is wildly out of step with life-extension proponents, who often make the [claim](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long%5Freads/live-longer-longevity-stem-cells-ageing-a8332701.html?ref=merionwest.com) that “the first person to live to be 1,000 years old is alive today,” or, as futurist [Ray Kurzweil asserts](https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/ray-kurzweil-predicts-human-immortality-by-2030?ref=merionwest.com), if one can live to 2030, he might be able to live forever. Although Istvan’s general pessimism is understandable, the Senescence Inference takes the pessimism too far for a number of reasons. At a basic level, there is an obvious rebuttal to any argument that is pessimistic about technological advancement: In-the-moment predictions about technological advancements often wildly underestimate the prospect of unprecedented breakthroughs. For example, in 1903, a writer for *The New York Times* [predicted](https://bigthink.com/pessimists-archive/air-space-flight-impossible/?ref=merionwest.com) that airplanes would not be functional for 10 million years. In reality, the Wright Brothers accomplished this only nine weeks later. And despite all odds and predictions to the contrary, humans set foot on the moon a mere [65 years](https://www.nasa.gov/history/120-years-ago-the-first-powered-flight-at-kitty-hawk/?ref=merionwest.com) after the Wright Brothers took flight. Similar overly-pessimistic predictions were made regarding atomic energy, the Internet, the adoption of the personal computer, and the [Human Genome Project](https://www.genome.gov/human-genome-project?ref=merionwest.com). So, when someone writes that scientists will not radically extend the human lifespan for centuries, there is quite a lot of precedent to shrug this view off as overly pessimistic. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Villanelle on a Theme from Rimbaud and Other Poems URL: https://www.merionwest.com/three-poems/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:44.000Z “He feels himself watched/as he counts accents./He knows the painter’s/watching for the precise moment/when his blue ink freezes.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Burning Britain URL: https://www.merionwest.com/burning-britain/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:17:08.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/7f38b06f92bf07a3ec5ac279d90095e3Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzIzMDMzMTEx-2.77058826.jpg) > “Political violence, particularly against minorities, has no place in a democracy. However, neglecting the undeniable social and cultural repercussions of mass immigration is a grave mistake that only serves to empower the hard right.” Following the brutal [mass stabbing](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy68z9dw9e7o?ref=merionwest.com) of children in Southport, England, on July 29th, which resulted in the deaths of three young girls, [violent unrest](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cervv8rz8mzo?ref=merionwest.com) erupted across the country. The international media has largely failed to report on and contextualize the riots with the necessary care and circumspection. I was living in London when thousands of young rioters [laid waste](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8689355/London-riots-all-incidents-mapped-in-London-and-around-the-UK.html?ref=merionwest.com) to the city between August 6 and 11, 2011, following the police killing of a black man. The left-leaning media primarily focused on the “root causes” of the mindless violence, citing racial and economic grievances. In contrast, recent events have been met with a markedly different standard. The shocking violence committed by anti-migrant mobs has been senseless, misdirected, and inexcusable. However, it did not occur in a vacuum. While economic deprivation is occasionally acknowledged as a factor, underlying issues related to mass immigration are largely ignored. It is far easier for the media to label protesters as racist and to blame right-wing political figures. The latter, with their often inflammatory rhetoric, are certainly not without fault, and many protesters undoubtedly harbor racist views. However, it is misguided to frame the protests as driven by white fears about losing “cultural privileges,” as suggested by a British cultural studies scholar on a [German news program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkRcbFGkJMI&ref=merionwest.com). Nuance seems reserved for discussions about the [Southport knife attacker](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cydvr9d0vd3t?ref=merionwest.com), a 17-year-old British citizen of Rwandan descent who is technically not an immigrant. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How To Write Lyric Poetry URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-to-write-lyric-poetry/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:11.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/nicolas-thomas-SXn-fWj0Ht4-unsplash.jpg) > “This lyre-derived heritage survives robustly in the lyrics of pop songs, guitars now taking the place of the lyre and the orality of the human voice singing taking precedence over all.” Aristotle’s *[Poetics](https://www.amazon.com/Poetics-Penguin-Classics-Aristotle/dp/0140446362/ref=sr%5F1%5F2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.WvYI9t5I3CZ9dVeKYWg%5F5Q2FJhTVV0VeMG2TL2-ssa8pqehadE2Yt4rm74g43ltnxqxovDGprnwCSKECMdeZVNBF3m9uIIJNkdnA3x4qXf279AMvdvKlgAQ0OQA5Pdgnw6AuxAUKzsFTSTYDb4Ufo7bzwCVN-Qzt6hR-TWvhPQXr-yQaCq5i2cSiahRKrqJkvbZrxHg9ZYKz-jD2CapM2cO7jee3MOtBSCqcW6BZt3A.Orb9ePBtyLDEc6FluBk8Tv0hEZHnV2eUr86yGJhtYgA&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=aristotle+poetics&qid=1718827981&sr=8-2&ref=merionwest.com)* divides poetry into three main categories: epic, dramatic, and lyric. While approximate, that division roughly still holds today. *Beowulf* is an epic. *King Lear* is a drama in verse. Most of the poetry of William Butler Yeats, such as [“Byzantium,”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43296/byzantium?ref=merionwest.com) is lyric. Compared to the first two, lyric tends to be short. A sonnet, for example, has only fourteen lines. *Beowulf* has 3,182\. The *Iliad* has 15,693\. Epic and dramatic poetry is seldom written in modern times, having largely been replaced by narrative forms such as the novel, though one can cite poetic examples such as Derek Walcott’s *[Omeros](https://www.amazon.com/Omeros-DEREK-WALCOTT/dp/0374523509/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=35XY6BIWFV0T5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.3m4Wr-ocuMzQkwCUKTaze%5FJbPPtD1%5FhZLt9xotJ3JtiUw3RyA1b9l3jEbOHy2UljdV7vVYk2QTvuXruXoZElK-9k-EZEsbX-%5F2syclPm7OKW-Spa2C656n5mfcGlmUfmvBOP5lSazBnJE-GKoj18y4p87VuWBzFU-60hYNMymnLMF-ln3F3Z1bY21MbEII1asZoVtdc26riaPg8mlA10k3B-2rHyAsmVCun7ydsNWZ4.Jt0iwBmcXr3hHXf0l0U32XM7fmIjFLbSF7e%5Fz7KWumQ&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=omeros&qid=1718828552&sprefix=omeros%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com),* which, not coincidentally, is modeled on the most famous and enduring Western verse epic, Homer’s *The Odyssey.* Nevertheless, for the past two centuries, most poetry written in English has become lyric, to the extent that we now just call it “poetry” without thinking, and it is widely understood what is meant by that. But that does not mean lyric poetry itself is a recent phenomenon. The origins of Western lyric poetry, like so much of our culture, lie in ancient Greece. [Sappho](https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/kelsey-assets/kelsey-documents/2021-Poetry-Blast.pdf?ref=merionwest.com), often called the tenth muse, was writing lyric poetry such as elegies, epigrams, odes, and love ballads, around 600 B.C. ###### Ornate-throned immortal Aphrodite, wile-weaving daughter of Zeus, I entreat you: do not overpower my heart, mistress, with ache and anguish but come here, if ever in the past you heard my voice from afar and acquiesced and came, leaving your father’s golden house. This poem consists of seven three-line stanzas. That is all she needs to accomplish what she wants. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Arteries & Veins URL: https://www.merionwest.com/arteries-veins/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:00.000Z “In oncoming lights, my veins are dirty strings.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### When We’re Overly Optimistic about the Pace of Life Extension Research URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-were-overly-optimistic-about-the-pace-of-life-extension-research/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:24.000Z > “Sadly, biological humans are likely to be mortal for centuries more unless a dramatic increase in both resources and life extension scientists is marshaled.” Certain well-known gerontologists and longevity experts around the world believe that sometime in this century—probably in the next [15-50](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a43297321/humans-will-achieve-immortality-by-2030/?ref=merionwest.com) years—medicine will likely overcome and cure most forms of disease, and even death itself. Billionaires such as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s Larry Page, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison have jumped on board, pledging billions of dollars to “conquering all [disease](https://fortune.com/2023/09/15/dr-priscilla-chan-interview-zuckerberg-initiative-donate-meta-stock/?ref=merionwest.com) by this century” and mortality altogether. These business titans hope age reversal techniques via genetic editing therapies, [stem cell rejuvenation](https://www.gencell.com.ua/en/rejuvenation-with-stem-cells?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Rejuvenation%20Treatment%20with%20Stem%20Cells&text=internally%20and%20externally.-,Treatment%20is%20carried%20out%20using%20mesenchymal%20stem%20cells%20%28derived%20from,health%20cells%20you%20have%20lost.), [3D bioprinting of organs](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9088731/?ref=merionwest.com), and the widespread creation of synthetic organs like artificial hearts could keep people indefinitely young and healthy. If biological human death from disease and aging is overcome, then only catastrophic accidental death—such as an airplane crash or incineration—can kill people. (Accidental death in this vein accounts for about [7%](https://www.statista.com/topics/3991/unintentional-injury-in-the-us/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20unintentional%20injuries%20or,injuries%20found%20among%20the%20elderly.) of all deaths in the United States.) [Transhumanists](https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/4376187-we-should-embrace-transhumanism-our-survival-could-depend-on-it/?ref=merionwest.com) believe that the human being is like a machine—an entity that can be fixed and made to overcome nearly all biological death. The question is how fast can this be done? If the human being is indeed a machine-like entity as nearly all credible scientists propose, then the answer almost certainly rests not in the limits of biology but, rather, in the amount of work and resources put into the life extension field. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Danger in NATO’s Slow Attrition Strategy in Ukraine URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-danger-in-natos-slow-attrition-strategy-in-ukraine/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:12.000Z > “Aside from the hazard of China or Iran adding to the number of ongoing wars, the currently slow attrition strategy is only working against President Putin because he is trapped.” The early failure by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to help Ukraine inflict severe costs on Russia has allowed Moscow to adjust and prepare for a protracted conflict where it can meet these accumulating personnel losses, now estimated at between [85,000 Russian combatant deaths](https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-war-ukraine-deaths/32903736.html?ref=merionwest.com) (the French low estimate) and [180,000](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/30/russia-troops-ukraine-toll-casualties/?ref=merionwest.com) (the American count). NATO’s default inclination is to stabilize rather than intensify the level of pressure applied to Russia through arms transfers to Ukraine, as demonstrated by its political reluctance to concentrate on dramatically increasing artillery ammunition output. According to [Air Force Command and Staff College](https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/ACSC/?ref=merionwest.com) professor Charles T. Kamps, this strategy of slow [graduated punishment](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA391670.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) was the principal reason why the [Linebacker II Bombing campaign](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA524103.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) failed to produce [political effects](https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/History/Vietnam/Vietnam%5F1960-1968%5FP002.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) during the [Vietnam War](https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/research/pentagon-papers/Pentagon-Papers-Part-IV-C-3.pdf?ref=merionwest.com). This risks continuing the war until either [China](https://nationalinterest.org/feature/china%E2%80%99s-closing-window-opportunity-taiwan-204972?ref=merionwest.com) or [Iran](https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/cementing-iran-russo-chinese-coalition-strategic-folly?ref=merionwest.com) may find it worthwhile to exploit a [distracted NATO](https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/how-to-win-in-ukraine-without-creating-a-russia-china-axis/?ref=merionwest.com) by launching attacks in their respective spheres of influence. Chinese President [Xi Jinping](https://theforge.defence.gov.au/article/cementing-iran-russo-chinese-coalition-strategic-folly?ref=merionwest.com) has committed to resolving the [Taiwan issue by 2027](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/21/taiwan-foreign-minister-warns-of-conflict-with-china-in-2027?ref=merionwest.com), though this may[ be hyperbole](https://www.voanews.com/a/doubts-cast-china-will-be-ready-to-invade-taiwan-by-2027/7574367.html?ref=merionwest.com). Australian historian [Geoffrey Blainey](https://www.hoover.org/research/war-gambling-mans-game?ref=merionwest.com) has shown that world wars typically emerge out of simultaneous deterrence failures. This is applicable to the [current circumstance](https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/2024/02/01/nato-has-a-munitions-problem-and-europe-needs-to-step-up/?ref=merionwest.com) of simultaneous wars, crises, and confrontations. As such, NATO must stand firm at the first domino because it has [insufficient armaments production](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) to prosecute wars to defend all of Eastern Europe, [Taiwan](https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/03/15/china-russia-ukraine-invasion/?ref=merionwest.com), and the [Straits of Hormuz](https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/08/15/the%5Fus%5Fcan%5Fchoose%5Fbetween%5Fa%5Fnarrow%5For%5Fa%5Fbroader%5Foperation%5Fagainst%5Firans%5Fnavy%5F972991.html?ref=merionwest.com), from where Europe gets most of its energy for transportation. Crises are more easily confronted when they occur sequentially rather than concurrently, and this means resolving or winning them as quickly as possible. Western policymakers are searching for the strategic Goldilocks zone in the war in Ukraine: At one extreme is the incentive to drag out the conflict so that Russia both incurs costs that will lead to the conceivable [overthrow of Russian President Vladimir Putin](https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/03/16/do%5Fnot%5Fmiss%5Fthe%5Fopportunity%5Fto%5Ftopple%5Fvladimir%5Fputin%5F821958.html?ref=merionwest.com) but also without allowing Moscow to justify politically an escalation that could lead to an [Article V provocation](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics%5F110496.htm?ref=merionwest.com) of the NATO charter, or the use of chemical or [tactical nuclear weapons](https://www.merionwest.com/putins-very-limited-tactical-nuclear-warfare-options/). Aside from the hazard of China or Iran adding to the number of ongoing wars, the currently slow attrition strategy is only working against President Putin because he is trapped. The relative performance imbalance in favor of the Ukrainians shows that Russia will pay an extremely high price for an ultimate capitulation by Kyiv. Consequently, rationally, President Putin should pull out of the war and rebuild for a future confrontation with NATO, but he is instead politically ensnared in the conflict and his personal survival is bound to victory. Although the cost to Russia of the Ukraine War has far exceeded Moscow’s initial expectations of a quick fait accompli by convoy parade into Kyiv, the additional impacts of [Western sanctions](https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/july-2022/russia-sanctions-inflexible-instrument/?ref=merionwest.com), [weapons shipments](https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/04/answering-call-heavy-weaponry-supplied.html?ref=merionwest.com), [Ukrainian gains](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-kharkiv-victory-b2164503.html?ref=merionwest.com), and [deaths on the battlefield](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68819853?ref=merionwest.com) have not on their own altered the cost-benefit analysis in a fashion dramatic enough as to result in policy concessions from the Kremlin. President Putin may indeed believe that he has a medium-term advantage given the additional year or so it will take NATO countries to match Moscow’s artillery production, but he must also be aware that the war’s delayed impact on the economy will alienate the [under-35 cohort](https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/09/24-months-of-hell-why-the-war-between-russia-and-ukraine-wont-end-for-another-two-years/?ref=merionwest.com) from which the bulk of the Russian army is conscripted. President Putin may also be hoping, as Adolf Hitler did, that a war in the Middle East ([1941 Golden Square](https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6097&context=open%5Faccess%5Fetds&ref=merionwest.com) revolt in Iraq) or Asia (Japan’s [1941 attack on Pearl Harbor](https://www.britannica.com/event/Pearl-Harbor-attack?ref=merionwest.com)) would reduce Russia’s war burden. More likely, his policy advisors are wary of a United States provoked to mobilization, as Japanese Admiral [Isoroku Yamamoto](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/opinion/a-reluctant-enemy.html?ref=merionwest.com) warned the Tokyo War Cabinet. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### After Emily Dickinson, “Circumference thou Bride of Awe” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/after-emily-dickinson-circumference-thou-bride-of-awe/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:19:15.000Z “Every night/A lover be” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Our Fractured Togetherness: The Political Realism of Lynn Nottage URL: https://www.merionwest.com/our-fractured-togetherness-the-political-realism-of-lynn-nottage/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:40.000Z > “Given the depth and severity of the divisions displayed in *Sweat*, we are led to wonder if healing is even possible. But as a ‘doctor of American democracy,’ \[Lynn\] Nottage not only offers troubling diagnoses of our diseases but also prescribes remedies.” What are the causes of American dividedness, and what remedies could enable civic healing? Theater—as opposed to journalism, political science, and sociology—might seem an unlikely source for knowledge about American politics. Yet theater has historically possessed the power to provide a mirror for the present and a roadmap for the future. [As Hamlet says](https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/read/?ref=merionwest.com), just after using the analogy of a mirror, a well-written play can show “the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” Or, to use a medical metaphor: If American democracy in this era of intense partisanship and rising political violence stands in need of doctoring, can a great playwright provide much-needed diagnoses and prescriptions for our divided nation? In Lynn Nottage’s deeply-researched [2015 play](https://bethshalompgh.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Nottage-SWEAT.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) *Sweat*, which presents a nuanced investigation of American dividedness, blue-collar workers at Olstead’s Steel Tubing plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, feel increasingly disrespected and exploited by elites in management, ignored by distant politicians, threatened by technology that may replace their jobs, angry at migrant workers and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), spiritually and existentially lost, inclined to violence, and tempted by the escape provided by drugs and alcohol. Shifting back and forth between the year 2000, in which the characters suffered job loss and violent tragedy, and the year 2008, in which two of the characters were released from eight-year prison sentences to uncertain futures and Congress passed [a 700 billion dollar bank bailout](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/200904%5FCREDITCRISIS/recipients.html?ref=business), Nottage provides in this play an elegant, empathetic, and timely diagnosis of some of the underlying causes, the psychological seedbed, leading to support for demagogic leaders, nativist ideas, and populist protectionism. Although the play features a number of different themes—race, class, gender, nativism, technology, friendship—its primary and most fundamental theme is American dividedness. To borrow a phrase from the play’s final stage directions, we exist in a state of “fractured togetherness.” In what follows, I explore what Nottage teaches us, through this hyper-realistic and immersive play, about the causes of our divisions, and about how to heal them. **Categories of Struggle, and the Lattice of Divisions** As we learn especially from bar-room conversation, each character in *Sweat* struggles. Cynthia, an African-American woman in her mid-40s, pursues promotion to management at the steel tubing plant while dealing with her wild and estranged husband Brucie, who, transformed by drugs, deceives and robs her, disappearing with her pet fish and even her Christmas presents from under the tree. Cynthia’s good friend and co-worker Tracey, a white woman in her mid-40s, widowed, fears job loss and deals with unacknowledged sexual harassment at the plant. Jessie, an Italian-American in her 40s, whose husband divorced her and recently remarried, climbs onto a stool at the local bar each night to drink herself into oblivion; when Oscar, the Colombian-American busboy, helps her stagger to the restroom one evening she confusedly asks him if they are together. Freddy Brunner, a local man mentioned briefly in bar-room conversation, loses his job, is left by his wife, tries to shoot himself, burns down his own house intentionally, and gets arrested. On multiple fronts, then, things go wrong for these characters: money and employment, love and family life, legal trouble, and the use of drugs or alcohol. In fact, all four of these realms of life typically move in tandem; trouble starting in one realm quickly seeps over into the others. Job loss and job insecurity, especially, tend in this play to be first causes that produce marital trouble, drug use, and legal trouble. Nottage thus implies—and she underscores the point by means of italicized news reports which, prefacing each scene, blend descriptions of national and local events—that economics is never merely economic, that broader trends are deeply personal in their effects. If the United States has difficulty keeping blue-collar workers economically secure, those citizens will fall into all sorts of difficulties that go far beyond economics. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On the Idea of National Decline URL: https://www.merionwest.com/on-the-idea-of-national-decline/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T08:14:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Volubilis-basilica-1.jpg) (Volubilis, Morocco) > “It is, I believe, more than anything else, the undeniable reality of technological progress that lulls us into accepting the more general—and plainly false—proposition that things will just keep on improving in *every* respect.” There is no surer way to feel on the most visceral level that we are entering a new Dark Age than to watch an LGBTQIA+ pride parade in action. I was on my way to the Home Depot on 23rd Street in Manhattan on Sunday, June 30th, having forgotten [that the pride parade was on the agenda](https://www.nycpride.org/event/nyc-pride-march?ref=merionwest.com) for that afternoon. When I got out of the subway at 23rd and Broadway, I found myself in the thick of it, with no obvious way out. Nearly every escape route was cordoned off, and the crowds of onlookers and participants, there being no obvious distinction between those two categories, were obstructing every path forward. I was not in a hurry, but I also was not especially keen on spending precious free time crowded in among people who had actually made a deliberate choice to attend this sorry spectacle. I put on a podcast and did my best to tune out my surroundings, as I edged inch by inch through the throng toward my destination. What I saw, despite myself—and what I unfortunately cannot unsee—was a depressing display of total and utter vulgarity and superficiality. As long as no one gets hurt in the process, I have nothing against consenting adults who have sexual preferences that differ from my own. Yet I would scoff at anyone—heterosexuals, homosexuals, transsexuals, asexuals…*anyone*—who decides to define himself or herself by a sexual identity and turn it, literally or figuratively, into a parade float. Many who fall into the LGBTQIA+ basket seem to believe, in my experience, that simply by expressing their sexual preferences and/or conforming their identities to the familiar grid lines sketched out by their somewhat more original predecessors in the gay rights movement, they are accomplishing something important, pathbreaking, and transgressive, even as they embody living, breathing stereotypes just as clownish and ludicrous in their own way as preening, beer-swilling, high-fiving heterosexual frat boys, with their crude sexual innuendos and bathroom humor. I am sure, of course, that there remain many, but increasingly *not that* many, sheltered “normals” out in [the demonized American backwoods](https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/the-woking-class-vs-the-working-class?ref=merionwest.com) who genuinely find some LGBTQIA+ people and behaviors disturbing—though I should pause to remark here that the feeling is probably mutual. And, yes, forced to stand and gawk at how these oft-unaesthetic people (un)dress and generally present themselves, one is hard-pressed to avoid acknowledging [the effortfully cultivated ugliness](https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/why-liberals-make-life-so-ugly?ref=merionwest.com) on display. But the problem runs far deeper than that. The problem is that our society has seen fit to devote an entire month to celebrating particular forms of sexuality and identity and that so many lost souls would come out to partake in the debauchery. Our obsession with sexuality has been noted by many commentators. The late left populist historian Christopher Lasch [ascribed the preoccupation to](https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Narcissism-American-Diminishing-Expectations/dp/0393307387?ref=merionwest.com) the collapse of organic communal bonds and the elimination of the element of play from our working lives, while the integral theorist Ken Wilber [has argued that](https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Ecology-Spirituality-Spirit-Evolution/dp/1570627444?ref=d6k%5Fapplink%5Fbb%5Fdls&dplnkId=38cbb5b4-9eb6-43d0-81ac-a9bc4d273d7f) because our secular, materialistic society increasingly gives us no other viable outlets for our spirituality, we land on sexuality as one of the few remaining options that appears to take us beyond the confines of the everyday self. Authors such as D. H. Lawrence exemplified that view of sex as a gateway to higher states. Freud, himself notoriously fixated on the sexual dimension of human experience (and condemned by Lawrence as a rationalizer of our sacred, irrational passions), noted that we gravitate toward perverse sexuality in particular because it seems to offer us a higher species of satisfaction completely divorced from the procreative, i.e., productive, sex act. In the words of the Frankfurt School’s Herbert Marcuse in [*Eros and Civilization*](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Eros%5Fand%5FCivilization/0fUyAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=%E2%80%9CAgainst%20a%20society%20which%20employs%20sexuality%20as%20means%20for%20a%20useful%20end,%20the%20perversions%20uphold%20sexuality%20as%20an%20end%20in%20itself,%E2%80%9D&ref=merionwest.com), “Against a society which employs sexuality as means for a useful end, the perversions uphold sexuality as an end in itself,” thereby seeming to defy the strictures of the capitalist order. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Midnight Sutra URL: https://www.merionwest.com/midnight-sutra/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:19.000Z “In yellow night, the day refuses to give ground/and I prepare to wait out its siege. Soon you’ll/arrive, and together we’ll chant the Midnight/Sutra” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Different Kind of Knowledge: Matthew Zapruder’s “I Love Hearing Your Dreams” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-different-kind-of-knowledge-matthew-zapruders-i-love-hearing-your-dreams/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:27.000Z > “The combination of dread and cheer these reveries bring about could accurately be called the optimist’s nightmare. The poet-speaker holds compassion as the stalk of a dandelion holds juice, hidden yet keeping the flower active and aloft through sheer tensile strength.” The first thing one notices upon reading Matthew Zapruder’s forthcoming book of poetry [*I Love Hearing Your Dreams*](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/I-Love-Hearing-Your-Dreams/Matthew-Zapruder/9781668059807?ref=merionwest.com) is how simple the language appears to be. “I want to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon” or “who can tell me the names of those flowers” or “on the radio I heard that inimitable accent.” He talks the way we do when we are conversing among familiars. Almost never in this volume does Zapruder use a word that could not be understood by a ninth grader of median intelligence. *Inimitable* is an outlier. A false syllogism would conclude that therefore Zapruder would write simple poetry. No conclusion would be more wrong. The space he requires to operate within may be imagined as a large, airy tent, preferably containing what Joan Miró imagined in *[The Harlequin’s Carnival](https://buffaloakg.org/artworks/rca19408-carnaval-darlequin-carnival-harlequin?ref=merionwest.com),* a ménage of delightful floating objects. The poet is the trapeze artist. As he swings past each object, coming close without striking any, his death-defying acrobatics register casually, as if he were merely doing a handstand in a grassy field. Above all, the trapeze artist wants his feats to appear to the spectator as easy, rather than studied. No one can accuse Zapruder (perfect circus acrobat name) of showing off, despite his possessing and displaying a large range of literary reference to his contemporaries and chosen predecessors (as [Eliot stated](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69400/tradition-and-the-individual-talent?ref=merionwest.com), we create our predecessors). These presences lurk throughout his poems, their names sometimes given up generically in a title, such as: “Poem for Robert Desnos,” an early twentieth century poet associated with dadaism, surrealism, and automatic writing. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Salamander URL: https://www.merionwest.com/salamander/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:29.000Z “Held in palm,/a bloom of peony to/inspect.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Triumph of Eros Over Thanatos: The Imperishable Beauty of “Holding the Man” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-triumph-of-eros-over-thanatos-the-imperishable-beauty-of-holding-the-man/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:42.000Z > “In short, I am in love with the story of Tim and John. It has enchanted and devastated me for years now, which is why I will use their first names.“ A man sits at his desk by the window, clattering away on a keyboard. He is cold, and he is swaddled in blankets, with a beanie pulled tightly down over his head. He coughs constantly and often has to pause in his work while he overcomes a coughing fit. The man is dying and will soon be dead, but he is holding on until he finishes his book. Many years later, a friend recalls watching him at his work: He is “freezing cold…sitting there…papers everywhere…just madly writing.” The book he is so desperately composing is the story of the great love—and greater loss—that has defined his life. He is immortalizing himself and the man he called his husband, the late [John Caleo](https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/159447351/john%5Frobert-caleo?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=John%20was%20born%20in%20Melbourne,autobiographical%20memoir%2C%20Holding%20the%20Man.). He is setting down their life together, from high school sweethearts to AIDS patients. He is terrified of dying before he finishes, but his terror is misplaced: He will complete his book and only then—shortly after doing so—will he die, aged 34. The man was the author, actor, activist, and playwright [Timothy Conigrave](https://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk/timothy-conigrave?ref=merionwest.com), and the book that was published in 1995, the year after his death, is called [*Holding the Man*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unknown/dp/0143202820/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&dib%5Ftag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PNBgnMQ%5FkTKGE4ovUwOl24DNk244QwqFHDDVvuYgIwp-HouktX5V2Ym0Th4CpxwkPxVLDtqWEWEzw01Yo31UcRXS5497Vh1N4Y%5FCHir6uNn0D9Io%5FRqEKw9IvrEzWcXxcziZ-jT%5FmW8Mygi0cjzTs-qCmAo%5FuIj2lx%5Fck5td7bTlf5tGzHKSeGgGG15psCdUOcQKAZyzxwj9ReEcMgUBZ-tZqbVt-1Mwvs1DoiUrc9g.%5FQxVCqwXCDQSNgMjoF3yLmUMhmJwNwxWLdQeYiDWG9s&qid=1721321133&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com). I did not know anything of the story of Tim and John until I happened upon a beautiful [2015 film](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Holding-Man-DVD-Guy-Pearce/dp/B01DEAO3K0/ref=sr%5F1%5F2?crid=HJEXDGRB4CZ6&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.crI9EnobD0Tfnw2n1AgGppQovsGq84xAnw%5FTn2Gi8969eAcYCoxPpG5iZe%5F1GO3AeJn13mkGezM6voaLdYpnVImui3iPjUREM8AZbN5GCCYb9jin3254d%5F-zduJHcE-vXoJ3p5-1JFAS7haBN4LReeTugxqiYS4ZqHxBaIf9GwQ5XjWxjidJX-gKfJ-56Rx3AHUK2bJUxQPq2b%5FA1DxbcaiIiG0oaInNSOKZylQVsEQ.zggPmEgQEY13UTMx4XYjXkaBpVPEz9%5FiCtQ8J1A0BfQ&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=holding+the+man+film&qid=1721321188&sprefix=holding+the+man+film%2Caps%2C323&sr=8-2&ref=merionwest.com) based on the book. Since that first tearful viewing, I have revisited the film many a time (and foisted it on many a friend). I have also read the book itself, plus the text of the [2006 play](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Holding-Man-NHB-Modern-Plays/dp/1848421087/ref=sr%5F1%5F2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PNBgnMQ%5FkTKGE4ovUwOl24DNk244QwqFHDDVvuYgIwp-HouktX5V2Ym0Th4CpxwkPxVLDtqWEWEzw01Yo31UcRXS5497Vh1N4Y%5FCHir6uNn0D9Io%5FRqEKw9IvrEzWcXxcziZ-jT%5FmW8Mygi0cjzTs-qCmAo%5FuIj2lx%5Fck5td7bTlf5tGzHKSeGgGG15psCdUOcQKAZyzxwj9ReEcMgUBZ-tZqbVt-1Mwvs1DoiUrc9g.%5FQxVCqwXCDQSNgMjoF3yLmUMhmJwNwxWLdQeYiDWG9s&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=holding+the+man+book&qid=1721321133&sr=8-2&ref=merionwest.com) based on it, and I have watched the 2016 documentary [*Remembering the Man*](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Remembering-Man-DVD-George-Sanders/dp/B01N4AWZ5E/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=2S5D580VLYC3O&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ix6fVdwn2Iei5evmiAWk5%5FVepxW5zT5qs%5FlqSVO-cwrzPCWhc%5FIUYAySUav6pqlvi6EAdubcSG4HqSTkKdbcwodEi7PBCvHfaLA%5FChwcRHy99%5FOxeITDwlAkgYpfxmWbxG%5FD2Wph0-9kZjI2fHtKFVo1P28MNqcbSj1HJj1gXZeCtMjvnBohiH0WRIqvjXkaxu94sbCB3M3g85jvlEWsusDnPio4-ZklUl6Ku6tTUC8.juQYzvo82IKJrWk7Tu8PhRZ3DkxvgZTG8nC4dLh7xeo&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=remembering+the+man+film&qid=1721321234&sprefix=rememberingthe+man+film%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com), which features remembrances from people who knew the couple as well as photographs, video footage, and the voice of Tim himself, as recorded in January of 1993 for the oral history program of the National Library of Australia. (The details and quote above are taken from this documentary.) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Taliban Dilemma: How to Engage with Those Whose Values We Oppose URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-taliban-dilemma-how-to-engage-with-those-whose-values-we-oppose/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:14.000Z > “In this instance, should those who believe in the rights of women sit down with those who do not, potentially risking legitimizing groups like the Taliban, in the hope that through dialogue they can influence them?” There is a shrine in the village of [Karez](https://af.geoview.info/yakh%5Fkarez,1121339?ref=merionwest.com), 50 miles to the northwest of Kandahar City in Afghanistan, the land the West is trying to forget. It commemorates a hero who rallied the [Pashtun](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pashtun?ref=merionwest.com) fighters during the [Battle of Maiwand](https://thelondonmagazine.org/article/the-battle-of-maiwand/?ref=merionwest.com) in 1880, one of the key battles of the [Second Anglo-Afghan War](https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/second-afghan-war?ref=merionwest.com), a war fought by British-Indian forces attempting to keep Afghanistan free from Russian influence. According to folklore, a hero took the Afghan flag after the flag-bearer had fallen and urged the Pashtun warriors on. Today, there are still schools, clinics, and other public institutions in Afghanistan named after this brave Pashtun. This hero, credited in decisively swinging the battle, was a woman. And she became known as [Malalai of Maiwand](https://nadafund.org.uk/malalai-of-maiwand-the-fearless-afghan-heroine-who-inspired-a-nation/?ref=merionwest.com). She is the spiritual predecessor of the many brave female soldiers, policewomen, and civil servants who worked alongside [coalition forces](https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics%5F8189.htm?ref=merionwest.com), such as those in the [Female Tactical Platoon](https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/afghan-women-soldiers-taliban-us-refugees/?ref=merionwest.com), who partnered with American special forces, searching and questioning women and children on high-risk nighttime missions. However, most of the platoon has now resettled in the United States, and the Afghan delegation attending the recent United Nations (UN) [conference](https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/note-correspondents/2024-06-25/note-correspondents-doha-meeting-of-special-envoys-afghanistan?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=The%20third%20meeting%20of%20Special,behalf%20of%20the%20Secretary%2DGeneral.) on Afghanistan in Doha, Qatar, from June 30th to July 1st, did not contain any women. Afghanistan was represented by members of the [Taliban,](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11451718?ref=merionwest.com) who have brought in a raft of restrictions on women, including [bans](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68634700?ref=merionwest.com) on the education of girls, [bans](https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-restrictions-single-women-widows/32799903.html?ref=merionwest.com) on being out in public without a male escort, and [decrees](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/07/1097382550/taliban-women-burqa-decree?ref=merionwest.com) on strict dress codes. The conference occurred days after Afghan women [accused](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jun/25/afghan-women-girls-accuse-taliban-sexual-assault-after-arrests-bad-hijab-suicide?ref=merionwest.com) the Taliban of sexual assault after arrests for “bad hijab.” Whether to include the Taliban in meetings set up to advance international engagement on Afghanistan raises important questions, ones made even more important due to the geo-political transition we are living through. The fragmenting of the prevailing system of international rules-based order that emerged from the nuclear ashes of [Hiroshima and Nagasaki](https://www.britannica.com/event/atomic-bombings-of-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki?ref=merionwest.com) and the signing of death warrants in [Nuremberg](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/topics/nuremberg-trials?ref=merionwest.com), built on the foundations of the [United Nations Charter](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter?ref=merionwest.com) and [Universal Declaration of Human Rights,](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights?ref=merionwest.com) is accelerating. We are moving into a [multi-matrixed world,](https://www.merionwest.com/what-thucydides-can-teach-us-about-todays-multi-matrixed-world/) in which states are developing complex new relationships with various and sometimes contradictory partners on security, trade, and energy. Alliances are entered into with both states and non-state actors. At the same time, the last prophets espousing the hubristic belief that Western democratic liberalism is the single best way of living (and will be adopted by all who are exposed to it) are now preaching to empty benches. Surviving in this multi-matrixed world will bring interests and values into conflict, as well as force harsh calculations. Foreign policy realists will assert that now—more than ever—we must deal with those whose values come into conflict with ours, while some will, all the while, [argue](https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/the-world-today/2024-02/never-mind-hypocrisy-west-faces-another-challenge?ref=merionwest.com) that our supposed values have always been lightly held when it comes to Western foreign policy. In this instance, should those who believe in the rights of women sit down with those who do not, potentially risking legitimizing groups like the Taliban, in the hope that through dialogue they can influence them? One experienced campaigner for women’s rights who thinks dialogue is the best approach is [Sunita Viswanath](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/sunita-viswanath?ref=merionwest.com). Viswanath, who lives in the United States, is the co-founder of [Women for Afghan Women](https://womenforafghanwomen.org/?ref=merionwest.com). When she [visited](https://www.thenation.com/article/world/women-afghanistan-solidarity/?ref=merionwest.com) Afghanistan in 2022, she met with the leader of a women’s non-governmental organization (NGO). This aid worker, whose name is withheld for her safety, opposed the Taliban but recognized that it was necessary to negotiate with the group to secure the safety of the women her charity supports. During the visit, she spoke of her awareness that things could change quickly, and, since then, they certainly have. In December of that year, women were [banned](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64086682?ref=merionwest.com) from working in NGOs. In 2023, women were [banned](https://una.org.uk/news/statement-una-uk-condemns-talibans-ban-female-workers-afghan-united-nations-offices?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=The%20Taliban's%20ban%20on%20female%20workers%20in%20Afghan%2Dbased%20United,of%20vulnerable%20people%20at%20risk.) by the Taliban from working with UN agencies. Viswanath was told by the aid worker, “Whatever else they may be, the Taliban are Afghan…they gave us back our dignity, and we are no longer an occupied land.” While going on to express her pessimism and concerns for her safety she indicated, “I am glad that we Afghans will finally have the fight we need to have amongst ourselves. My Islam gives me all the rights I need. Theirs takes my rights away. Which Islam will win? We will see.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### This is England? Thoughts on Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer URL: https://www.merionwest.com/this-is-england-thoughts-on-nigel-farage-and-keir-starmer/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:15.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Official_portrait_of_Keir_Starmer_crop_1-1.jpg) > “Prime Minister Starmer’s father wanted his children to lead ‘useful lives’ and Starmer undoubtedly succeeded in that—two, three, four times over. Yet it is unclear, as yet, just how useful he will be as Labour Prime Minister.” **Changing**—**and Staying the Same** Prince Fabrizio, the eponymous leopard of Tomasi di Lampedusa’s literary masterpiece of 1958, [*The Leopard*](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/401246/the-leopard-by-lampedusa-guiseppe-di/9781784879648?ref=merionwest.com), lives in a state of “perpetual discontent.” Residing in a condition of “shabby grandeur,” the Sedara family to which he belongs, and to which he is now paterfamilias, has for centuries “been incapable even of adding up their own expenditure and subtracting their own debts.” So low have standards fallen among the Sicilian aristocracy that the Prince’s most accomplished son, Giovanni, prefers to work as a modest clerk in a coal depot in England than lead a life of pampered ease in Palermo. And at the first sign of weakening control, the city rabble, Prince Fabrizio predicts, will take to looting and rape—a repellent prospect, needless to say. The novel begins in 1860, and most of the action takes place between August of that year and November of 1862\. It is set, in other words, during the Risorgimento, the political and social movement that forged the Italian nation state in the mid-to-late-19th century, and the island of Sicily is soon overrun by Redshirts, the plebeian army of the revolutionary republican, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Defeated in advance by hundreds of years of social and technological torpor, Prince Fabrizio—a distinguished and peculiarly intelligent noble—therefore watches “the ruin of his own class and his own inheritance” without making a single move toward saving it from destruction. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the system of feudalism on which it is based, is unsalvageable, he thinks; the liberalism brought in by the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions is essentially unstoppable. But if feudalism cannot be saved, what can be controlled at least is the character of the system which succeeds it—a constitutional monarchy or a Mazzinian republic—and the social composition of the forces which lead the bourgeois revolution—the fanatical hoi polloi of Garibaldi or aristocratic liberals in the stamp of Count Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont. Would the Risorgimento involve a peaceful transition to a system of free persons and free markets, or would it mean decades of bloodshed and struggle? Would the Sedara perish? Would their privileges be withdrawn and their property expropriated instantly? Or would they be shown clemency, and, through negotiation and compromise, granted an extra, yet finite, lease of life? A novel, at bottom, about prudent leadership, Prince Fabrizio ensures the Sedara survive. Unsurprisingly, they do not flourish. Nevertheless, they retain as much dignity as it is possible to hold on to in the circumstances, uniting, through marriage, with the parvenu Falconeri, an upwardly socially mobile family of erstwhile peasants. A proponent of honesty, decency, and plain good manners, Prince Fabrizio abhors the primitive greed and chicanery that animates the petty local Liberals. Yet, notwithstanding his distaste for the jackals and hyenas which are displacing the leopards and lions of old, he has little room for manoeuvre. If there is a single sentiment associated with Lampedusa’s terrifically perspicacious novel it is succinctly expressed by Prince Fabrizio’s talented and far-sighted nephew, Tancredi—an Italian Mirabeau—when, early on in the book, he explains to his uncle: “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Reckless Rhetoric and Its Consequences URL: https://www.merionwest.com/irresponsible-rhetoric-and-its-consequences/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:39.000Z In [a *Merion West* op-ed](https://www.merionwest.com/when-theyll-do-anything-to-stop-him/) published in January, I compared Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approach to dealing with those who challenged his political power to what the Biden administration was doing to former President Donald Trump as we approached the November presidential election. As I saw it, the Biden administration and its allies were using the powers of government to hamstring President Trump by keeping him in court throughout the election season and further sullying his name in front of voters. Most importantly, I made the provocative point [(echoed by Steve Bannon)](https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1741964434761728251?ref=merionwest.com) that President Trump’s life could be in danger. (Tucker Carlson [had also raised this concern](https://thehill.com/homenews/4181123-tucker-carlson-were-speeding-toward-trump-assassination/?ref=merionwest.com).) I argued then that if former President Trump were harmed or even murdered, much of the mainstream press would promulgate the narrative that he brought it upon himself with his divisive rhetoric. Little did I know that my prediction would be proven correct just a few short months later. [As Matt Taibbi so eloquently articulated in 2020](https://youtu.be/mG1qJeDI9Ok?si=QG14CK4lc%5Fx7H7Oy&ref=merionwest.com), from the moment President Trump arrived on the political scene in 2015, he laid bare the disconnect between average Americans and their legitimate grievances and the elite Washington politicians who were ignorant of their needs, as well as a commentariat that downplayed legitimate challenges affecting many in the United States. President Trump had not only diagnosed but [wanted to address severe problems](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-unhappiness-of-the-us-working-class/?ref=merionwest.com) many working-class Americans were facing. Many in Washington D.C. and in powerful roles throughout the country neither appreciated his diagnoses nor his recommended remedies. Something had to be done, but precisely what was hard to say. Journalists, [once the friend of the common man](https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/08/15/once-champions-of-working-class-journalists-now-represent-americas-elite/?ref=merionwest.com), could have reported on the root cause of the problems that so many Americans were enduring. Instead and [despite promises to change](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-readers-from-the-publisher-and-executive-editor.html?ref=merionwest.com), they decided to continue portraying President Trump as an aberration worthy of scorn and ridicule, an [anti-Semite](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/19/trump-israel-interview-antisemitic-comments?ref=merionwest.com), a [fascist](https://ca.news.yahoo.com/rachel-maddow-offers-bleak-reason-090539179.html?ref=merionwest.com), and [an aspiring dictator](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/how-donald-trump-will-mold-america-in-the-image-of-a-dictatorship?ref=merionwest.com). They also presented his supporters as uneducated and [deplorable](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/08/31/deplorables-basket-hillary-clinton/?ref=merionwest.com). They did this by [quoting him out of context](https://youtu.be/VOkrxuZRUnk?si=6eji38%5FilxNLMVrA&ref=merionwest.com) and creating news content best described as [partisan creative writing](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/?ref=merionwest.com). They showered him with metaphorical bullets. Moreover, the mainstream media obscured President Biden’s cognitive impairment for nearly the duration of his presidency [until his disastrous debate](https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/28/politics/biden-trump-presidential-debate-analysis/index.html?ref=merionwest.com), in which the entire world found out in real time the extent to which age had taken its toll on the incumbent. On July 13th, at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, [Thomas Matthew Crooks](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gw58wv4e9o?ref=merionwest.com) replaced the metaphorical bullets President Trump had thus far absorbed with real bullets. Crooks, who was shot and killed by the Secret Service at the scene, [was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the person responsible](https://apnews.com/live/election-biden-trump-campaign-updates-07-13-2024?ref=merionwest.com) for the failed assassination attempt on President Trump and the death of retired fire chief [Corey Comperatore](https://www.foxnews.com/us/hero-trump-rally-victim-corey-comperatore-died-shielding-family-wouldve-done-again-friend-says?ref=merionwest.com), a 50-year-old rally attendee who was killed when he used his body as a shield to protect his family from the hail of bullets. ([Two other rally attendees](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce586kxjvnyo?ref=merionwest.com) were injured.) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### You Hesitate, You Die URL: https://www.merionwest.com/you-hesitate-you-die-2/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:19:19.000Z “A metaphysical compass, a refrain, an unyielding ethos in which to believe,/no longer reserved for near misses with the vehicular minions of the MTA,/I have come to regard existence as nothing more/than this pull between hesitation and action” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The French Election and Europe’s Post-Historical Collapse URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-french-election-and-europes-post-historical-collapse/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:44.000Z > “While I was always a philosopher, I was originally a fairly apolitical one, and it was my first year in France that awoke the political part of my being, for I saw all around me where socialism, oikophobia, and multiculturalism were leading.” Having lived in Paris for many years on and off from 2001 to 2014, I have been privy to that city’s gradual decline. The first time I arrived there, as a young student nurtured by a both Anglo- and Francophile upbringing, it was like entering into a room full of men I had been taught to revere since before I could remember, an experience that since then has been matched, and indeed superseded, only by my ascent onto the Acropolis in Athens. Two weeks after my arrival in Paris, the September 11th attacks happened, and overnight there were French soldiers patrolling the Paris metro and RER systems, reminding me during my daily commute to university that France was already well acquainted with Islamic terrorism and did not want to take any chances. Already then it was common to hear anti-Semitic and anti-French remarks from the city’s Arab population and to see anti-Semitic graffiti on walls outside the main tourist areas. And yet, as so much else in French politics, the new measure was more cosmetic than a genuine attempt to get to the root of the problem—just like the later [French ban on the burka](https://www.france24.com/en/20101007-french-burqa-ban-passes-last-legal-hurdle-constitutional-council-veil?ref=merionwest.com), in 2010, which changed absolutely nothing. While I was always a philosopher, I was originally a fairly apolitical one, and it was my first year in France that awoke the political part of my being, for I saw all around me where socialism, oikophobia, and multiculturalism were leading. The unwillingness to understand what is really at stake has now played itself out once again in France, [in the recent election](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c724nnn29keo?ref=merionwest.com). We were constantly warned that the *Rassemblement National* party would constitute [the first far-right government since World War II](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/07/07/france-election-updates-results/?ref=merionwest.com). Even though it is true that France allowed increases in immigration after that conflict in order to replenish depleted labor markets, this is an example of how the media repeat each other’s assertions without thinking of the meaning of what they are actually saying, since these words are tantamount to claiming that a potential government today that wants to restrict immigration in order to reduce street crime and to preserve a semblance of French culture is actually more right-wing than the French government that poured troops into Indochina in the late 1940s in order to uphold its colony there, and more right-wing than the French government that displaced millions of people in Algeria in the 1950s. Those governments were generally not called far-right, however, because people at that time still remembered what the actual far right was like. But the media today no longer understand what they say, if they ever did. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Power of Chicken Soup for the Anti-Woke Soul: Nellie Bowles’s “Morning After the Revolution” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-power-of-chicken-soup-for-the-anti-woke-soul-nellie-bowless-morning-after-the-revolution/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:29.000Z > “While it might be intellectually fascinating to dig into the Marxist or postmodern roots of wokeness, Bowles’s book is a welcome reminder that sometimes things are simply crazy on their face. And maybe all that is required to defeat the crazy is to point it out.” Nellie Bowles recently [appeared at the Commonwealth Club](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id1589146361?i=1000656814289&ref=merionwest.com) in San Francisco to promote her new book [*Morning After the Revolution*](https://www.amazon.com/Morning-After-Revolution-2020-That/dp/0593420144?ref=merionwest.com). I was in the audience that night, sitting near the front of the relatively small room. It felt like a mildly rebellious act to be there, knowing that Bowles was just about to unleash a tidal wave of criticisms against the progressive politics of San Francisco. The Commonwealth Club is a rather serious, buttoned-down institution. But surely, I thought, there would be some measure of shenanigans from the audience tonight. I glanced around to see if anyone looked primed to raise a bullhorn or rush the stage. The audience seemed tame enough. Bowles did, indeed, chastise San Francisco for its over-the-top progressivism. In conversation with Griffin Gaffney, she mentioned all the highlights from the past four years: the homelessness crisis, the lack of enforcement of drug laws, the chaos with the local school board, the fact that the city does not need more money to fix its problems. Instead, it needs a fundamentally different approach. To my relief, the audience lapped it up. The entire room nodded along, laughed along, and shook their heads in mutual dismay at just the right moments. Bowles scarcely had to argue her case. The fact that the progressive left had taken things too far was patently obvious, requiring no deep analysis. As a reporter covering the excesses of the left, Bowles saw her job primarily as reminding everyone that these things—unbelievably—*actually happened*. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Poems Without a Passport: Solmaz Sharif’s “Customs” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/poems-without-a-passport-solmaz-sharifs-customs/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:30.000Z > “Sharif’s style throughout *Customs* is neither bland nor baroque. It has the directness of what one overhears while waiting in line to cross on foot an international border or passing through immigration at an airport. It is a stylization of how people talk in such circumstances.” The opening poem of the astute poet Solmaz Sharif’s *Customs* is worth reproducing in its entirety. ###### Dear Aleph, ###### Like Ovid, *I’ll have no last words.* ###### This is what it means to die ###### Among barbarians. *Bar bar bar* ###### Was how the Greeks heard ###### Our speech—sheep, beasts—and so we became ###### *Barbarians.* We make them reveal ###### The brutes they are by the things ###### We make them name. David, ###### They tell me, is the one ###### One should aspire to, but ever since ###### I first heard them say *Philistine* ###### I’ve known I am Goliath. This book launches with an act of speech rooted in the most famous first letter, aleph, prized for its humility by virtue of accepting not being the first letter of the Bible. The poem begins with this Semitic abjad of a title, taken from a writing system that depends on skill at inference, a taste for which happens to be one of Sharif’s best writerly qualities. Yet this austere poem, while all about the power of inference, is also about the opposite of humility. The script is flipped in a historical-religious yet contemporary exposition of othering, in which Goliath becomes the doomed hero to aspire to. Why not, if you are already marked as the barbarian? Sharif’s reversal of expectations is brought off with placid, acid sass. Her tone is what makes this poetry sing. In lesser hands, the fated giant’s plaint would come off as one more angry accusation about dominance and subservience. But this speaker does not get ruffled. She and her ancestors have had a long time to reflect on historical injustice, sifting it down until it becomes simultaneously a matter of the utmost seriousness, and a black cosmic joke. Political poetry at its best is inspired backtalk with a purpose. Here, the purpose is remembrance. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why I Stand by Relocation: A Rejoinder to Ben Burgis URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-i-stand-by-relocation-a-rejoinder-to-ben-burgis/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:31.000Z > “To kick him or them out of the country would indeed be to violate the non-aggression principle (NAP) of this strict version of libertarianism. But I do not always write from this point of view. Sometimes, often in my writings on Israel, I do so from the perspective of classical liberalism…” Rutgers University philosophy professor Ben Burgis [maintains](https://www.merionwest.com/in-reply-to-walter-block-relocation-should-be-off-the-table/) that my analysis of the Israel–Hamas situation is not only incorrect, but, also, even worse, incompatible with my own views on political economy. The present article is devoted to defending my perspective against his unwarranted critique of it. I have written numerous articles, and a book, defending Israel against its critics. I have had support from numerous sources. But I am rather interested in the critiques my publications have garnered. Many are from the word processors of libertarians. Sad to say, they have been very disappointing, while the disparagement from Burgis is significantly better than any other of those. Why the long face? This is due to the fact that I am a libertarian, as are Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Thomas DiLorenzo, and Ryan McMaken (who have [issued](https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/01/hans-hermann-hoppe/breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-but-sometimes-necessary/?ref=merionwest.com) [sharp](https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/06/thomas-dilorenzo/from-mad-social-scientist-to-mad-zionist/?ref=merionwest.com) [critiques](https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/04/ryan-mcmaken/the-problem-withmicrolibertarianism/?ref=merionwest.com) of my stance on the Gazan War; my rejoinders can be found [here](https://www.meste.org/mest/MEST%5FNajava/XXIV%5FBlock%5FFuterman.pdf?ref=merionwest.com), [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUBDkyoJkiY&ref=merionwest.com), and [here](https://www.hyehudi.org/walter-block-responds-to-hans-hoppes-attack/?ref=merionwest.com)), and the philosophy of Burgis is just about the polar opposite of that which I share with these three critics. But Burgis does me the honor of actually quoting, and responding to, what I have written, while these other commentators have resorted to creating straw man arguments, assigning them to me, and then knocking them down as if I am somehow responsible for them. I am thus very grateful to Burgis in comparison to them. Nevertheless, he and I are on opposite poles, not only in all of political economy—he is a socialist, I reject that viewpoint—but, specifically, as regards Israel. Thus, I shall try to demonstrate his errors, and I hope and trust I can do a better job on him than Hoppe, DiLorenzo, and McMaken have done with my views. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Duncan Farm URL: https://www.merionwest.com/duncan-farm/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:06.000Z “to my dog/Nate/as he is finishing/a seizure/i repeat/i am with you” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Was Chamberlain Actually More Strategic than Churchill, Roosevelt, and Biden? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/was-chamberlain-actually-wiser-than-churchill-roosevelt-and-biden/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:16.000Z > “Prime Minister Chamberlain’s premature death in 1940 and his transformation into a cautionary tale has meant that he was not available to remind his successors that appeasement was just one-facet of a multi-dimensional diplomatic strategy.” The strategic lessons of [the September, 1938 Munich Agreement](https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement?ref=merionwest.com) (the sacrifice of democratic Czechoslovakia as part of Great Britain’s appeasement diplomacy toward Nazi geopolitics) are that deterrence, rather than deference, is required to stop autocrats, even at the cost of the sacred [principle of self-determination](https://english.radio.cz/occupation-1939-could-it-have-been-avoided-8565139?ref=merionwest.com). Even in the terrifying age of nuclear threats, [standing firm](https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/09/23/nuclear%5Fstrategy%5Ftells%5Fus%5Fto%5Fconfront%5Fputins%5Fnuclear%5Fthreats%5Fwith%5Fboldness%5Fnot%5Fcaution%5F855234.html?ref=merionwest.com) will produce greater security than “peace at any cost,” a mantra that persists among the dying breed of church basement [activist-pacifists](https://thebulletin.org/2024/02/why-the-biden-administrations-new-nuclear-gravity-bomb-is-tragic/?ref=merionwest.com). The naive and [popular representation](https://winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/wilderness-years/1935-1939/the-munich-crisis/?ref=merionwest.com) of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s political motives was that he came from a [business class](https://www.merionwest.com/why-are-democratic-alliances-so-sluggish-and-a-solution/) for which peace was necessary in order to reach the next quarter of corporate profits. More sympathetic accounts are that he was [buying time](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/09/neville-chamberlain-was-right-to-cede-czechoslovakia-to-adolf-hitler-seventy-five-years-ago-the-british-prime-signed-the-munich-pact.html?ref=merionwest.com) to [build up](https://fas-polisci.rutgers.edu/levy/articles/2008%20Wishful%20Thinking%20or%20Buying%20Time.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) the United Kingdom’s Fighter Command, without which Germany would have won the [Battle of Britain](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/04/did-neville-chamberlain-create-conditions-raf-win-battle-britain?ref=merionwest.com) and effected an amphibious landing and conquest of England. This would have freed Berlin to drive on Moscow and consolidate control over all of Europe and then build nuclear weapons (which, according to John Toland, [Adolf Hitler was fully aware](https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/06/12/us%5Fdefense%5Fof%5Ftaiwan%5Fconfronts%5Fa%5Fpowerful%5Fchinese%5Fnuclear%5Fdeterrent%5F1037499.html?ref=merionwest.com) of). However, even under the limitations of a weak Anglo-French air force, an early intervention against Germany in conjunction with Czech resistance would always have been [more favorable](https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-162/munich-and-its-alternative-the-case-for-resistance/?ref=merionwest.com) than waiting for the destruction of Poland. None of these caricatures do [Prime Minister Chamberlain justice](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/17/everyonehasgotina?ref=merionwest.com), and the real Prime Minister Chamberlain has left us important lessons. Where [Prime Minister Winston Churchill was correct](https://www.thetrumpet.com/1332-churchills-warning-for-today?ref=merionwest.com) to see both [Russian Communism](https://www.rbth.com/history/327266-churchill-and-russia-during-wwii?ref=merionwest.com) and [German fascism](https://scottmanning.com/content/churchills-earliest-warning-about-hitler/?ref=merionwest.com) as [threats](https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour-extras/the-creeds-of-the-devil-churchill-between-the-two-totalitarianisms-1917-1945-1-of-3/?ref=merionwest.com) to commercial democracies, he also wasted much of his political capital [vilifying Mohandas Gandhi](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29701767?ref=merionwest.com) and the rising tide of [indifference to the British Empire](https://www.cavalierhousebooks.com/book/9780553383768?ref=merionwest.com) on the part of the British people. Just nine years after the Munich agreement, the British people voted in a government that gave [India its independence](https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zn6496f?ref=merionwest.com#zw8sydm). Prime Minister Churchill had also been the principal political advocate for the [failed](http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo9/no3/17-book3-livre3-eng.asp?ref=merionwest.com) and obviously inadvisable [British military intervention in 1918](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/opinion/what-if-churchill-had-been-prime-minister-in-1919.html?ref=merionwest.com) against the Bolsheviks in the Russian civil war. What [Prime Minister Churchill](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/22/six-minutes-in-may-how-churchill-unexpectedly-became-pm-nicholas-shakespeare-review?ref=merionwest.com) could not do, which is why he was not to be elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [until 1951](https://www.thoughtco.com/winston-churchill-prime-minister-great-britain-1779353?ref=merionwest.com), was know how to [navigate British public opinion](https://theconversation.com/when-a-winner-becomes-a-loser-winston-churchill-was-kicked-out-of-office-in-the-british-election-of-1945-129746?ref=merionwest.com) to create a unified strategy to maintain the balance of power in Europe. Although initially [controversial](https://www.commentary.org/articles/g-hudson/the-origins-of-the-second-world-war-by-a-j-p-taylor/?ref=merionwest.com), [A. J. P. Taylor’s](https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/historian/A%5FJ%5FP%5FTaylor.html?ref=merionwest.com) 1961 *The Origins of the Second World War*, is now [widely accepted](http://waypointweichel.weebly.com/uploads/8/6/8/1/86813862/origins%5Fof%5Fthe%5Fsecond%5Fworld%5Fwar%5Freconsidered%5F%5F2nd%5Fedition%5F.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) as the [most influential account](https://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/The-origins-of-the-Second-World-War.php?ref=merionwest.com) of the [sequence of events](https://www.military-history.org/books/the-origins-of-the-second-world-war-by-a-j-p-taylor-a-military-times-classic.htm?ref=merionwest.com) leading to the outbreak of war. It is both the basis for much of the discussion hereafter, as well as a defining text that [should be read](https://shepherd.com/best-books/the-politics-of-war?ref=merionwest.com) by active policymakers. Prime Minister Chamberlain’s long-term plan was almost identical to [George F. Kennan’s](https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/remembering-george-f-kennan?ref=merionwest.com) [containment strategy](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/kennan?ref=merionwest.com), which ultimately succeeded in defeating and then fragmenting the Soviet Union, [winning the Cold War](https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm?ref=merionwest.com) for capitalist democracies. Britain’s leading economist, [John Maynard Keynes](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/keynes-economic-consequences-peace.html?ref=merionwest.com), who was on the punitive German [reparations committee](https://www.thecollector.com/john-maynard-keynes-predicted-wwii/?ref=merionwest.com) after the First World War but rejected it as counter-productive, believed that [peace could only be achieved](https://historyofeconomicthought.mcmaster.ca/keynes/pdf%26filename%3Dpeace3.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) by using trade to create a wealthy middle class in Germany. (This group, he believed, would advocate for a pacific foreign policy.) The idea that trade would bring foreign policy moderation is founded on the [liberal notion](https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/2023-10/2023-09-27wolff.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) that [trade is cheaper](https://www.cato.org/research-briefs-economic-policy/does-trade-integration-contribute-peace?ref=merionwest.com) than either mercantile autarky or war, the latter of which is won [less than half of the time](https://search.library.berkeley.edu/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=01UCS%5FBER:UCB&search%5Fscope=DN%5Fand%5FCI&tab=Default%5FUCLibrarySearch&docid=alma991050142949706532&lang=en&context=L&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&query=sub,exact,Geschichte%201945-1990,AND&mode=advanced&offset=0&ref=merionwest.com) by [initiators](https://escholarship.org/content/qt1g8110nq/qt1g8110nq.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) and most often ends in [expensive stalemates](https://grandestrategie.com/2019/11/30/book-review-win-lose-or-draw/?ref=merionwest.com) rather than victory. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The End of Capitalism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-end-of-capitalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:34.000Z “Capitalism” may be the most contentious idea in the world today. To invoke only a tiny sample of countless commentaries through the ages, capitalism has been [defended](https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Freedom-Milton-Friedman/dp/022673479X/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=1Z58OTFFUKAJB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.u8MWBAvHY0-ugLpUylYXhkhmx3WI-6HWB16OPnig0FAwC1HPmOCmPDjHqTc8xobjVqPtzXvooyBTeoVqGRpu1jKenJwh%5FKE5LNQxXjurhcvJqZbja46LVuciXa02bsoOHB2TeKUBpcs0Dai5uQqDrYeYY7mpcxHay7IVQL7WvRvdT9uUoTyXZ6%5F1pA24Stz001fxEKQBGm1iJJTXpzsmKdlffJJebQBp09UKa8LJPWo.UdbCmw4FrJI5sZNpVn3sOpc2d%5FLf4FY2sMwnf7ZhVME&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=capitalism+and+freedom&qid=1716649828&sprefix=capitalism+and+freedom%2Caps%2C112&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com) as the most reliable guarantee we have of political freedom and economic prosperity, [assailed](https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/alasdair-macintyre-capitalism?ref=merionwest.com) as an impostor for meritocracy and as an economic order that encourages acquisitive behavior at the expense of civic virtue, and [excoriated](https://www.amazon.com/Capital-All-Volumes-Complete-ebook/dp/B07CSQ66F9/ref=sr%5F1%5F7?crid=2BSL4IO8YZLVF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.En32mhbKuUYq9AyKJsW81CO4kOCBzA1gLN5mdh67E7cNsqs061szqyoBYU3jnpH8A3ITY%5Fm7lAoVUwPirSbVF6c1SPo3WZMGcdp5FBOFiCpYatvxFTQU5GT5tz4sHfuLNmPKoVGGIGFa91LdOcqcgUsC9CrcUlySRy1CRMaPbW%5FhCDXZgP64m2%5FQWafonERaQHocZgg0eZ2p161aprVVCl8tg-IhbgpIjrkDHeN84fs.kYGnxTvFhU6ZO4fROtrkWzZ1jan0h%5Fb%5FvY4uSbnAzyE&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=marx+capital+complete&qid=1716650863&sprefix=marx+capital+co%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-7&ref=merionwest.com) as the root of systemic alienation and intolerable socioeconomic inequality. In the 35 years since the fall of the former Soviet Union, a pivotal historical signpost that the acclaimed and “outspoken socialist” Robert Heilbroner [saw](https://reason.com/2005/01/21/the-man-who-told-the-truth/?ref=merionwest.com) as announcing the victory of a system that proved adept at organizing “the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism,” capitalism has remained iconic for some and a scapegoat for others. But, for the rest of us, it has become a focal point of examination and analysis in many, if not most, attempts to spell out what has gone right and what has gone wrong about the world we all must come to terms with. Personally, I have [defended](https://commonlodge.substack.com/p/should-americas-future-be-more-capitalist) capitalism in the past, but my stronger conviction always has been that the putative contest between “capitalism” and “socialism” (or “communism”) is a false dichotomy. I have even gone so far as to contend that “capitalism” and “socialism” are meaningless standalone terms that [do not matter](https://medium.com/arc-digital/the-terms-capitalism-and-socialism-dont-matter-what-matters-is-human-flourishing-e615e0a4026?ref=merionwest.com) and should be discarded. It does not take a great deal of research, for example, to appreciate that debates about whether capitalism and socialism are better suited to effective social and economic policy, as economist Noah Smith has [explained](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/the-choice-isn-t-between-capitalism-or-socialism-1.1291045?ref=merionwest.com), “ignore and obscure the multiple dimensions of policy, as well as changes over time, and thus make it harder rather than easier to think about concrete ways to fix the problems in the U.S. system.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### When Glen Campbell Sang “Galveston” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-glen-campbell-sang-galveston/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:42.000Z “She was twenty-one/When I left Galveston” Although initially performed the year before by another artist, Don Ho, it was in January of 1969 that Glen Campbell released the single [“Galveston,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDRXADEJuKo&ref=merionwest.com) which would later serve as the title track [for the album *Galveston*](https://www.discogs.com/release/9746822-Glen-Campbell-Galveston?ref=merionwest.com) that came out that March. “Galveston” reached number four on the *Billboard* Hot 100 and would be a mainstay of Campbell’s live performances, even included in [his Goodbye Tour](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqRXOPJzgdY&ref=merionwest.com) in 2011 and 2012, which was completed not long before [his death in 2017](https://www.wsj.com/articles/glen-campbell-rhinestone-cowboy-dies-at-81-1502227306?ref=merionwest.com). The song, like several of Campbell’s other hits, was written by Jimmy Webb, one of the most capable songwriters I know of. (Webb [is also](https://web.archive.org/web/20140922031641/http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/index.php/exhibits/bio/C23) “the only artist to ever receive Grammy awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.”) Webb wrote many of my favorite songs of that era and genre, such as [“By the Time I Get to Phoenix”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkDKT0ngkFs&ref=merionwest.com); [“The Wichita Lineman”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8P%5FxTBpAcY&ref=merionwest.com); and [its critics be damned](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/richard-harris-1960s-hit-the-worst-song-of-all-time/?ref=merionwest.com), [“MacArthur Park.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kxY7Wyzbxs&ref=merionwest.com) But “Galveston,” more than the others, stays with me, particularly for the questions it—intentionally or otherwise—raises. While it is surely a rumination on love deferred ([like so much of Webb’s oeuvre](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jimmy-webb-i-deal-in-crushed-lonely-hearts-9qb02n86n?ref=merionwest.com)), Campbell’s take on “Galveston” raises the philosophical question of what one might most miss were he to be killed that night in a war zone or, for the rest of us, if—God forbid—we don’t wake up tomorrow. Now, Campbell was not one’s typical musician against the war, [and like Johnnie Wright](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T2%5FzTPupHY&ref=merionwest.com), had little interest in using his music to undermine, as he saw it, the war effort. (1) And this is how we got Campbell’s take on Webb’s song, which actually makes it a bit more lyrically interesting—for our purposes—than the original. (2) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Jordan Peterson, Martin Heidegger, and the Inescapability of Stories URL: https://www.merionwest.com/jordan-peterson-martin-heidegger-and-the-inescapability-of-stories/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/wp-content/uploads/Jordan_Peterson_45739383264-1.jpg) > “But Heidegger and Peterson differ when it comes to the origin of our stories, the meaning of nihilism, and the limits to the stories we can tell. To begin, it is useful to explore the question of the origins of our stories. In both Peterson and Heidegger, there is talk of something coming from nothing.” Many people sense that something has gone off the rails in the West, as well as that the culture war is a manifestation that something is deeply wrong. These are claims made by Jordan Peterson [in a recent appearance in Nashville, Tennessee](https://youtu.be/R2f13GzlGnc?si=CPaTBe2aUhxvHFBK&ref=merionwest.com) for his *We Who Wrestle with God* tour. Peterson thinks we know the culture war is more than a mere kerfuffle because the debates are over bedrock principles such as free speech. Peterson’s diagnosis is that such battles are happening because the West is slowly realizing that Enlightenment thought contains an erroneous assumption. The error is the belief that we perceive the world as a manifold of facts. The problem with this commonsense view is that the number of possible facts is infinite, which means that perceiving the world that way would be impossibly complex. During podcast episodes, including [with British neuroscientist Karl Friston](https://youtu.be/feS1zuKz2N8?si=uPKFVR-7ZvBO-5ts&ref=merionwest.com) and another [with Angus Fletcher](https://youtu.be/-ytoU1ZXjJw?si=CbjNfVnAAzMvj7v1&ref=merionwest.com), and [in public appearances](https://youtu.be/5HgSnS-z4JU?si=tD8zeJBBcLDcXG2e&ref=merionwest.com), Peterson has been developing an alternative model of perception, which is that we perceive the world as a story. This theory suggests that science is a derivative mode of being, given that our aims, emotions, and values underwrite the scientific enterprise. From the perspective of science, emotions and values are irrelevant considerations, even hindrances. Nevertheless, Peterson holds that we must pick out what is important and useful if we hope to achieve anything. Perception forces us to discriminate among objects, so values are needed to determine what the proper object of our focus should be. Thus, the world is not a matter of fact but of value. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Cicada Season URL: https://www.merionwest.com/cicada-season/ Last updated: 2026-09-08T19:32:45.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Syllabic Fits of Speech: Cedar Sigos’ “All This Time” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/syllabic-fits-of-speech-cedar-sigos-all-this-time/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:47.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/web-sigo.webp) Wave Books > *“Sigo is a poet of utter seriousness, one who feels strongly about justice, the revindication of Native American identity, the calling out of cruelty and neglect, and many other pressing social matters. But he comes at the task with a meditative indirection, insisting on approaching these realities in a considered and careful manner.”* The Suquamish poet Cedar Sigo offers a simple, accurate description of his [poetics:](https://www.amazon.com/Guard-Mysteries-Bagley-Wright-Lecture/dp/1950268292/?%5Fencoding=UTF8&pd%5Frd%5Fw=98M4E&content-id=amzn1.sym.cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf%5Frd%5Fp=cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf%5Frd%5Fr=137-7655220-7714100&pd%5Frd%5Fwg=J5vJ1&pd%5Frd%5Fr=462642a7-e947-4173-b7cf-7ba55fdd19f9&ref%5F=aufs%5Fap%5Fsc%5Fdsk&ref=merionwest.com) “I never let the music of the line dissolve completely, and those edges (though always fading fast) will attach themselves to the next island of words, but without ever dying away completely. Every utterance is overlaid and connected acoustically in performance.” His influences, as discussed in a series of lectures titled *[Guard the Mysteries](https://www.amazon.com/Guard-Mysteries-Bagley-Wright-Lecture/dp/1950268292/?%5Fencoding=UTF8&pd%5Frd%5Fw=98M4E&content-id=amzn1.sym.cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf%5Frd%5Fp=cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf%5Frd%5Fr=137-7655220-7714100&pd%5Frd%5Fwg=J5vJ1&pd%5Frd%5Fr=462642a7-e947-4173-b7cf-7ba55fdd19f9&ref%5F=aufs%5Fap%5Fsc%5Fdsk&ref=merionwest.com),* are myriad, beginning with the Projective Verse poet Charles Olson, whose *The Maximus Poems,* while ultimately rewarding, can feel like skiing up an icy hill, approaching the level of difficulty of Ezra Pound’s *Cantos.* Yet Sigo’s poetry, while sometimes elusive and allusive, feels more accessible, like rain droplets in a pond, dispersing the water already present with precipitation that keeps falling, now slower, now faster, a continuous visual and sonic displacement of volume. His poetry collection [*All This Time*](https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/all-this-time?ref=merionwest.com) shows Sigo at the peak of these acoustic powers. Such as this verse, from “Surface Waves”: ###### Larry Eigner’s words Like golden flies stuck in a loom—made to fall with sudden strumming they sound, separate distinct raining down upon pavement. Sigo is not only a poet of the senses but, ultimately, a political one. He speaks freely of his line of descent from Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, June Jordan, their revolutionary spirit, and of his own activism around Native American heritage, in the manner of Joy Harjo. But action begins with calling things by their names, cultivating respect for words as words. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### AquaDom URL: https://www.merionwest.com/aquadom/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:57:59.000Z “Soon first responders make a grim/assessment of the odd catastrophe.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Factors of the War in Ukraine URL: https://www.merionwest.com/factors-of-the-war-in-ukraine/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:35.000Z I first heard of the possibility of a war between Russia and Ukraine in the fall of 2007, at a conference. At that time, the likelihood seemed like pure fantasy. Only seven years later, however, what seemed fantastical began to turn into reality. Ukraine as a state, and Ukrainians as a people, have existed for hundreds of years. The Ukrainian language is significantly closer to the Old Russian language, common to all Eastern Slavs, than the modern Russian language. Notably, Kyiv—now the capital of Ukraine—was once the main city of [Kyivan Rus’](https://gis.huri.harvard.edu/golden-age-kyivan-rus?ref=merionwest.com). Kyivan Rus’ was almost completely [destroyed by the Mongols](https://wayback.archive-it.org/6473/20160819150506/https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/RussianHeritage/4.PEAS/4.L/12.III.5.html?ref=merionwest.com) in the 13th century. Only the Pskov Republic survived intact, though the Novgorod Republic, Polotsk, and Smolensk were not completely devastated. The rest of the lands were thoroughly plundered by the Mongols. The population was partially destroyed and partially taken into slavery. Rus’ itself fell under the Mongol yoke, a system of dependency of the Russian principalities on the Mongol Empire, and later on the Golden Horde, from 1242 until the end of the 15th century. These events defined the modern geopolitical map of Eastern Europe. The remnants of the former Kyivan Rus’ were gradually destroyed by a new entity: Muscovy, which then absorbed the territories of both the former Old Russian state and the Golden Horde. During the reign of [Ivan the Terrible](https://historycollection.com/day-history-ivan-terrible-orders-massacre-novgorod-1570/?ref=merionwest.com), the population of Novgorod was decimated, and residents of Pskov were forcibly resettled to Moscow and other cities. Meanwhile, starting from the time of Ivan III, the Russo-Lithuanian wars began. The [Lithuanian Rus’](https://web.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/europe/nodes/lithuania.html?ref=merionwest.com) was the last vestige of Old Rus’, and the events of the 16th century, when Vilnius actively resisted Moscow, resemble today’s events. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Wrangling Our Political Herds: Upholding Intellectual Standards, No Matter Who Gets Angry URL: https://www.merionwest.com/wrangling-our-political-herds-upholding-intellectual-standards-no-matter-who-gets-angry/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:48.000Z > “It may sound naïve in a time of intense political polarization, but in It’s Debatable I make a case for more humility and a bit of hubris. We need to be willing to argue with passion for our political positions but at the same time remember our limitations.” *Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from [It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics](https://robertwjensen.org/books/its-debatable/?ref=merionwest.com), published by [Olive Branch Press](https://www.interlinkbooks.com/product/its-debatable/?ref=merionwest.com).* Thinking is a collective endeavor, and we all can contribute to public dialogue and debate. But a bit of critical self-reflection can make our contributions more constructive. In my five decades in and around journalism, academia, and politics, I have never met anyone who thinks alone. Throughout history there have been trailblazers, people who have pushed beyond existing thinking to generate new ideas. But people who believe they are truly independent thinkers—if they indulge the illusion of having risen above the collective thinking process—are failing to practice the critical self-reflection that is supposed to be a core attribute of independent thinkers. We are a herd animal, and we often unthinkingly think as a herd. The fancy term for this is [“identity-protective cognition,”](https://informalscience.org/identity/dan-kahan/?ref=merionwest.com) the tendency to resolve disputed facts in a manner supportive of our group identities. We are motivated to adopt those beliefs to signal that we belong. Here is another fancy term: [“cultural cognition of risk,”](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669877.2010.511246?ref=merionwest.com) our tendency to form beliefs about dangers to society that are consistent with our value judgments about what constitutes an ideal society. We are motivated to assess the facts about potentially dangerous behaviors in ways that support policies we already endorse. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Fresh Look at André Spears’ “From the Lost Land I-XII” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-fresh-look-at-andre-spears-from-the-lost-land-i-xii/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:37.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/free-photo-of-core-of-the-milky-way-galaxy-astrophotography.jpeg) > “And it is all held together in an irrepressible delight in language and what happens when language and imagination are unleashed and told to have a good time.” Previous to the 20th century, poetry thrived with genres. Epics, mock epics, dramatic poems, narrative poems, lyric poems, ballads, odes, and eclogues—to name only a few—occupied the poetry landscape. By the middle of the 20th century, the official list had dwindled down to mostly one—well, maybe two: the lyric poem and then the post-1970 non-signifying anti-lyric poem, an invention of the pseudo-avant-garde in reaction to the lyric. A number of factors played into the process that led to that contraction of poetry’s eco-niche. Chief among them was the transformation Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot brought to poetry, writing epics that introduced disorienting techniques such as parataxis and collage which radically narrowed poetry’s readership. Paradoxically, that resulted in the growth of the creative writing industry and the institutionalization of poetry in the university as poets flocked to the lyric in reaction to the difficulty of Pound and Eliot. At the same time, outliers continued to keep alive other formal possibilities. Charles Olson and Edward Dorn worked with the epic and the mock epic. Some younger poets like Alice Notley [(*The Descent of Alette*)](https://www.amazon.com/Descent-Alette-Penguin-Poets/dp/0140587640?ref=merionwest.com) and Anne Waldman [(*The Jovis Trilogy*)](https://www.annewaldman.org/the-iovis-trilogy/?ref=merionwest.com) continued to develop those possibilities. [Robert Duncan](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-duncan?ref=merionwest.com) wrote philo-theo-sophical meditations. [Jack Spicer](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jack-spicer?ref=merionwest.com) wrote *books.* By and large, however, and certainly after the 1980s, the imagination of poetry shrank until what was left was the lyric, the anti-lyric, and something called “the long poem,” though what that was supposed to be was never very clear. The lyric has many manifestations, ranging from creative writing’s “self-expression” to complex arrangements of language that open thinking into the self’s relation to the visible and the invisible worlds. Creative writing tends toward the “self-expression” end of the spectrum. The non-signifying anti-lyric was the result of the rise of sociology and a (post) Marxist commitment to materialism. It ended up feeding into a binary opposition between “poetry based on the virtue of intellect” and “the poetry of virtuous sentiment.” As a spokesman for the non-signifying camp put it, the old saws (i.e., Head and Heart) stand in for an engineered division between intellect and emotion. It is very avant-garde, in a retro kind of way. Among the current outliers, [André Spears’ work](https://pangaeapress.com/?ref=merionwest.com) stands out as particularly radical in its thinking of what poetry can do when the imagination—rather than ideology or self-obsession—fuels poiesis. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Three Poems by Jonathan Ukah URL: https://www.merionwest.com/three-poems-by-jonathan-ukah/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:19:18.000Z “Then you arrived like fresh tulips in winter,/the shape of my heart, the color of gold;/you turned the weeds in my garden into roses,/every rock on my farm was a bar of chocolate/waiting to feed our future generations…” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Why Are Democratic Alliances so Sluggish? (And a Proposed Solution) URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-are-democratic-alliances-so-sluggish-and-a-solution/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:36.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/2024-06-13t095523z-1926407138-rc29a8ai7gux-rtrmadp-3-g7-summit.jpg) (The 50th G7 summit in Apulia, Italy.) > “The democratic form of government is persistently incompetent at preparing for its own defense, despite fair warnings.” It is taking an exceptionally long time to organize democracies for cooperation after two years of war in Ukraine, and in the deterrence of China from attacking Taiwan, both of which depend on demonstrated military capabilities. President Joe Biden, currently at the G-7 summit in Italy, announced [that the world is at an](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/06/13/remarks-by-president-biden-during-partnership-for-global-infrastructure-and-investment-event-savelletri-italy/?ref=merionwest.com) “inflection point.” However, it is unclear if the major democracies will take this opportunity to begin serious rearmament or whether they will collude in adopting only cautious half-measures. This is because Western leaders and constituents are unsure whether the Russian war in Ukraine, the Chinese harassment sorties around Taiwan, and the Iranian volleys against Israel are independent crises provoked by anachronistic and declining elites in Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran, or whether we are looking at the opening stages of the next world war. Most worrying, as [Geoffrey Blainey](https://www.hoover.org/research/war-gambling-mans-game?ref=merionwest.com), Australia’s eminent historian of war, has observed, states isolating their people and inuring them to warlike confrontation is often an indicator of coming conflict. This democratic pathology of delayed reaction to foreign policy crises can be attributed in part to the origins of the politicians, predominantly business types and their lawyers, whose experience in negotiating with unions and shareholders does not translate well into the ruthless world of diplomacy. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain came from [a family whose business](https://chamberlainhighburytrust.co.uk/2021/04/28/joseph-chamberlains-time-in-birmingham/?ref=merionwest.com) at its peak supplied two-thirds of metal screws made in England. Major power conflict was often unthinkable in the commercial age between 1815 and 1914 (though European powers still fought each other on scales smaller than the First World War) because war was thought irrationally costly and bad for business. Business lawyers often deceive themselves about the ease of making a deal when it comes to indivisibles like identity and national aspirations. Elected politicians often do not know their own history. The advantage of a prompt and early defense is that it avoids a major war that is exceptionally expensive. Winners typically lose five to seven years of economic growth, whereas losers suffer developmental delays of between 21 and 25 years, according to calculations by [A.F.K. Organski and Jacek Kugler](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/war-ledger-by-a-f-k-organski-and-jacek-kugler-chicago-university-of-chicago-press-1980-pp-xi-292-2500/240C8836B1583704AE1B43D5108CB7D2?ref=merionwest.com). Small losing states that remain economically isolated after a major war, like East Germany, never recover. Rarely do wars unlock untapped economic and human potential. According to [Robert Higgs](https://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=138&ref=merionwest.com), the reduction in American unemployment resulting from rearmament in the United States in anticipation of the Second World War matched the number of citizens put into uniform: Who would trade the unemployment line for the horrors of assaulting a beach? On rare occasions, such as the [Second Boer War](https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/second-anglo-boer-war-1899-1902?ref=merionwest.com) (1899-1902), war is profitable for a narrow group of speculators and investors. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Historical Shadows: The Far-Right Surge in Germany and Austria URL: https://www.merionwest.com/historical-shadows-the-far-right-surge-in-germany-and-austria/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:17.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/2024-06-09t163339z-128484345-rc2s78ac5ts8-rtrmadp-3-eu-election-germany-reactions-afd-copy.jpg) (Annegret Hilse/Reuters) > “For far too long, their concerns were ignored by center and left-wing parties, and so they turned elsewhere.” Much has been made of the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. The [recent European Union (EU) elections](https://results.elections.europa.eu/?ref=merionwest.com) have highlighted this trend once more. However, as an Austrian living in Germany, I feel that the overwhelming success of Austria’s [Freedom Party (FPÖ)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom%5FParty%5Fof%5FAustria?ref=merionwest.com) and Germany’s [Alternative for Germany (AfD)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative%5Ffor%5FGermany?ref=merionwest.com) in these elections—the former securing [first place](https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/06/09/austria-far-right-fpo-comes-out-on-top-in-party-first-exit-polls-show?ref=merionwest.com) and the latter the [runner-up position](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/10/world/europe/germany-afd-eu-election.html?ref=merionwest.com) in their respective countries—carries a different significance given the historical context. There is also the question of who is to blame for these far-right parties’ dramatic gain in votes. While the AfD is a relatively new party, founded in 2013, the FPÖ emerged from the Federation of Independents (VdU), a German-nationalist and national-liberal party aimed at former Nazis, in 1956\. However, much like the nascent AfD, the FPÖ initially focused on economic liberalism, led by moderates. It was not until 1986, when Jörg Haider [assumed the lead](https://www.fbi-politikschule.at/fileadmin/%5Fprocessed%5F/9/1/csm%5FHaider%5FInnsbruck%5F1986%5FArchiv%5FNFZ243x150%5F2905ce84d7.jpg?ref=merionwest.com) in a coup, that the nationalist wing of the party finally took over. It is important to stress that theirs was a nationalism rooted in German identity, viewing Austria as a German nation. Haider, who [died in a car crash](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/oct/11/austria-haider?ref=merionwest.com) in 2008, transformed the FPÖ into the populist anti-immigration party it is today. Like many other party officials, he consistently [failed to distance himself](https://www.oe24.at/oesterreich/joerg-haider-die-umstrittensten-sager/397759?ref=merionwest.com) from the Nazi period. For instance, speaking at a gathering of Waffen-SS veterans, he said, “It’s reassuring to know that there are still decent people in this world, with strong character, who stand by their convictions even in the face of strong opposition and have remained true to their beliefs to this day”; and during a television debate, he asserted that “they had effective employment policies in the Third Reich” (my translations). _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### In Reply to Walter Block: Relocation Must Be Off the Table URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-reply-to-walter-block-relocation-should-be-off-the-table/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:38.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Colorful_shaded_map_of_Middle_East.jpg) > “It is not particularly interesting that *I* disagree with Block’s argument. I am a bleeding-heart left-winger who thinks every human being has a right to healthcare, housing, education, and much more…The interesting part is that \[his arguments\] fly in the face of the values *he* cares about.” I debated Walter Block [four years ago on my podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4O0WvGSZN0&ref=merionwest.com), and I have watched some of his debates with others over the years. He is someone with a worldview I find deeply alien in many ways. We will get to that. But, for now, I want to note that—in the past—I have always understood the *pattern* of his beliefs. Given the basic premises of that deeply alien worldview, I have always understood how and why he arrives at his conclusions. This is no longer true. In [a recent article for *Merion West*](https://www.merionwest.com/yes-to-a-palestinian-state-just-not-inside-or-right-next-to-israel/), Block argues that Palestinians who live in the territories Israel has occupied since 1967 should be permanently stateless and rightless non-citizen subjects of the occupying power—or at least that is the most charitable interpretation of his point. Several of his formulations more than hint at support for outright ethnic cleansing of this population. That these are morally indefensible conclusions should, I hope, be clear even to much of the “Stand With Israel” crowd. When I was first invited to respond in *Merion West*, I was tempted to reply by saying the article responds to itself. But the more I think about what Block’s written, the more I think there *is* something interesting to be said here. It is not particularly interesting that *I* disagree with Block’s argument. I am a bleeding-heart left-winger who thinks every human being has a right to healthcare, housing, education, and much more. Block is, as I understand him, such an extreme libertarian he does not think there should be such a thing as public sidewalks. It goes without saying that Block’s conclusions about the Palestinians are odious if one starts from the values I care about. The interesting part is that they fly in the face of the values *he* cares about. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Lynn Xu’s Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight URL: https://www.merionwest.com/lynn-xus-cantilevered-vase-of-moonlight/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:51.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/moon-clouds-night-black-and-white-preview.jpg) > “Here reposes the reverie-inducing freedom of Rilke and Proust, where you get to say ‘dreaming’ twice, or a thousand times, and even ‘et cetera’ twice, in case you forgot to fill in the blank with your own lyrical, rapture-adjacent images the first time.” To read any of the books published by the singular [Wave Books](https://www.wavepoetry.com/?ref=merionwest.com) is to go on a carnival ride past Catherine Wheels of words. These productions, in their aggregate, represent an utterly clear, if eclectic, vision of innovation, which I summarize as “semiotics is fun.” Further, their editions are exquisite, with high-quality paper and an eye to design. One cannot imagine them as eBooks. The signature “plain” black-and-white soft covers are elegant, unpredictable in the size and placement of the typography they bear, titles sometimes wrapping around the spine and back cover. Inside, each poet’s phrases practice a wild discipline, sometimes one word to a page, other times, lines ricocheting now against the left margin, now the right, the next one somewhere in between. Or with the shape of each poem describing parabolas and other figures one learned how to graph with sines and cosines in calculus. The aptly named Wave is a case of poet and press naturally gravitating toward one another, in a marriage of perfect convenience. As in a theater production, every detail seems to have been gone over one hundred times to create synchrony. These spiritual descendants of Mallarmé and Baudelaire are animated by a sense of serious play, in touch with the historical avant-garde yet equally unfettered by any slavish indebtedness to the rebels they revere. As I perused five of their publications that lay before me, one in particular beckoned, for reasons only understood somatically. [A*nd Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight*](https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/and-those-ashen-heaps-that-cantilevered-vase-of-moonlight?ref=merionwest.com)*.* I picked it up. I asked myself why more poetry book titles do not feature the word *cantilever.* Nine initial pages are taken up with each successive word of the title, presenting itself with indolent luxury. The pages had a pleasing smell, as if emanating a light cologne. Then the work proper began, in oversized letters, like an edition for someone with weak eyesight. “Rippling in the ceosops foreskin of wind still surrounded by blood poverty and the uneven caresses lying at the bottom dreaming dreaming days of complete idleness urinating without rejection transparent at \*\*\*\*\* in the afternoon now rising now setting a windbreak of gum trees et cetera the edge of time et cetera” Here reposes the reverie-inducing freedom of Rilke and Proust, where you get to say “dreaming” twice, or a thousand times, and even “et cetera” twice, in case you forgot to fill in the blank with your own lyrical, rapture-adjacent images the first time. And yet “blood/poverty” (are those two separate things, or only one?) governs this book. We quickly succeed to a lengthy sequence in which the speaker seems the cosmic consciousness of a fetal presence taking its sweet time issuing into the world since, after all, the womb *is* the world. The immediate next pages consist of short phrases undergirded by their equivalents in Chinese, white ink adrift on a dramatic sea of black background, each again meriting its own page: “She is floating/and I float with her/in the middle of nothing/in no shadow/The unconscious…/What is it?/A voluptuousness…?” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Yes, to a Palestinian State—Just Not Inside or Right Next to Israel URL: https://www.merionwest.com/yes-to-a-palestinian-state-just-not-inside-or-right-next-to-israel/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:52.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/1599px-Abdullah_II_welcomes_Mahmud_Abbas_16.jpg) (Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Jordan) > “There is a strong positive relationship between living under the benefits of a government and human flourishing. Those without its protection must suffer, at the very least, compared to those who are fortunate in this regard.” Yes, yes to a Palestinian State in the Middle East. One, two, three, four of them, and many more—just not west of the Jordan River nor anywhere else very close to Israel. It certainly ought not be comprised of Gaza, the Golan Heights, Judea, Samaria, or East Jerusalem. But apart from that, the Palestinian people ought to have as many states as they want, with my full blessing. Are there no Palestinian States in Egypt? Put one in there, by all means. Are there no Palestinian States in Lebanon? Rectify that lacuna immediately. What about Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan? Set one up in each, by all means. Why are there no Palestinian States located in any of these other countries? If the Palestinians deserve a state, far be it from me to say to them nay. Just not in or anywhere near Israel. In the libertarian view (apart from the anarcho-capitalist version thereof), pretty much everyone should have a government to which they can belong. The state need not be a perfect guarantor of personal and private property rights, but it should come as close as possible. There is a strong positive relationship between living under the benefits of a government and human flourishing. Those without its protection must suffer, at the very least, compared to those who are fortunate in this regard. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Three Poems by Ace Boggess URL: https://www.merionwest.com/three-poems-by-ace-boggess/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:25:39.000Z “I scan rooms with a happiness detector,/which is like a broken Geiger counter/that stays silent while the bombs go off.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Aprinism: A Worldview URL: https://www.merionwest.com/aprinism-a-worldview/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:53.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/MEwXSSSsWEU1RVUaifHB.webp) > “As mentioned, comparisons with other life-forms are often useful for understanding our human existence. Accordingly, I have derived the word ‘Aprinism’ from the Latin ‘aprinus,’ meaning ‘boar-like.'” **Aprinism** Aprinism is a synthesis of many thoughts I have developed in recent years. We can call it a mindframe. Perhaps it does not deserve to be called a philosophy. It is not terribly systematic, though the parts do fit together quite snugly. This essay seeks to convey its essentials. Toward the end, I will explain why I have coined the word “Aprinism” to describe it. **Essence Precedes Existence** “Existence precedes essence.” So goes [the existentialist motto formulated by](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/?ref=merionwest.com) Jean-Paul Sartre. In human terms, one exists, but his nature is not predetermined. He is free to invent himself from the ground up. While humans can voluntarily change, experience quickly shows this idea to be largely false. Our character generally shapes our choices, rather than vice versa. Likewise, a large part of one’s essence is genetically predetermined before one is even born, and much of the rest is solidified in early life. Overall, to say that essence precedes existence is more helpful than the reverse. Indeed, a person’s essence [can endure](https://www.merionwest.com/rescuing-religion-from-atheism/) even when the person has no (bodily) existence. Given the fixity of one’s essence, one should choose one’s path in life based on one’s natural inclinations and especially one’s abilities. Fortunately, the two tend to coincide. Hans Morgenthau touches on this in [a book chapter](https://www.routledge.com/Truth-and-Tragedy-Tribute-to-Hans-J-Morgenthau/Thompson/p/book/9780878558667?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Fragment%20of%20an%20Intellectual%20Autobiography%3A%201904%2D1932) where he quotes from one of his high school essays. The youthful Morgenthau cites the proverb: “What one desires in one’s youth one has in abundance in one’s old age.” He supplements this [with a passage from Goethe](https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/goethe/dichwah1/chap010.html?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Unsere%20W%C3%BCnsche%20sind,nach%20jenem%20einlenken): “Our desires are presentiments of the abilities that lie within ourselves, harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. \[…\] If such a direction is decisively presented by our nature, every step in our development fulfills a part of the original desire, \[though sometimes\] by a detour\[.\]” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Putin’s Very Limited Tactical Nuclear Warfare Options URL: https://www.merionwest.com/putins-very-limited-tactical-nuclear-warfare-options/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:06:59.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Vladimir_Putin_2017-01-17.jpg) > “Anticipating what a Russian nuclear attack would look like is an important first step in fashioning an appropriate response.” Russian President Vladimir Putin has [again threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons](https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-starts-tactical-nuke-tests/?ref=merionwest.com) in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Nuclear weapons are the [most powerful military device](https://www.fourmilab.ch/bombcalc/?ref=merionwest.com) available because they easily blind sensors, so they are difficult to intercept and defend against. They are also relatively inexpensive given the [damage they can inflict](https://www.bmeia.gv.at/fileadmin/user%5Fupload/Zentrale/Aussenpolitik/Abruestung/HINW14/Presentations/HINW14%5FS1%5FPresentation%5FNRDC%5FZAMG.pdf?ref=merionwest.com). Even with the [low combat performance](https://www.defensepriorities.org/opinion/editorials/https/unherdcom/2024/02/how-europe-can-lead-ukraine-to-victory?ref=merionwest.com) demonstrated by the Russian armed forces, nuclear strikes would provide a decisive force multiplier that would significantly shift the balance in favor of Moscow. Anticipating [what a Russian nuclear attack would look like](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-practice-tactical-nuclear-weapon-scenario-deter-west-defence-ministry-2024-05-06/?ref=merionwest.com) is an important first step in fashioning an appropriate response. Unfortunately for Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it is unclear from his drills alone if and how President Putin intends to exploit nuclear detonations on the battlefield. [Loading and unloading nuclear warheads on rocket](https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20240521-russia-begins-tactical-nuclear-weapons-drills-near-ukraine?ref=merionwest.com) and tube artillery, and aircraft, as it appears Russian troops are practicing in Belarus, and having them don NBCW (Nuclear Chemical Biological Warfare) suits and perform [decontamination drills](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IneHeR56XDs&ref=merionwest.com), is the bare minimum preparation for the nuclear battlefield. There are two idealized extremes on how to fight a tactical nuclear war, the real world of which would likely include a mix of both. In both, we assume that NATO responds in kind. The alternative is a predictable and prompt Ukrainian surrender. First, the [Soviet method](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Q5oQs6pyM&ref=merionwest.com) was to destroy a fixed point of resistance with “nuclear fires” and then to exploit by pushing past with [high tempo but dispersed armored forces](https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf?ref=merionwest.com). The Soviets drilled their conscripts to conduct simple (but inflexible) offensive maneuvers, stressing persistence despite losses, and [rehearsing regimental-sized combined arms assaults](https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/0000-621-1-Jones.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) that included [rocket artillery](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/0381nuclear/?ref=merionwest.com), smoke, chemicals, helicopters, and small-team raids against headquarters and nuclear storage sites, deep behind enemy lines. The Soviets possessed impressive earth-moving and obstacle clearance military engineer capabilities, meant to reopen roads and clear urban debris caused by nuclear destruction and craters. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union [had approximately 10,000 tactical nuclear warheads](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/what-happened-soviet-superpowers-nuclear-arsenal-clues-nuclear-security-summit?ref=merionwest.com), designed to operate in conjunction with an offensive-oriented armored force, together tailored for the purpose of conquering West Germany, up to the Rhine, or the Kuropatkin Line in Northern China. There was also a greater diversity of tactical nuclear weapons, including surface to air missile warheads, and assorted naval missiles, torpedoes, depth charges and mines, all intended to slow the arrival of resupply convoys from North America to Europe and East Asia. The Russian army no longer has the [technical capacity](https://www.foi.se/rest-api/report/FOI-R--1057--SE?ref=merionwest.com) for this level of complex coordinated offensive operation. Even if Russia was forewarned of a NATO nuclear strike, it lacks the training to coordinate the continuously dispersed movement necessary to avoid creating the troop concentrations that NATO would be seeking to hit. The [low state of cohesion](https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/03/the-roots-of-russian-military-dysfunction/?ref=merionwest.com) and [officer initiative](https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3656170-unit-morale-and-cohesion-russias-weakness-and-ukraines-strength/?ref=merionwest.com) in the current Russian army would cause a formation to shatter if hit by even a single nuclear counterstrike. A NATO attack would consist of a volley, targeting offensive spearheads, logistical fuel and artillery munitions nodes, and headquarters. Under these circumstances, the advance of a formation as large as a corps of 50,000 soldiers would stall, and the survivors would disperse into isolated pockets. Those combat arms most dependent on a logistical tail of unarmored trucks moving along highways, in particular artillery and vehicle fuel, would be unable to function. Entrenched Ukrainians, even if their locations were fixed by reconnaissance, would suffer a much lower proportion of losses in this sort of nuclear exchange than attackers exposed unprotected on the surface. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### When the Elites Declare War URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-the-elites-declare-war/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:18.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/bragg2.jpg) (Reuters/Brendan McDermid) > “Show trials, we had thought, were totalitarian relics, a blunt tool wielded by dictators like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong in order to show people, quite literally, what would happen to those who dared to defy the regime. And here it was, happening in 2024, in America.” We still entertained the illusion. Four absurd criminal prosecutions had all been brought against former President Donald Trump within a short span by Democratic-operative prosecutors at a time when it was already likely that he would be the sitting United States President’s chief challenger in [the upcoming election](https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential%5Felection,%5F2024?ref=merionwest.com). A civil lawsuit for defamation barred by the statute of limitations had already been permitted to go forward against President Trump based on stale—and, therefore, very difficult to rebut—accusations of rape by E. Jean Carroll [when New York temporarily suspended that statute of limitations](https://news.northeastern.edu/2023/12/07/sexual-abuse-lawsuit-new-york/?ref=merionwest.com) to permit such lawsuits to be filed. The lawsuit predictably resulted in many millions in damages. Another civil fraud lawsuit had already been brought by the Trump-hating activist New York Attorney General Letitia James, charging a bizarre victimless financial crime steered toward its inexorable outcome by a Trump-hating judge and yielding [a $355 million verdict](https://apnews.com/article/trump-civil-fraud-verdict-engoron-244024861f0df886543c157c9fc5b3e4?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Judge%20orders%20Trump%20to%20pay,in%20staggering%20civil%20fraud%20ruling&text=A%20New%20York%20judge%20ordered,statements%20that%20inflated%20his%20wealth.) against the Trump Organization. President Trump, in the meantime, had become the presumptive Republican Party nominee for President. In the midst of election season, with a stumbling, fumbling person occupying the most powerful office in the world and [lagging behind in all of the relevant polls](https://www.realclearpolling.com/elections/president/2024/battleground-states?ref=merionwest.com), the first and silliest of the four criminal prosecutions—based on an invented crime hardly anyone could explain—was set to go forward in New York. The judge [was a donor to President Joe Biden](https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/judge-merchan-trump-biden-contribution/index.html?ref=merionwest.com). His daughter was a prominent activist and donor to President Biden, with big clients of hers [having raised nearly $100 million in campaign donations](https://nypost.com/2024/03/30/us-news/dem-clients-of-daughter-of-judge-in-trump-trial-raised-90m-off-case/?ref=merionwest.com) by using the New York case in solicitation emails. The Manhattan jury pool was overwhelmingly Democratic. The judge was doing everything in his power to ensure a guilty verdict: [needlessly permitting purely inflammatory testimony by porn star Stormy Daniels](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/05/07/donald-trump-trial-news-hush-money-case-live-updates/73593085007/?ref=merionwest.com) to describe her purported sexual encounter with President Trump, [preventing the defendant from having an expert witness testify](https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-trump-trial-icc-134ba5e53bcfd857f5cd3e4de62d9032?ref=merionwest.com) about the substance of the arcane campaign finance laws the State was trying to enforce, severely restricting another defense witness’s testimony and then [lashing out in an unseemly screaming fit](https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-hush-money-michael-cohen-363a86879b97d2367831b1392f42689d?ref=merionwest.com) and threatening contempt when the witness’s consternation at the court’s rulings called forth the judge’s wounded machismo and, finally, instructing the jury that so long as they find that President Trump falsified business records, [they did not have to agree](https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/05/21/trump-hush-money-criminal-trial/no-unanimity-needed-for-predicate-crimes-00159225?ref=merionwest.com) on what alleged predicate crime he was hoping to cover up in the process. The jury was sent off to deliberate. And yet, though we saw all the ready-to-fall dominoes being neatly lined up in their places by the powers that be, we still entertained the illusion, the fleeting hope that this was not really happening, that political passions would be put aside, that cooler heads would prevail, that these 12 anonymous New Yorkers would rise up to this moment of impending national crisis to play the hero’s role and realize that the cheap thrill of punishing a political adversary was not worth plunging the nation into the maelstrom all-but-certain to be sent spinning as a consequence of a guilty verdict. But on the afternoon of May 30, 2024, our fleeting hopes were dashed; the final domino fell: The guilty verdict [was proclaimed throughout the land](https://www.wsj.com/video/series/news-explainers/trump-found-guilty-key-trial-moments-that-led-to-hush-money-conviction/81FEFDE1-EFDE-4863-B758-793A6C39CAE9?ref=merionwest.com). _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On the Music of John Prine URL: https://www.merionwest.com/on-the-music-of-john-prine/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:26:44.000Z John Prine was one of the first prominent performing artists [to die of the](https://www.wsj.com/articles/country-folk-music-singer-john-prine-73-dies-from-covid-19-11586309968?ref=merionwest.com) Coronavirus (COVID-19). I recall hoping, praying that somehow he would make it through, and he did hang on for a while, but he was at that age I suppose where the virus, particularly in the early days, hit one the hardest. And eventually he left us on April 7, 2020\. His wife, Fiona, [wrote shortly thereafter](https://twitter.com/FionaPrine/status/1248019293083561984?ref=merionwest.com): “The outpouring of love is a comfort to me and my boys. Thank you for loving \[John\] so well. We can feel that love today. Keep listening and sharing his songs as we all find a way to be in the world without him.” From the time he first came onto the scene, [as they say](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ffIJ7ZO4U&ref=merionwest.com), with the help of Kris Kristofferson and [Roger Ebert](https://www.rogerebert.com/features/john-prine-american-legend?ref=merionwest.com) [(the subject of one of my previous essays)](https://www.mediavillage.com/article/remembering-roger-ebert-nine-years-on/?ref=merionwest.com) in 1971, it was clear that Prine’s music told a story. He wrote his earliest songs while delivering mail after leaving the Army. (William Faulkner [worked too as a postman](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/02/11/the-stamp-of-faulkner/d9290049-feed-4922-828b-2d043b306333/?ref=merionwest.com) as a young man.) But as Ebert noted, something that always impressed me, Prine wrote many of his best songs before “his 24th birthday.” Songwriters, unlike authors, can come of age early and [farm their best in younger years](http://www.eltonography.com/songs/empty%5Fgarden%5Fhey%5Fhey%5Fjohnny.html?ref=merionwest.com), but there was a certain empathy beyond his years that allowed the young Prine to put himself in the shoes of [an elderly couple increasingly isolated and mourning a son](https://genius.com/John-prine-hello-in-there-lyrics?ref=merionwest.com) lost in Korea (“Me and Loretta, we don’t talk much more/She sits and stares through the backdoor screen/And all the news just repeats itself”); [a Vietnam veteran addicted to drugs and struggling to adjust](https://genius.com/John-prine-sam-stone-lyrics?ref=merionwest.com) to being home (“There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes/Jesus Christ died for nothin’ I suppose”); [or a troubled young man estranged from his father](https://genius.com/John-prine-six-oclock-news-lyrics?ref=merionwest.com) and struggling with his sexuality who resorted to suicide (“‘God bless this kitchen’ said the knick-knack shelf/’The dinner’s almost ready, go and wash yourself’/Well Jimmy’s growing up now, Wanda’s growing old”). (1) I do not like to compare, but I doubt Prine ever did better work than with these songs, which appeared on his first album *John Prine*, released right around the time of his 25th birthday. Even Robert Christgau [gave the album an A](https://www.robertchristgau.com/get%5Fartist.php?name=john+prine&ref=merionwest.com). And who can forget that opening riff of [“Angel from Montgomery,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bv4n%5FwjgFU&ref=merionwest.com) my favorite version of it being a live duet sung by Prine and Bonnie Raitt? It was an introduction made more powerful by a call and response between the guitar and Hammond organ. There is that distinct gospel feel, the opening of Sunday worship, and then it comes in: I am an old woman Named after my mother My old man is another Child who’s grown old _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Off-Road URL: https://www.merionwest.com/off-road/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:23.000Z “Age isn’t just a number, as we’d heard/it’s how we get here. I’m twice my daughter’s age/and neither thought we’d haul ourselves this far.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### J.S. Mill: Equiliberal URL: https://www.merionwest.com/j-s-mill-equiliberal/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:26:45.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/a26996.jpg) > “For \[Patrick\] Deneen, the most nefarious influence in the history of liberal political thought is John Stuart Mill, son of Enlightenment radical James Mill, godson of utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and the author of the canonical 1859 liberal text, *On Liberty*.” **Shortchange for Regime Change** A specter is haunting Europe. No, a specter is haunting the world—the specter of illiberal democracy. In the space of just over 30 years, liberal triumph has given way to liberal decline. [Liberal hubris](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/13399/the-end-of-history-and-the-last-man-by-fukuyama-francis/9780241991039?ref=merionwest.com)—the confident announcement that History had ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—has succumbed to [liberal despair](https://profilebooks.com/work/liberalism-and-its-discontents/?ref=merionwest.com), the candid acknowledgment that if liberalism is to survive then it has to change, and it has to change quickly. For some, principally its [opponents](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447514/the-new-leviathans-by-gray-john/9780241554951?ref=merionwest.com), liberalism is dead already. It died when liberals exchanged tolerance for tyranny in the name of tolerance itself. The market fundamentalism of “neoliberalism,” the hegemonic form of liberalism in the world since the revolution of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, was a self-inflicted injury. Liberal societies, we know from the interwar years, cannot sustain vast economic inequalities without breaking down. Yet, the political and social instability experienced across the world in the wake of [the global economic crisis of 2007-8](https://www.britannica.com/money/financial-crisis-of-2007-2008?ref=merionwest.com)—the chaos incurred by the debt crisis in Greece, the impassioned Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, and the election of an unabashedly populist President Donald Trump in the United States of America, for example—was a result of greed and myopia rather than active self-abuse. The solipsistic individualism of “progressive” liberalism was, by contrast, self-immolation. Liberalism self-consciously destroyed itself in the 2010s and 20s for not being liberal enough. So, at least, the *post*liberal critics of liberalism argue. According to the American political theorist, Patrick Deneen, one of liberalism’s fiercest and most uncompromising adversaries, it is time then for “[regime change](https://swiftpress.com/book/regime-change/?ref=merionwest.com).” It is time for a postliberal mode of governance, based on stability, order, and continuity, and the reconciliation of “the few” and “the many.” Liberalism in both its economic and “progressive” guises must be overthrown. Insensitive to bonds of obligation and the common good, the corrupt and self-serving meritocratic elites who currently rule must give way to reactionary national aristocracies attentive to the instinctive conservatism of the demos. Or so the argument goes. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Chasing Immortality, Living on the Edge: A Review of “Transhuman Citizen,” the Biography of Zoltan Istvan URL: https://www.merionwest.com/chasing-immortality-living-on-the-edge-a-review-of-transhuman-citizen-the-biography-of-zoltan-istvan/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:55.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/p039m324.jpg) (Credit: Zoltan Istvan) > “Although the project to end death is clearly important to Istvan, his forthcoming biography, ‘Transhuman Citizen: Zoltan Istvan’s Hunt for Immortality’ by Ben Murnane, reveals that he has arguably lived his life in response to a related but slightly different question…” “What are you prepared to do to stop your own death?” This question has preoccupied [Zoltan Istvan](https://www.merionwest.com/death-is-not-inevitable-sitting-down-with-zoltan-istvan/) for much of his life. It is what brought him notoriety, first as the author of [the 2013 novel](https://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Wager-Zoltan-Istvan/dp/0988616114?ref=merionwest.com) *The Transhumanist Wager*, which centers around the above question, and subsequently [as an upstart political candidate](https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0016190/?ref=merionwest.com). In 2016, he founded [the Transhumanist Party](https://transhumanist-party.org/?ref=merionwest.com) to promote the project of ending death through scientific progress. During his 2016 campaign for President of the United States, he demonstrated that he was prepared to do practically anything to raise awareness for the cause: He traveled the country [in a coffin-shaped bus](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/magazine/600-miles-in-a-coffin-shaped-bus-campaigning-against-death-itself.html?ref=merionwest.com), handed out atheistic pamphlets at a megachurch, and taped his transhumanist manifesto to the United States Capitol. Although the project to end death is clearly important to Istvan, his forthcoming biography, [*Transhuman Citizen: Zoltan Istvan’s Hunt for Immortality*](https://www.amazon.com/Transhuman-Citizen-Zoltan-Istvans-Immortality/dp/1803415282?ref=merionwest.com) by Ben Murnane, reveals that he has arguably lived his life in response to a related but slightly different question: What are you prepared to do to get as much out of life as possible? From a young age, Istvan has lived life truly on the edge—not as a mad scientist working to defeat death but, rather, as an explorer intent on staring death in the face. After high school, he purchased a sailboat, filled it with 556 books, and set off to sail around the world. This story is mentioned periodically by Istvan in interviews, but the new biography goes into detail about what a seriously riveting and death-defying adventure this turned out to be. During the trip, Istvan encountered indigenous tribes on far-flung islands, worked as a diver hunting for treasure, and survived ferocious storms in the middle of the Pacific. He also matured from writing adolescent poetry to working as a journalist for *National Geographic*. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### You Actually Do Co-Parent with the Government, So Make It Co-Parent Better URL: https://www.merionwest.com/you-actually-do-co-parent-with-the-government-so-make-it-co-parent-better/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:56.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/d9q64rt-5f474f82-5670-4dd8-9d04-53e910165331.jpg) (iCephei) > “Although pithy and pugnacious, the slogan is wrong. The moment parents drop a child off at the schoolhouse door, they entrust the school to take over some of their parenting responsibilities.” “I do not co-parent with the government!” This [t-shirt](https://www.etsy.com/market/i%5Fdont%5Fco%5Fparent%5Fwith%5Fthe%5Fgovernment?ref=merionwest.com)\-friendly slogan has emerged in conservative circles as a rallying cry for [parental rights](https://www.foxnews.com/media/parents-fume-bidens-remark-students-teachers-children-we-do-not-co-parent-government?ref=merionwest.com). It is a strident way of voicing the conviction that parents—rather than the government—should have primary authority over children’s upbringing. Coined or popularized by the parental rights advocacy organization, [Moms for Liberty](https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-do-not-co-parent-with-the-government-justice-descovich-education-rights-d9609fc6?ref=merionwest.com), it has gained currency in recent years among parents who object to the critical social justice turn many public school systems have taken, especially with regard to policies and practices pertaining to race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Although pithy and pugnacious, the slogan is wrong. The moment parents drop a child off at the schoolhouse door, they entrust the school to take over some of their parenting responsibilities. Neither parents nor schools have a choice in the matter. The legal principle, [*in loco parentis*](https://legaldictionary.net/in-loco-parentis/?ref=merionwest.com)—“in place of the parent”—obligates schools to assume certain parental duties pertaining to the child’s safety and well-being and empowers them to make certain decisions in executing that obligation. But all the legal principle does is formalize the ontologically inescapable. Schooling is an extension of child-rearing. Schools exist to teach children the knowledge, skills, habits, mindsets, values, and virtues that will enable them to flourish as adults and live well with others. This inevitably involves judgments about what is worth knowing, which behaviors to encourage and discourage, and what norms to enforce on school grounds. Since these decisions involve value judgments, the schools cannot refrain from imparting values to students. All of this makes schools surrogate parents of a sort during school hours. They cannot not be. If one sends his child to a public school, he is, like it or not, “co-parenting” with the government. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Kink or Worship or Both: Megan Fernandes’ “I Do Everything I’m Told” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/kink-or-worship-or-both-megan-fernandes-i-do-everything-im-told/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:47:24.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/bianca-berg-_0rTYkovo7o-unsplash.jpg) Bianca Berg > “In invoking (and sometimes tweaking) cherished predecessors, this gently impious collection also helps refurbish form.” Megan Fernandes is a highly literate poet who wears her erudition lightly. When she references other poets, one senses she has read them with attention and is not just name-dropping. Brooks, Rilke, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Carson, Eliot, Pound, Brodsky, O’Hara, Ginsberg show up in her epigraphs and poems, like former neighbors, wittily pranked, held hostage for homage. Whether she venerates or disrespects in the manner of a stand-up comic, there is a sense of tradition lurking in poems that often deliberately stage themselves as loosey-goosey improvisations out of her “neurotic,” smart-aleck, ultimately self-effacing psyche. She is Sarah Silverman if she were a poet, her confidence, nay, bravado, directly preceding a self-putdown, from which she always miraculously and instantaneously recovers. In his seminal 1973 work [*The Anxiety of Influence*](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Bloom%5FApophrades.pdf?ref=merionwest.com)*,* about how poets break through the stranglehold of their predecessors to be able to focus on their own invention, Harold Bloom writes: “The great pastoral elegies, indeed, all major elegies for poets, do not express grief but center upon their compositions’ creative anxieties. They offer therefore as consolation their own ambitions.” And ambitious this writer is. Yet when the persona of Fernandes’ poems gets anxious enough to invoke a predecessor, the purpose seems more related to immediate consolation than future glory. In the winsomely melancholy “I’m Smarter Than This Feeling, But Am I?” the Fernandes-equivalent speaker goes down low, as she often does in one way or another, courting the vulgar, which has a way of becoming a portal to the sublime. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Elegant Trogon and Poem for Robert Desnos URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-elegant-trogon-and-poem-for-robert-desnos/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T16:19:18.000Z “I have/a secret pigeon in my heart./I keep it in a cage composed of object lessons and feed it/moral law.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Dr. Geeta Nayyar: Better Healthcare in a New Era of Technology URL: https://www.merionwest.com/dr-geeta-nayyar/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:57.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/nayyar_geeta_021524-e1715979186167.jpg) Image via apbspeakers.com > “Inevitably, at the end of the ‘myth and disinformation train’ are doctors and nurses cleaning up the mess in the emergency room. There is a potion or snake oil for every ailment, from skincare to curing baldness…” On May 16th, *Merion West*’s Henri Mattila interviewed [Dr. Geeta Nayyar](https://www.drgeetanayyar.com/?ref=merionwest.com), a leader at the intersection of technology and healthcare. Dr. Nayyar currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Radiant Graph, a company focused on intelligent personalization for consumer health engagement and sits on the board of the American Telemedicine Association. Previously, she has held the role of CMO at both Salesforce and AT&T. She received her medical degree at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Nayyar is the author of [the 2023 book](https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Wrong-Diagnosing-Healthcares-Information/dp/1394150601?ref=merionwest.com) *Dead Wrong: Diagnosing and Treating Healthcare’s Misinformation Illness*, which examines the spread of myths and disinformation in healthcare. In this interview, Dr. Nayyar discusses her background as a CMO and delves into the challenges and opportunities presented by the evolving landscape of technology, including her insights on the promise and peril of social media and artificial intelligence. Notably, she calls for a new paradigm of regulation so that healthcare professionals and institutions can be emboldened to speak directly to consumers and patients in social media spaces. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Commodification in America: Old and New URL: https://www.merionwest.com/commodification-in-america-old-and-new/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:26:47.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/General_Robert_E._Lee_surrenders_at_Appomattox_Court_House_1865.jpg) (The surrender of General Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865\. This is a reproduction of a painting by Thomas Nast.) > “And yet, today, we continue to engage in various forms of commodifying the human person, even if they are less visibly brutal and bloody.” The night they drove old Dixie down, there were more than just [bells ringing and people singing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jREUrbGGrgM&ref=merionwest.com). There were people frantically buying and selling a once lucrative, extremely volatile good: people. On April 2, 1865, exactly one week before the remnants of Robert E. Lee’s once mighty Army of Northern Virginia [surrendered to Union forces at Appomattox Court House](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/appomattox-court-house?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Appomattox%20County%2C%20VA%20%7C%20Apr%209,bloodiest%20conflict%20in%20American%20history.), [Robert Lumpkin](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/digging-up-the-past-at-a-richmond-jail-50642859/?ref=merionwest.com), a prosperous slave trader in Richmond, Virginia, tried (and failed) to ship his 50 slaves from his creek bottom jail out of the burning Confederate capital. En route to Appomattox, a Confederate cavalryman encountered a troop of enterprising soldiers from Georgia purchasing slaves whom they hoped to move farther south under cover of Lee’s retreating army. Why, one asks, would defeated Confederates desperately try to retain possession over that which by the end of the Civil War so obviously could no longer be possessed? The reason, as University of Mississippi historian Robert K.D. Colby explains in his new book [*An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South*](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/an-unholy-traffic-9780197578261?ref=merionwest.com), is that the slave trade remained an incredibly profitable (though increasingly unstable) market up to the very last days of the war. By 1860, enslavers valued the four million people they held in bondage at about $3 billion, an amount that surpassed the total value of America’s railroads and the capital the nation held in banks. [Recirculated as](https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/how-banks-played-role-upholding-slavery-during-19th-century?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Most%20bank%20charters%20allowed%20the,term%20loans%2C%E2%80%9D%20Murphy%20said.) slave-backed loans, mortgages, and securities, the slave economy directly benefited as much as 30% of the South’s white population. Although a catastrophic war waged primarily on southern lands—and a [largely successful](https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2021/october/economic-warfare-union-blockade-civil-war?ref=merionwest.com) Union naval blockade—wrecked the Confederate economy, it did not destroy the slave trading industry, with thousands of sales occurring during the four-year conflict. If anything, the South’s declining fortunes only heightened the value slaveholders placed on their human property, given that slaves remained an important source of labor. They could also be sold to ambitious individuals hoping for an impressive return on investment if the “peculiar institution” were to survive. Indeed, of those enslaved at the beginning of the war, approximately 80 to 85% of them were still enslaved at the end, many having been moved to areas of the Confederacy insulated from Union armies. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On Not Responding to Email URL: https://www.merionwest.com/on-not-responding-to-email/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:46.000Z The central problem of the modern age (for many of us fortunate enough to live comfortably in the developed West), it has been observed, is one of abundance: too many films to watch; books to read; events to attend; budget flights to catch; tweets to scroll through, text messages to open; and, for our purposes today, emails to respond to. Of course, in centuries and decades past, people were busy too—in many cases, even busier, [since they tended to work far more hours](https://ourworldindata.org/working-more-than-ever?ref=merionwest.com). However, today, particularly due to the central role the Internet has come to play in our lives (as well as how interconnected we have become), there is likely a greater breadth of things demanding our attention, [ever shortened](https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deeply/dp/0593138511?ref=merionwest.com), constantly pulling us toward ever more instantaneous action or response. Moments of unmolested contemplation seem increasingly scarce. (1) It is not uncommon to notice friends and family members having thousands (or even tens of thousands) of unread emails. Surely, not all of them are personalized (“Dear Larry”-type) notes, clearly necessitating a response, but some almost certainly are, increasingly crowded out by the endless invitations to events, marketing emails, favors requested, and the like. How often I hear something to the effect of: “I meant to reply, but my inbox got flooded.” In the field, in which I work (i.e., journalism), so many personalized and courteous queries are increasingly left unanswered. In my own career, here at *Merion West* in particular, this magazine has always prided itself on providing a response to submissions exclusive to us or personalized interview requests. Of course, the occasional one may slip past us, and for that I apologize, but, at the risk of tooting this magazine horn, I think this is rather unusual. Ask any up-and-coming (say, Wikipedia Page-less) writer, and he will tell you that he often does not receive a response, even when pouring his proverbial heart and soul into a given submitted essay or poem. And this is also true of [would-be entrepreneurs](https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/1576667291608969223?ref=merionwest.com). (2) And, unfortunately perhaps, at times, also for old friends hoping to reconnect or students reaching out to a professor with a thoughtful question. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Lost in the Woods URL: https://www.merionwest.com/lost-in-the-woods/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:17.000Z “Lost in the Woods is a symptom/of heart’s sudden loss/of direction registered in small/persistent cramps and little gasps.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Former Congressman Jody Hice: “Sacred Trust” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/former-congressman-jody-hice-sacred-trust/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:06:58.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/27500764_10156462989408352_3414842316386908246_o.jpg) > **“**Obviously elections are political in terms of who wins and loses, but the process should not be political.” On May 3rd, former Georgia Congressman Jody Hice joined *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich Prince to discuss his new book [*Sacred Trust, Election Integrity and the Will of the People*](https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Election-Integrity-Will-People/dp/163006274X?ref=merionwest.com). The following is a transcript of their conversation. **Today, I’m joined by former Georgia Congressman Jody Hice, who is currently a senior vice president at the [Family Research Council](https://www.frc.org/biography/jody-hice-senior-advisor-to-the-president?ref=merionwest.com). He represented Georgia’s 10th congressional district from 2015 to 2023, and notably challenged incumbent Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger [in the 2022 primary for that office](https://ballotpedia.org/Georgia%5FSecretary%5Fof%5FState%5Felection,%5F2022%5F%28May%5F24%5FRepublican%5Fprimary%29?ref=merionwest.com). This interview is in response to his new book, *Sacred Trust, Election Integrity and the Will of the People*, which was released last month, and I see a copy is right behind you in your office. Congressman, thank you for speaking with me today.** What a great honor to be with you. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it. **So this is actually the second time—as some readers may recall that we’ve spoken—but the first time over Zoom,** [**and last time it was while you were still in office**](https://www.merionwest.com/interview-rep-jody-hice-on-defund-the-police-and-big-tech-censorship/)**. That conversation was more focused on some of the issues and legislation. So it was interesting in the book to get a little more sense of your background, as well as your time in Congress. You generally paint a fairly negative picture of Washington, D.C. in your book, but you talk about a few positives. A couple of years now out of office, is there anything you miss about Congress?** Congress is one of these places that has the good, the bad, and the ugly all wrapped up in one. So it depends on what you want to focus on. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Review: “The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs” by David Runciman URL: https://www.merionwest.com/review-the-handover-how-we-gave-control-of-our-lives-to-corporations-states-and-ais-by-david-runciman/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T08:39:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/9565917396_93e9534baf_b.jpg) (R Boed/Creative Commons) > “*The Handover* is, at bottom, a plea for liberal democratic states to discipline, if not disempower, the sociopaths and psychopaths who currently have control of the technologies and resources which are changing us and our environment and promise to change both ourselves and the planet we inhabit more radically still.” **Introduction: A Liberal Straussian** Homer Simpson loves donuts. He daydreams about them. He injects them into his veins. He screams in terror at the prospect of living in a world without them. When the opportunity arises, he even exchanges his soul for a donut with the devil. Similarly, David Runciman—[Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge](https://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/Staff%5Fand%5FStudents/professor-david-runciman?ref=merionwest.com), regular *Guardian* contributor, and host of [*Past Present Future*](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/past-present-future/id1682047968?ref=merionwest.com), a popular bi-weekly history of ideas podcast—loves jelly beans. In chapter two of his extraordinary new book, published in 2023, [*The Handover: How We Gave Control of Our Lives to Corporations, States and AIs*](https://profilebooks.com/work/the-handover/?ref=merionwest.com), the United Kingdom’s preeminent liberal public intellectual cannot, apparently, think of much else. A “friend of a friend knows the number of jellybeans!,” he tells us excitedly in a discussion, ostensibly, about the wisdom, or madness, of crowds. Jelly beans “are much bigger/smaller than they look!,” he goes on in the same animated fashion. “Brexit, and war, are not jellybeans in a jar,” he forlornly reminds us, invoking instances of group wisdom, when the public gets things right. “Mmm jellybeans in a jar.” For around 90 pages or so, Runciman appears to be bewitched by the bean-shaped sugar candies, so driven to distraction indeed that he fails to define core concepts, such as robot and state. Sidetracked by thoughts of the soft candy shells, he offers simple, roughly hewn commentaries on the capacity of states and corporations to operate independently of the individuals of which they are comprised, ignoring, for example, civil disobedience and protest, active and passive. Preoccupied by memories of their thick gel interiors, Runciman advertises his innocence using the plural, first-person pronoun “We” when claiming that states and corporations were “made for our own convenience, to allow us to lead safer, healthier, happier lives.” Tormented, as Homer is, by thoughts of his favorite confectionery, here Runciman neglects to consider ideas of class domination and profit. Do not be fooled, however: David Runciman is not the Homer Simpson of political theory. Far from it. When Homer sells his soul to the devil for a donut, the interaction is surveilled by his evil billionaire industrialist boss, Mr. Burns, who inquires: “who’s that goat-legged fellow? I like the cut of his jib.” While Homer is both credulous, imagining he can outsmart the Prince of Darkness, landing up eventually in Hell, where he is compelled to eat all the donuts in the world, and oblivious to the fact he is being watched, Runciman is extra-sensitive to the Satanic forces which seek to tempt us into sin and self-destruction, enslavement, perhaps. Unlike Homer, he is hyper-aware of the knavish actions of the egoists, narcissists, and megalomaniacs among us. A liberal Straussian, Runciman is a master—a genius indeed—of esoteric prose writing, delivering his somewhat terrifying thesis with stupendous skill and subtlety. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### All University Protests Must Stop, Period URL: https://www.merionwest.com/all-university-protests-must-stop-period/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:47.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/1_U9blQADqLBtwOG5l7KckBg.jpg) ((Ted Eytan/Creative Commons)) > “Holding myself to this standard, I am comfortable in saying that in each and every one of those scenarios, my view would be unchanged: The protests, *all the university protests*, must be stopped.” “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” – [Bertrand Russell](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/960320-the-whole-problem-with-the-world-is-that-fools-and?ref=merionwest.com) Much of the crosstalk concerning the contemporary university protests centers on the substance of the protesters’ slogans, views, and demands. Conservatives are concerned by the protesters’ support for terrorism, anti-American invective and opposition to Israel, a longtime American ally and [the only true democracy in](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/29/israel-proving-still-democracy-middle-east/?ref=merionwest.com) the Middle East. Many Jews, including traditionally liberal Jews [rapidly fleeing rightward](https://www.thejc.com/news/usa/majority-of-new-york-jewish-voters-intend-to-vote-for-trump-says-new-poll-j1ejhx7w?ref=merionwest.com) due to [the lack of love they are encountering among former allies](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/us/politics/progressive-jews-united-states.html?ref=merionwest.com), see the protests as troubling due both to many Jews’ support for Israel and also to the disturbing frequency with which plain-old anti-Semitic sentiments keep bubbling up to the surface. Many Palestinians and other Muslims, [along with progressives and socialists on the Left](https://open.spotify.com/episode/1NHWDFS7Ir9B0bdPIa1eWS?ref=merionwest.com), see the protests as a popular outcry against oppression and European colonialism. For all the know-it-alls who claim truth is on their side, what should be obvious to anyone who cares to think a moment past the inflammatory headlines is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicated and no simplistic narrative fits the bill. Historically, the Jewish diaspora has not had an easy time of it over the centuries and was, of course, victimized by one of the worst acts of genocide in human history during World War II. Due to these happenings in Europe and the historical and Biblical links between the Jewish people and the Holy Land, many Jews migrated to—or, in the view of some, *back* to—Israel after the War, joining those who had initiated that immigration movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a smaller number who had been living in the region even before, including some from time immemorial, since before the days of the Ottoman Empire. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “The Rhapsodic Fallacy” and Maurice Manning’s “Snakedoctor” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-rhapsodic-fallacy-and-maurice-mannings-snakedoctor/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:48.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/OBrien-Poet-2023-Reading.jpg) (Maurice Manning) > “The ‘free’ in ‘free verse’ was never meant as a free pass, an anything goes, for to succumb to it does, in fact, leave us standing in a well-intentioned mush.” Is contemporary poetry in a period of renaissance, or is it in crisis? Over the past three years, I have read approximately 150 volumes of new poetry, and from book to book, my answer changes. The easy response is to say that it depends on the individual practitioner, and that conclusion surely bears limited truth. At the same time, one notices tendencies, which then makes the matter aesthetic-cultural-social. The advent of so-called free verse (for no verse is ultimately free) did poetic practice a mixed favor, carrying out Ezra Pound’s [marching orders to](https://www.jstor.org/stable/461234?ref=merionwest.com) “break the pentameter” and “make it new.” His challenge ignited a beautiful quarrel that carried all the way to the 1990s hard-nosed face-off between [New Formalism](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/new-formalism?ref=merionwest.com) and [L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/language-poetry?ref=merionwest.com). Both forward-looking camps looked backward, one to Petrarch and the troubadours, the other to those infamous itinerant rhapsodes, the Greek sophists. For no matter how radical the proposition, we can never outrun our forebears. The question then becomes, who and what are we renewing? One side celebrated beauty in measured words, the other immoderately invoked semiotics to unjoin the word from the thing it described. We currently exist in a “post” period, similar to the necessary alliances after a World War, when nation-states drop their categorical allegiances and nervously make new-old friends, without the luxury of clear imperatives and dogma, dreaming of a Third Way not tied to the desire for world dominance. It is a healthy space in which to create, not having everything so clearly defined by manifestos. Sometimes the fertile lull is, in fact, the renaissance. However, the result is sometimes one winds up ecumenical; others, one gets mush, as was often the case with the genre of “world music,” which frequently managed to turn the exotic into anodyne elevator tunes. Publishers these days seem to privilege specific types of sociocultural content, many poets leading with clear, urgent messages written on the dismayed or angry heart, with predictably resultant didactic obviousness. Yet beneath that momentary trend, acknowledged or not, always lies the burning, and too often neglected, question of form. In the end, whatever your politics, it is ultimately more about how you say it, than what you say. Poiesis. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### That Wind URL: https://www.merionwest.com/that-wind/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T03:51:59.000Z “Night’s ink congeals on rice, coating peas/like black sea pebbles glistening in the harrowed/moonlight staring through the shattered kitchen window.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Critiquing Stoicism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-critique-of-stoicism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:49.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Marcus_Aurelius_Roman_emperor_161-180_Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptotek_Copenhagen_36023639540.jpg) (Marcus Aurelius) > “However, my impression is that there is something more fundamentally toxic about Stoicism. In line with \[Will\] Durant’s assessment, its dominant theme seems to be retreat: retreat from unpleasant emotion into indifference (despite protestations to the contrary)…” Stoicism has become immensely popular in recent years, and has [received](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/19/inject-that-stoicism-into-my-veins-10-tools-of-ancient-philosophy-that-improved-my-life?ref=merionwest.com) [almost](https://theconversation.com/stoicism-and-spirituality-a-philosopher-explains-how-more-americans-search-for-meaning-is-turning-them-toward-the-classics-213440?ref=merionwest.com) [universally](https://time.com/6852921/marcus-aurelius-imeditations/?ref=merionwest.com) [positive](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/29/we-cant-control-what-disasters-a-new-year-may-bring-stoicism-can-help-us-get-up-and-try-again?ref=merionwest.com) [media](https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/what-do-emotional-intelligent-ancient-romans-stoicism-have-in-common-nearly-everything.html?ref=merionwest.com) [coverage](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/wellbeing/mental-health/rory-mcilroy-ryder-cup-stoicism-marcus-aurelius-elon-musk/?ref=merionwest.com). However, the Stoic philosophy conflicts with human nature and should, consequently, be discarded. Centering on this core idea, this article seeks to present some objections to various parts of Stoicism as well as to offer some thoughts about its role in Western history. **Possible Non-European Origins** Friedrich Nietzsche [wrote](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The%5FWill%5Fto%5FPower?ref=merionwest.com) that Stoicism was “essentially the work of Semites.” This brief comment has since been substantiated by other authors. Will Durant’s 1926 bestseller [*The Story of Philosophy*](https://www.google.de/books/edition/The%5FStory%5Fof%5FPhilosophy/PXIg5EOsbIQC?hl=en&gbpv=0&ref=merionwest.com) followed Nietzsche in claiming that Stoic thought had Asian roots. For Durant, the rise of Stoicism stemmed from the decline of ancient Greece. Hellenic culture was on a downward slide, as evidenced by the execution of Socrates. Alexander’s conquests had expanded communication from Asia, and “the Oriental spirit of apathy and resignation,” expressed in intellectual currents like Stoicism, “found a ready soil in decadent and despondent Greece.” Durant brands Stoicism as “the apathetic acceptance of defeat.” The Stoic response to such a criticism is obvious: Stoicism [teaches](https://dailystoic.com/stoic-response-success/?ref=merionwest.com) not that one should not try to prevent harmful outcomes but merely that one should not feel distressed when such outcomes do occur. But that is not how psychology works. The mind understands what is desirable or undesirable in terms of positive or negative emotion. Neuroscientist Mark Solms [writes](https://www.therapyroute.com/article/what-is-emotion-by-m-solms?ref=merionwest.com): “the more pleasurable something feels, the more you want to do it. And this is what emotional feeling—consciousness—is ultimately for: it motivates you to do things that are biologically good for you and to avoid things that are biologically bad. That is why it evolved.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Dangerous Partnership: the Managerial Revolution and the Immigration Revolution URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-dangerous-partnership-managerial-revolution-and-the-immigration-revolution/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:01.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/america-immigration-future-economic-growth.jpg) (Joseph Prezioso—AFP/Getty Images) > “New populations moving into a country creates ready-made client groups to which the managerial state can administer, gaining new voting blocs, which continue to vote for the party of the managerial state.” Toward the end of [my March essay in this magazine](https://www.merionwest.com/mass-immigration-and-the-american-nation/) on mass immigration and the American nation, I wrote that the immigration revolution is a partner to the managerial revolution. In other words, it is a new type of governance that has made the demographic revolution that has occurred almost an inevitability. If we, in the Anglosphere, want to do something about transformative levels of immigration, we need to understand and dismantle the new form of governance that came to power before—and became entrenched after—World War II. **Managerialism** Our current immigration regime is an outgrowth of our contemporary political regime. There will always be an elite minority that has the commitment and ability to lead society. There will also always be an ideology that motivates the elite and provides legitimacy in the eyes of the majority. The silent majority is largely irrelevant because its beliefs do not influence and shape elite formation and action by themselves. According to sociologist [James Davison Hunter](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Change-World-Tragedy-Possibility-Christianity/dp/0199730806/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=38AFX8Z6PSQPB&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.x0bBZVDV-tC9LAYky8tVM1eD45R-e1fPOWBzaF0%5FPDqVv5WADsRnLDpyPj3CG1gaKKoXlqxxaFpHlDnv96xE74ASPIZw5y5iDdPi-teRLc24B25PbSR7y%5FwR7pHl8WlToeQ%5FIkv3N6ipHBswJwKvkVSvSi4VEIvuyYZsds0OE%5FOmnxcMiRA2X3OcPthd1ZdCfFboSL8ZDdM8gkHsr%5FNFXODFDHPF27NvEMNKQFA59Xs.2uN-Ypjj37q3DdrRqNu5D66EXxajxpRd4hRDCgkqibU&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=james+davison+hunter&qid=1713105357&s=books&sprefix=james+davison+hunter%2Cstripbooks%2C100&sr=1-1&ref=merionwest.com), individuals and ideas are less important than institutions and networks in catalyzing cultural change. This change is “the work of world-making and world-changing are, by and large, the work of elites: gatekeepers who provide creative direction and management within spheres of social life. Even where the impetus for change draws from popular agitation, it does not gain traction until it is embraced and propagated by elites.” As Richard Pipes [pointed out](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Russian-Revolution-Professor-History-Richard/dp/0679736603/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=1DOZM03SBNDE4&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.oRmwWUgcAnzp7ZPAv27Y0HFIKay%5F899lM11bZhlmu-hZSflTiSbRTuuhluzaeHSjZ8U-P9hUFP5nsUussv%5FYXtedcbIWvhMyVjPDYkBMeh-oSxUl56SXCJZ6A8bcv7JnYI-%5FHSqezo8QWehAUWzoVW91jR4bZTj-kuYS9EQ-vocqqXpNB70h-sxXJPRd8Kb3jxNG9zmsGmkBRmyMfhxusVszMF4rhf3P2p30Ad8YdAk.dYDYQZHhJbL63-bIWxL1jpVPnjiTBM28Zjle3009kew&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=richard+pipes+russian+revolution&qid=1713105689&s=books&sprefix=richard+pipes+russian+revolution%2Cstripbooks%2C94&sr=1-1&ref=merionwest.com), “rebellions happen; revolutions are made.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Jerry Seinfeld Understated the Death of Comedy URL: https://www.merionwest.com/jerry-seinfeld-understated-the-death-of-comedy/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:48.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/MCDUNTH_ZX0632.jpg) (The new film “Unfrosted,” directed by Jerry Seinfeld) > “In Carlin’s time, it was edgy and cool to push back against the prudish ideas about obscenity, so playing with the boundaries of the metanarrative was practically encouraged (at least from audiences). Today, quite the opposite.” “You can’t say hobo anymore. They prefer bum.” This line, from Jerry Seinfeld’s new film [*Unfrosted*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14914430/?ref=merionwest.com), is not a scold. It is a punchline. Although it is not an especially funny punchline, it serves as an instructive example of the current state of comedy. Today, comedians often gripe about not being able to say offensive things, but this is not exactly true. On podcasts, on stage, and between friends, they can generally say whatever they want and “get away” with it. However, it is also true that comedians *cannot technically* be offensive—not on their own terms and in keeping within the parameters of a joke. Instead, offensive statements now always exist within an inescapable metanarrative about political correctness. In other words, when comedians discuss a sensitive topic in a comedy setting, the topic of conversation always gets sucked into the broader topic of political correctness, leaving the original sensitive topic to merely be a footnote. The result is that political correctness has already won the war against comedy, regardless of whether or not comedians are ever allowed to say what they want. Leading up to the release of *Unfrosted*, Seinfeld reignited the debate about political correctness in comedy during interviews with [*GQ*](https://www.gq.com/story/jerry-seinfeld-gq-hype?ref=merionwest.com) and [*The New Yorker*](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/the-scholar-of-comedy?ref=merionwest.com). His spiciest comment was that television comedy is dead thanks to “the extreme left and PC crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people.” This comment was mocked ruthlessly by innumerable editorials. [The Daily Beast](https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/backlash-jerry-seinfelds-whining-about-pc-crap-comedy-is-wrong?ref=merionwest.com) ran a headline, “Jerry Seinfeld’s Crotchety Whining About ‘PC Crap’ Comedy Gets It All Wrong.” According to the magazine [*Paste*](https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/jerry-seinfeld/jerry-seinfeld-is-a-lazy-hack-out-of-touch-with-the-real-world-and-who-can-blame-him?ref=merionwest.com), “Jerry Seinfeld Is a Lazy Hack Out of Touch with the Real World.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### College Protests and the Limits of Virtue URL: https://www.merionwest.com/college-protests-and-the-limits-of-virtue/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:01.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/GettyImages-2149731783_x574wz.jpeg) (Spencer Platt/Getty) > “That is, virtuous striving now is something that seeks to turn our social paradigm on its head.“ It would be redundant to say that the students currently engaging in the pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas (but I repeat myself) [campus protests](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-campus-protests-timeline-f7cd3abe635f8afa4532b7bed9212b56?ref=merionwest.com) are extremely ignorant. The fact that it started at an Ivy-League school, [Columbia University](https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbia-university-student-protests-israel-gaza-war-continue/story?id=109493377&ref=merionwest.com), means absolutely nothing in that context. Education in the United States, including higher education, [has been so consistently degraded](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0743254082?ref%5F=cm%5Fsw%5Fr%5Fcp%5Fud%5Fdp%5F57PP308F0N5J9AVQ05QT&skipTwisterOG=1&ref=merionwest.com) over the last several decades, especially since the 1990s, that one can safely say that the students in question know nothing of the world. They are also for the most part anti-Semitic and oikophobic, that is, anti-American and anti-Western. But this is so obvious as not to require further comment, and many others have already discussed this. I want to focus, rather, on some more philosophical aspects. The first thing to point out in this regard is that the students are suffering from what I would call “historical envy.” What that means is that they desire to live at a special historic moment, and they are envious of those who actually did. They, therefore, attempt to create such a moment themselves, no matter how destructive it may be, so as then to live it. This is sometimes referred to as [“Selma envy”](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/cooke-columbia-is-in-the-grips-of-a-perverse-selma-envy/?ref=merionwest.com) in an American context, but it is an international and thoroughly human phenomenon. People suffering this malady wish to display their struggle as ostentatiously as possible, and they want nothing more than to straddle history and reach the climax of human endeavor. Related to this is the idea that universities, as intellectuals in general, consider themselves to be at the vanguard of human knowledge and progress. Intellectualism thus breeds disrespect for established ways of thinking. This can sometimes be a good thing, but it also leads to degrees of outlandishness that are less common in other segments of society. Already Thucydides, in his [*History of the Peloponnesian War*](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h.htm?ref=merionwest.com), has the Spartan king Archidamus II say: “We are wise because we are not so educated as to look down on the laws” (1.84). Similarly, his Cleon of Athens argues that “Intelligent people want to appear wiser than the laws… and thereby often end up overthrowing their cities” (3.37, my translations). _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Nitazene: Scenes From Britain’s Struggle with a Powerful New Drug URL: https://www.merionwest.com/nitazene-scenes-from-britains-struggle-with-a-powerful-new-drug/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:50.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/20220824-113252-homeless.jpg) > “Meanwhile, the death toll rises. John told me he was 44—the same age as me—when we first met. That is just under the average age of death for homeless men in Britain. This is more than 30 years shorter than the country’s average male life expectancy.” It is 6 p.m. on Friday night in Norwich, right before Easter. I am standing by the War Memorial Garden terrace, overlooking the city’s historic outdoor market, as it comes to an end for the day. As the sun slowly sets and shadows begin to engulf the rows of vividly colored stalls, life seems to come to a halt. An eerie calm descends upon the square during the brief respite between traders packing up and heading home and the city bursting back to life with partygoers. This momentary state of tranquility is shattered, however, as I hear the sounds of an ambulance approaching, its blue lights flickering and briefly illuminating the fading Norfolk skyline. The ambulance pulls up outside a nearby clothing store to find a nervous-looking woman standing next to a man lying face down in a shop doorway. A couple of green-clad paramedics emerge wearing fluorescent yellow jackets. “What’s he taken?” The question is posed with the tone of someone who has seen this a thousand times. “I don’t know,” comes the response. The man appears to be in his 50s; he is missing a shoe and is wearing a ripped gray hooded sweatshirt. The woman shrugs off the other paramedic’s question about his name. When the vital signs are checked, it is discovered that he has overdosed. After receiving what appears to be an injection in his upper arm, he slowly starts to recover. Thirty minutes or so later, he starts to get up and takes his first tentative steps. While packing up, the emergency crew receives a message and leaves. After an hour, everyone has left. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “Mandarin Duck” and Other Poems URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mandarin-duck-and-other-poems/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:47.000Z “In shallow ripples bathing together in pairs, as may be seen by the deep, clear waters of Xiangjiang.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Too Many Excuses for Tyrants URL: https://www.merionwest.com/too-many-excuses-for-tyrants/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:51.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Vladimir_Putin_in_Syria_2020-01-07_01.jpg) (Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2020) > “Despite all of this, \[Robert D.\] Kaplan’s analysis of the greater Middle East should not be ignored. His travels throughout this vast region across the decades give him insights into its diverse challenges that few Americans possess.” Robert D. Kaplan is one of the most prominent pessimists in Western media of recent decades. President Bill Clinton saw his 1993 book [*Balkan Ghosts*](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/balkan-ghosts-robert-d-kaplan/1103166799?ean=9780312424930&ref=merionwest.com) as [a reason not to intervene](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/22/books/the-dangers-of-letting-a-president-read.html?ref=merionwest.com) in the Bosnian war during his first year in office (though Kaplan [supported](https://robertdkaplan.com/robert%5Fd%5Fkaplan%5Freflections.htm?ref=merionwest.com) intervention). His 1994 *Atlantic* article, [“The Coming Anarchy”](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/02/the-coming-anarchy/304670/?ref=merionwest.com) (later expanded into a [book](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-coming-anarchy-robert-d-kaplan/1111593427?ean=9780375707599&ref=merionwest.com)) laid out a vision of an unstable 21st century, a rejoinder to the joyful prognostications of some observers of the age of globalization. As journalist David Plotz [wrote](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/03/why-tom-friedman-is-america-s-most-important-columnist.html?ref=merionwest.com) in *Slate* in 2002, “Kaplan’s idea of foreign policy sometimes seems to be a shrug and an M-16.” His underrated 2001 work [*Warrior Politics*](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/warrior-politics-robert-d-kaplan/1112272419?ean=9781588360809&ref=merionwest.com) made the case for realism in foreign policy, shortly before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 shook the United States out of its post-Cold War complacency. It was a prescient statement of the need for Americans to confront the limits of their belief in universal human rights. Humane causes can be fought for, but only if those fighting for them realize they will only succeed in some places and at some times. A grand ideological vision is something to avoid. Kaplan’s 2023 book, [*The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China*](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-loom-of-time-robert-d-kaplan/1142812164?ean=9780593242797&ref=merionwest.com), shows him crossing the greater Middle East. He speaks to figures in countries across the region, gauging their opinions of long-term trends. At the core of the book, however, is the author’s experience with Iraq, an experience that, while it is a useful warning about the folly of grand designs, also shows the danger of overcorrection, of being too willing to give autocrats the benefit of the doubt. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### In Defense of the Bugmen URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-defense-of-the-bugmen/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:03.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/russia_office_men_women_working_workers_complex_cubicles-1134190.jpgd_.jpeg) > “But I am not interested in chiding Bronze Age Pervert—as other publications, such as *National Review,* have done—for his use of dehumanization. Instead, I want to offer a full-throated defense of these nasty bugmen.” In [the new Netflix series](https://www.netflix.com/title/81024821?ref=merionwest.com) *3 Body Problem*, aliens on their way to Earth determine that humans are like bugs. Throughout the first season, there is commentary about whether or not humans are, in fact, no better than bugs. Maybe it is true? In the final episode, this attitude is embraced whole-heartedly when one of the lead characters observes that humans have been trying to get rid of bugs forever. “But look around. They’re not going anywhere.” Which is to say: Even if we are bugs ourselves, that does not mean we can be easily defeated. This attitude is instructive in the context of an entirely different kind of threat to civilization—a threat that comes from looking backward in time, rather than forward. It is articulated in [the infamous 2018 book ](https://www.amazon.com/Bronze-Age-Mindset-Pervert/dp/1983090441?ref=merionwest.com)*Bronze Age Mindset*. According to the book’s author, Bronze Age Pervert (BAP), human flourishing peaked during the Bronze Age, when men were free to be *men* in the most cliché sense of the word: muscular, brave, warring, close to nature, and unencumbered by the demands of modern, liberated women. For example, in praising the ancient Greeks, BAP writes: “You know about their great art, science, and literature, or think you do. But these were men of conquest, exploration and adventure *first*. Aeschylus had on his tombstone engraved that he fought at Marathon, not that he wrote his plays. The free man is a warrior, and only a man of war is a real man.” Central to the thesis of *Bronze Age Mindset* is the notion that bugmen are to blame for perpetuating the weakness inherent to modern society. To BAP’s followers, the destruction of the bugmen is an exciting call-to-action. As one reviewer on [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40388177?ref=merionwest.com) put it: “If you’re tired of tasteful banter in wine bars and want to scorch the bugmen from the anthill I recommend \[*Bronze Age Mindset*\]!” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Irregular Beats: The Surprising Politics of Kerouac, Burroughs, and Ginsberg URL: https://www.merionwest.com/irregular-beats-the-surprising-politics-of-kerouac-burroughs-and-ginsberg/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:52.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/df95e1cc-2668-4e3d-bee4-5abaa4401e8e_1444x948.jpg) (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs) > “It is hard to say whether this philosophy would have had any adherents other than Kerouac, but it would have represented something new and uplifting—a counterculture to the counterculture.” “We love everything: Billy Graham, the Big Ten, rock and roll, Zen, apple pie, Eisenhower—we dig it all.” – [Jack Kerouac on *Nightbeat*, 1957](https://www.amazon.com/Mania-Ronald-K-L-Collins/dp/193893802X/?ref=merionwest.com) It is not an overstatement to say that Jack Kerouac’s [1957 novel](https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jack-Kerouac-1957-09-05/dp/B01JXRAYQU?ref=merionwest.com) *On the Road* had a seismic impact on American youth culture—one that continues to reverberate. Kerouac’s tale of struggling poets, societal outcasts, and one fast-talking con man, all barreling down the highways of America toward no fixed destination, was initially read as a repudiation of the values of 1950s suburban America, even though the events described therein—true events loosely embellished—had occurred in the more idiosyncratic late-1940s just before the mass adoption of television. Granted, it would have been a rebellious book in any era. But through a happy accident of timing—Kerouac’s manuscript took six years to attract a publisher adventurous enough to take a gamble on it—*On the Road* appeared *after* Marlon Brando, James Dean, Bill Haley, and Elvis Presley had primed the youth-culture fuse. Suddenly, Kerouac was not just a working novelist but the media-anointed spokesman for “The Beat Generation”—the phrase itself something Kerouac had coined, half in jest, during a casual conversation with fellow writer John Clellon Holmes several years earlier (as recounted in Allen Ginsberg’s [*The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats*](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Minds-My-Generation-Literary/dp/0802127983?ref=merionwest.com)). “Naw, this isn’t a lost generation,” he had said. “This is a beat generation.” He meant “beat” as in downbeat, washed-up, out of options—in other words, nothing to lose. But additional meanings suggested themselves. There was the musical “beat”—first the bebop rhythms that informed Kerouac’s prose and then, as the 1950s unfolded, the insistent backbeat of nascent rock ‘n’ roll and all the rowdiness associated with it. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### For Whom the Nobel Tolls: Tomas Tranströmer’s “The Blue House” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/for-whom-the-nobel-tolls-tomas-transtromers-the-blue-house/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:53.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/ee1ed1f5-a0fe-45d1-b00d-9992dcacb83f.jpg) (Jessica Gow/AFP/Getty Images) > “The lines, like long, rolling ocean waves on a cold Baltic sea, create their own reasons, their own rhythm, their own understanding. Anaphora is used, as Whitman did, to summon us to the great historical pageant of life, of happenings beyond our immediate knowledge.” Did the Swedish poet [Tomas Tranströmer deserve the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/06/nobel-prize-literature-tomas-transtromer?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=To%20win%20the%20Nobel%20prize,and%20particular%2C%20metaphysical%20and%20personal.)? Does anyone? One thinks of the case of Gabriel García Márquez, the talented Colombian novelist and author of the justly lionized *[One Hundred Years of Solitude](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=One+Hundred+Years+of+Solitude&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ref=merionwest.com).* Perhaps one such work of epochal writing is enough to get over the bar. Yet having read multiple others of García Márquez’s books, I find some of them redundant, either warm-ups for his famous novel, with similar characters, themes, and situations, even identical ones, or close variations on a theme. May one even presume to challenge the great ones? My experience with Faulkner has been similar; many of his novels now feeling negligible or dated, even interchangeable, albeit he changed storytelling in America. Is that the criterion: influence on other writers? A Nobel Prize putatively represents a life’s work, and, in truth, most writers’ production fluctuates in quality and transcendence throughout that life. Some do experiment, change and mature reliably, ever questing, ever self-reinventing, not repeating themselves. Yet this phenomenon is rare. Further, the Nobel Prize in Literature, like the Peace Prize, not infrequently is awarded as much according to cultural and political criteria as aesthetic ones. Which brings us back to Tranströmer. Unfamiliar with his work, I attacked [*The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer*](https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/the-blue-house-collected-works-of-tomas-transtromer/?ref=merionwest.com), which was released with Copper Canyon Press in October of last year and translated by Patty Crane, with enthusiasm for the undiscovered. At times, I found the excitement I sought. Others, it was a slog. One wished in such a compendious volume for more scholarly context for understanding such a massive corpus (600 pages). Alas, poet Yusef Komunyakaa’s cursory, brief introduction fails to satisfy, studded with wan phrases such as “fantastical voyage,” “human nature plays out,” “a keeping of time and seasons,” affording only the formulaic approach to a book one expects from back-cover blurbs. This is despite Komunyakaa’s claim to having read this Swedish heavyweight for 50 years. Yet I pressed dutifully on, seduced by the beautiful hardback edition, reasonably priced and of the highest quality, an object of art in itself. Tranströmer’s verse falls, like that of many modernist poets of the second half of the 20th century, halfway between “free verse” and a conventional and even mechanical attachment to tercets and quatrains. The earlier poems often feel prosaic, their more interesting features being occasional enjambment, and frequent, clustered consonance and assonance (viskar/svar/komma/själv). Translator Crane’s own ear is quite adept, coming up with sonically enticing phrases in English such as “Sky-thunder whispers” and “thunder strikes straight out of the stillness.” Reading the Swedish text aloud made me wish to be fluent in that language, but even without that advantage, it is clear that Tranströmer has a superb sense of sound. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Slavoj Žižek: “Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/slavoj-zizek-christian-atheism-how-to-be-a-real-materialist/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:05.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Slavoj_Zizek_2015_cropped_3-2.jpg) (Slavoj Žižek in 2015) > “In all other religions, you have people who become atheists. Only in Christianity, God himself goes through this experience.” On April 24th, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek joined *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince to discuss the former’s [latest book](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/christian-atheism-9781350409323/?ref=merionwest.com) *Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real* *Materialist*, which was released with Bloomsbury Academic earlier this month. This discussion followed Professor Žižek and Mr. Prince’s [January *Merion West* discussion](https://www.merionwest.com/slavoj-zizek-freedom-a-disease-without-cure/) about Professor Žižek’s [previous book](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/freedom-9781350357129/?ref=merionwest.com) *Freedom: A Disease Without Cure.* [Having earned doctorates at both](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1651?ref=merionwest.com) the University of Ljubljana and the University of Paris VIII, [Professor Žižek](https://iep.utm.edu/zizek/?ref=merionwest.com) has since been affiliated with various universities, including the University of London, New York University, and his alma mater, the University of Ljubljana. He has published dozens of books [and makes frequent media appearances](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otsv5sHHzs8&ref=merionwest.com). Professor Žižek is an expert, in particular, on the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Jacques Lacan and [is a contributing editor at](https://compactmag.com/masthead/?ref=merionwest.com) *Compact*. In their wide-ranging conversation, Professor Žižek and Mr. Prince discuss key themes from *Christian Atheism*; how Christianity differs from the other religions of the world; the idea of the Holy Ghost; American popular culture, including the role of Hollywood globally; the War in Ukraine; anti-Semitism; and the growing presence of Islam in Europe. This interview appears in video form: _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Happened to Columbia University? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-happened-to-columbia-university/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:49.000Z As a recent Columbia University graduate, I have been watching the events unfolding at my alma mater with anger and sadness. Earlier this week, Columbia President [Minouche Shafik](https://president.columbia.edu/content/about-president-minouche-shafik?ref=merionwest.com) wisely decided to suspend traditional in-person classes [and instead hold virtual classes](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/business/columbia-tensions-passover-virtual-classes/index.html?ref=merionwest.com). This was done[ after the arrest of 108](https://nypost.com/2024/04/23/us-news/about-230-people-arrested-at-nyu-columbia/?ref=merionwest.com) pro-Palestinian Columbia and Barnard College students from their [“Gaza Solidarity Encampment,”](https://www.ktvu.com/news/uc-berkeley-students-set-up-gaza-solidarity-encampment-on-campus?ref=merionwest.com) which was set up at the center of Columbia University’s campus. Amid the chaos, New England Patriots owner, businessman, and Columbia alumnus Robert Kraft rescinded his substantial financial support until the Columbia University administration deals with the [“virulent hate”](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/22/robert-kraft-pulls-support-columbia-00153739?ref=merionwest.com) on display on campus. Additionally, Chair of the House Republican Conference Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) [called for Shafik’s immediate resignation](https://stefanik.house.gov/press-releases?ID=D669F601-96D0-4369-B6E8-C1A89CCDE081&ref=merionwest.com) on April 21st. As expected, most academics are labeling the arrest of pro-Palestinian protestors a [repression of free speech and freedom of expression](https://facultysenate.umich.edu/academic-freedom-and-free-speech-the-palestine-exception/?ref=merionwest.com). They further argue that it is incumbent on the administration of Ivy League universities to ensure [“academic freedom,”](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/columbia-university-backs-repression-in-gaza-curbs-academic-freedom-on-campus/?ref=merionwest.com) a nebulous term if ever there was one. For the last few weeks, my cellphone has been blowing up with emails, voicemails, and text messages from friends asking me what about the goings-on at Columbia. While I do not claim to have definitive answers and do not wish to get into the weeds of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in this piece, my general theory as to the nature of the problem is as follows: As is usually the case, there is [nothing new under the sun](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%201%3A9&version=NIV&ref=merionwest.com), and what we see here is the modern-day manifestation of the argument William F. Buckley makes in [his influential 1951 book](https://www.amazon.com/God-Man-Yale-Superstitions-Academic/dp/089526692X?ref=merionwest.com) *God and Man at Yale*. Even if one has never read the book, Buckley’s argument will be quite familiar to most conservatives following the situation at Columbia. Radical professors and the administration of Yale University were destroying American society—according to Buckley—by indoctrinating the nation’s [“best and brightest”](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Brightest-David-Halberstam/dp/0449908704?ref=merionwest.com) with Marxist-inspired ideas about collectivism and atheism. This subversion was made possible under the auspices of “academic freedom.” Buckley rightly asserted that academic freedom was an illusion, arguing that the Yale sociology department would never hire a professor who lectured about the anthropological superiority of the Aryan race. To the disdain of the liberals of his time, Buckley opposed the idea of an open society. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### When Promoting Clean Energy, Patriotism Beats Moralizing URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-promoting-clean-energy-patriotism-beats-moralizing/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:05.000Z > “The debate over whether to go green is not a debate over whether to incur costs. It is a debate over which set of costs to incur, and people’s willingness to bear tangible burdens to achieve goals supported by affluent, educated progressives is limited.” Earth Day has an almost religious feel to it. With reverence for the planet and concern for its inhabitants, it serves as a sublime experience for many people who do not find the sublime in religion. Concern for Earth’s health has as much a moral rationale as a practical one, even when it aligns [with the scientific consensus on climate change](https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/?ref=merionwest.com). Scientific facts, however, do not dictate political choices. Equally reasonable, compassionate, public-spirited people can absorb the same facts and reach different conclusions about what to do with them. For environmentalists, moralizing is something to avoid as a practical matter. The fact that Earth is warming due to humans burning fossil fuels does not automatically mean humanity must shift rapidly to non-fossil energy. There are many excellent reasons for societies to reduce drastically their use of fossil fuels and to embrace solar panels, wind turbines, advanced nuclear reactors, electric cars, public transit, and high-speed rail. But that is not the only option they have. Societies could choose instead to adapt to a warmer planet. This would entail costs. The political, economic, social, and public health costs of living on an Earth warmer than modern humans are used to would be vast. But a shift to clean energy has costs, too. The loss of jobs in coal mining and oil drilling; the social [effects](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/29/coal-miners-coronavirus-job-losses?ref=merionwest.com) on [communities](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/29/the-kentucky-coal-town-fighting-to-survive-after-coal-mining-closings.html?ref=merionwest.com) dependent on those jobs; the [geopolitical](https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/how-curbing-reliance-on-fossil-fuels-will-change-the-world/?ref=merionwest.com) shift of power away from petrostates; higher prices for [electricity](https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/would-getting-all-our-electricity-wind-and-solar-power-raise-price-electricity?ref=merionwest.com) and [transportation](https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/expensive-electric-cars?ref=merionwest.com) during the transition period—none of these are cheap. It is not inherently immoral or irrational to accept the facts about climate change and conclude that green policies are still too expensive. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Rescuing Religion from Atheism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/rescuing-religion-from-atheism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:54.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/34810932694_e8580cf8e7_b.jpg) (The Old Country Church, Búðir, Snæfellsnes, Iceland by O Palsson) > “It seems, then, that religious practice is beneficial but unpalatable to many highly analytical people because they deem religious doctrines unpersuasive. The question therefore arises how one can *make* it palatable to them.” Religion is [socially](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279579807%5FIn%5FGod%5Fwe%5Ftrust%5F-%5Fthe%5Frole%5Fof%5Freligion%5Ffor%5Fcohesion%5Fand%5Fintegration%5Fin%5Fcurrent%5FEuropean%5Fsocieties?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=On%20the%20country%20level%2C%20we%20found%20that%20a%20close%20state%E2%80%93religion%20relationsh) [beneficial](https://www.oecd.org/development/pgd/46840032.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) [in](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8462234/?ref=merionwest.com) [a](https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/religion-spirituality-and-mental-health?ref=merionwest.com) [number](https://migration.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/religion-and-ethnocentrism-is-religion-adaptive/?ref=merionwest.com) [of](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/01/31/religions-relationship-to-happiness-civic-engagement-and-health-around-the-world/?ref=merionwest.com) [ways](https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/report/why-religion-matters-the-impact-religious-practice-social-stability?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=The%20strength%20of,many%20killer%20diseases.). However, its empirical claims are often off-putting to the analytically-minded. In what follows, I propose a way to reconcile theistic religion with atheism. First, a little background. According to the Pew Research Center, Christians will likely [constitute](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Depending%20on%20whether%20religious%20switching%20continues%20at%20recent%20rates%2C%20speeds%20up%20or%20stops%20entirely%2C%20the%20projections%20show%20) less than half of the American population by 2070\. Indeed, there is a plausible [scenario](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=If%20the%20pace%20of%20switching%20before%20the%20age%20of%2030%20were%20to%20speed%20up%20throughout%20the%20projection%20period%20without%20any%20brakes%2) wherein this happens by 2045, just over two decades from now. This downward trend in religiosity is troubling for a number of reasons. As Samuel P. Huntington shows in [his 2004 book](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Who-Are-We/Samuel-P-Huntington/9780684870540?ref=merionwest.com) *Who Are We?*, Christianity, especially Protestantism, has historically been a central aspect of American identity. Even the American Revolution was partly motivated by it. “Their anti-Catholicism,” notes Huntington, “also helped to turn the colonists against the mother country” when the United Kingdom at the time decided on “toleration for the Catholic Church in Quebec.” Although Catholicism and Judaism later gained numerical strength, even their respective adherents adopted many Protestant traits on American soil. In Huntington’s account, recent decades have seen an unprecedented erosion of the traditional markers of American identity. Huntington is concerned that major elements of the United States’ unifying culture are being lost, including Christianity. Judging by the rising polarization since the book was released, such concerns are justified. The common caveat that many who leave traditional religion remain “spiritual” provides little consolation. Just [2%](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/12/07/who-are-spiritual-but-not-religious-americans/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=or%20attend%20religious%20services%20at%20least%20once%20a%20week%20%282%25%20vs.%2036%25.%29) of “spiritual but not religious” Americans “attend religious services at least once a week.” That may be cause for worry, as the social-scientific literature [appears](https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/8/405?ref=merionwest.com) to suggest that collective worship does more to boost charitable giving than does private prayer. Overall, traditional religion confers a wealth of social benefits. Some studies [even](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379573949%5FDoes%5FConservative%5FReligiousness%5FPromote%5FSelection%5Ffor%5FIntelligence%5FAn%5FAnalysis%5Fof%5Fthe%5FVietnam%5FExperience%5FStudy?ref=merionwest.com) [show](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361043730%5FWill%5FIntelligent%5FLatter-day%5FSaints%5Fand%5FSmart%5FConservatives%5FInherit%5Fthe%5FEarth%5FDifferential%5FSelection%5Ffor%5FIntelligence%5Fin%5Fthe%5FUSA%5FBased%5Fon%5FReligiosity%5Fand%5FConservatism?ref=merionwest.com) that religiosity, and especially Mormonism, flips the usually negative correlation between intelligence and fertility in the United States. That it is desirable for intelligence to be *positively* correlated with fertility seems self-evident. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### By the Known Rules of Ancient Liberty: A Review of Masha Karp’s “George Orwell and Russia” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/by-the-known-rules-of-ancient-liberty-a-review-of-masha-karps-george-orwell-and-russia/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:55.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/thumb-1.jpg) (vfutscher/Flickr) > “Lest I should have appeared overly critical, allow me to restate that even in this, her analysis is exceptional and that overall, *George Orwell and Russia* is a uniquely penetrating study of Eric Blair’s life and legacy.” In his brilliant anti-Stalinist 1953 book [*The Captive Mind*](https://archive.org/details/captivemind00mios/page/40/mode/2up), Czesław Miłosz, who had recently defected from communist Poland, wrote the following about George Orwell’s most famous novel: “A few have become acquainted with Orwell’s *1984*; because it is both difficult to obtain and dangerous to possess, it is known only to certain members of the Inner Party. Orwell fascinates them through his insight into details they know well, and through his use of Swiftian satire. Such a form of writing is forbidden by the New Faith because allegory, by nature manifold in meaning, would trespass beyond the prescriptions of socialist realism and the demands of the censor. Even those who know Orwell only by hearsay are amazed that a writer who never lived in Russia should have so keen a perception into its life. The fact that there are writers in the West who understand the functioning of the unusually constructed machine of which they themselves are a part astounds them and argues against the ‘stupidity’ of the West.” In her recent study [*George Orwell and Russia*](https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/george-orwell-and-russia-9781788317139/?ref=merionwest.com), Masha Karp does not cite the above passage, even though it beautifully buttresses one of her main arguments: that Orwell understood more than most the nature and workings of Soviet totalitarianism. In fairness, though Miłosz refers to Russia, he, being a Polish dissident, is perhaps not particularly relevant to Karp, given her focus on the Soviet Union itself (rather than the Warsaw Pact). This is symbolic of both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of Karp’s book. While its focus means Karp can delve deep into her subject to produce arresting and original insights, it risks degenerating into a distorting narrowness—a trap Karp does not always manage to avoid. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Rossetti’s Notebook (1862-1869) URL: https://www.merionwest.com/rossettis-notebook-1862-1869/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:28:56.000Z “Nonetheless, a worm/had eaten its way through any number/of Gabriel’s lines, some of his best./He had to reconstruct them from memory,/or compose them anew.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Reckoning with Medicine’s Unseemly Past URL: https://www.merionwest.com/reckoning-with-medicines-unseemly-past/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:19.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/human-tissues-from-cruel-medical-experiments-in-g-2-22557-1523466185-0_dblbig.jpg) (Victims of the Guatemala Syphilis Experiment. National Archives and Records Administration/Via bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu) > “How does such an advanced nation and forward-looking profession embrace ‘medicalized mass murder’ and a philosophy calling for the ‘annihilation of life unworthy of living’? How did those who pledged to follow ‘the Hippocratic tradition of healers,’ they ask, ‘become killers’?” In November of 2023, *The Lancet* [published a lengthy treatise illuminating](https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736%2823%2901845-7.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) “\[the\] distinctive and disturbing…role health professionals played in formulating, supporting, and implementing inhumane and often genocidal policies” during Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Recognizing that “health science curriculums…rarely cover” this tragic saga in world history, the esteemed medical journal argues the “medical crimes committed” by Nazi doctors are the “best-documented historical example of medical involvement in transgressions against vulnerable individuals and groups.” That ugly chapter, the authors of executive summary further state, is a much needed “roadmap for the integration” of the profession’s “shameful history” into current “health science curriculums worldwide.” Despite its belated propagation, *The Lancet’s* commission should be commended for addressing a much overlooked issue—research ethics—and publishing a well-documented, nearly 75-page chronicle of the embarrassing “historical evidence” exposing medical complicity in the Holocaust. This Commission believes that its document is invaluable for educating young doctors and what they call “teaching for tomorrow.” Centered on Nazi Germany’s moral collapse and the disturbing fact that “physicians joined the Nazi Party and its affiliated organizations in higher proportions than any other profession,” *The Lancet’s* commission hopes to show “that scientific logic alone cannot prevent ethical transgressions.” What is needed is an educational environment that requires “learning about and reflecting on this history” and its “importance for all the health sciences.” The report not only examines the “disturbing fact” that “German physicians willingly joined the National Socialist German Workers Party” in shocking numbers but also “collaborated in the dismissal and persecution of their Jewish colleagues”; participated in the “forced sterilization” of hundreds of thousands of those deemed genetically inferior; subjected many thousands more to “forced medical research”; and, ultimately, played a significant role in killing “people on an industrial scale.” The evidence further discloses “few health professionals openly refused to collaborate in any of these activities…arguably the most extreme example of medical complicity in unethical transgressions.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Lord Conrad Black: Insights from the Ancient World URL: https://www.merionwest.com/lord-conrad-black-insights-from-the-ancient-world/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:08.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/sumer-gettyimages-122216938.jpg) > “There is such a thing as progress. I am no Pollyanna, and human nature doesn’t change much, but there’s undoubtedly progress.” On March 28th, Lord Conrad Black, the Canadian and British newspaper proprietor, author, and member of the British House of Lords, joined *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich Prince for a conversation about Lord Black’s [latest book](https://www.amazon.com/Political-Strategic-History-World-Vol/dp/1943003874?ref=merionwest.com) *The Political and Strategic History of the World, Vol I: From Antiquity to the Caesars, 14 A.D.*, which was released in December with World Encounter Institute/New English Review. Lord Black, [who at one time published](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Conrad-Black?ref=merionwest.com) *The Daily Telegraph*, *The Spectator*, *The Chicago Sun-Times*, *The Jerusalem Post*, as well as approximately 100 smaller American newspapers, founded Canada’s *National Post* and has authored [books on history](https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Greatness-History-Vikings-Present/dp/077101354X?ref=merionwest.com), as well as biographies of Presidents [Franklin D. Roosevelt](https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Delano-Roosevelt-Champion-Freedom/dp/1586481843?ref=merionwest.com), [Richard M. Nixon](https://www.amazon.com/Richard-M-Nixon-Life-Full/dp/1586485199?ref=merionwest.com), and [Donald J. Trump](https://www.amazon.com/Donald-J-Trump-President-Other/dp/1621577872?ref=merionwest.com). In their discussion, Lord Black and Mr. Prince discuss how historians know what they do about the ancient world; the idea of human progress; the religious mindset across civilizations; and how history tends to be taught in the West today. This interview appears in video form: _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Creases Between Utterances: Jenny Xie’s “The Rupture Tense” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-creases-between-utterances-jenny-xies-the-rupture-tense/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:19.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/zoo-monkey-TUdM4Rw67W4-unsplash-1.jpg) (Zoo Monkey) > “Whether \[Jenny\] Xie’s volume was long in the making or came out in a fiery burst (maybe both, by parts?), it is a work of substance, worthy of its current high reputation.” Jonathan Culler’s [*Theory of the Lyric*](https://www-jstor-org.msmc.idm.oclc.org/stable/j.ctvjk2w0p.6?seq=14&ref=merionwest.com) reminds us that “genres change as new works are created that either modify the categories or, eventually, delimit them differently in creating new categories.” Might Jenny Xie’s poststructuralist-influenced poetic study of a hyper-aware self in relationship with her ancestral Chinese homeland rightly be called a new sort of lyric? Or, rather, a return to aspects of pre-modern lyric, newly situated? In describing the work of Pindar and Sappho, Culler says that in their classical era: “we witness the birth of the modern mind, as poets came to know themselves as individuals with an inner life. But such individuation comes primarily through the articulation to an audience of values or judgments that deviate from a social norm, rather than allusion to inner states.” In the mid-20th century, with the arrival of “confessional” poets such as Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and Robert Lowell, the divulgation of inner states of the poet-speaker came to be valued above all other aspects of their writing. That was the only deviance from the norm that really mattered. Plath’s [“Daddy”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48999/daddy-56d22aafa45b2?ref=merionwest.com) was erroneously explicated as a psycho-poetic document, a diary in verse, rather than as a skewed modern [elegy](https://www-jstor-org.msmc.idm.oclc.org/stable/pdf/462991.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3Aef2aec07727af611db876aca02ccea7f&ab%5Fsegments=0%2Fbasic%5Fsearch%5Fgsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1&ref=merionwest.com), that form in which public and private grief collide. There was a weird wonder for many in staring through a glass skull into a tortured mind, to experience the electro-shock of the poet’s raw feelings. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Lessons from Machiavelli and Guicciardini for an Unstable World URL: https://www.merionwest.com/lessons-from-machiavelli-and-guicciardini-for-an-unstable-world/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:20.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/guicciardini-machiavelli-1020.jpg) (Francesco Guicciardini and Niccolo Machiavelli) > “The world is in flux. November’s elections in the United States will speed up the pace of change. There is a danger that politicians across the West are positioning themselves to govern a world that will no longer exist by the time they come to power.” Five hundred years ago, two friends were living through a time of crisis and disillusionment, when old traditions and institutions were being uprooted, and smaller states were falling victim to the ambition of superpowers. One friend came to be much better known than the other: [Niccolo Machiavelli](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Niccolo-Machiavelli?ref=merionwest.com), often referred to as the father of modern political philosophy. His lesser-known friend was [Francesco Guicciardini](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francesco-Guicciardini?ref=merionwest.com). Contained in the writings of both, and the correspondence between them, are lessons for political leaders in our own tumultuous times. Both were born in Florence, Machiavelli in 1469 and Guicciardini in 1483\. Both served the Florentine state and wrote based on their firsthand experience of public service and diplomacy. Machiavelli worked as secretary to the second chancery of the Republic of Florence, after the Medici family who had ruled Florence since 1434 had been disposed and exiled in 1494, when French troops invaded Italy (an event Guicciardini would later see as the turning point of his age). During this time, he served as ambassador to Duke [Cesare Borgia](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cesare-Borgia?ref=merionwest.com), Rome, and France and established a Florentine militia. He distrusted mercenaries, believing them to be unpatriotic and often unreliable when most needed. His militia of soldier-citizens [conquered Pisa in 1509](https://www.britannica.com/place/Pisa-Italy?ref=merionwest.com). Guicciardini was ambassador to [King Ferdinand of Aragon](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ferdinand-II-king-of-Spain?ref=merionwest.com). He was at the Spanish court when in 1512 the Florentines, under pressure from [Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-V-Holy-Roman-emperor?ref=merionwest.com), restored Medici rule after Charles’ Hapsburg troops besieged the city. After the return of the Medici, Machiavelli was accused of conspiracy and was imprisoned and tortured. He denied involvement and was released after three weeks. He retired to exile at his farm estate, never to return to the heart of the government of the city-state again. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Let It Be Known URL: https://www.merionwest.com/let-it-be-known/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T03:54:32.000Z “On its dead claws and back, mottled and plain,/from a long beach whose gulls roost on an edge,/Inscrutable.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Freedom to Be Religious as an Atheist URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-freedom-to-be-religious-as-an-atheist/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:21.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/tomwatts.jpg) Tom Waits and Iggy Pop in Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) > “In other words, now that I have become an atheist, I feel free to appreciate and even dabble in various religions. To put this in terms of Waits Paradox: Once one has quit religion, he is free to be religious.” In [the 2003 film](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379217/?ref=merionwest.com) *Coffee and Cigarettes*, Tom Waits [says](https://youtu.be/eNSdOKnjUnk?si=AVgT9h4lCKiiJlwj&t=226&ref=merionwest.com) to Iggy Pop, “The beauty of quitting \[smoking\] is that, now that I’ve quit, I can have one. Because I’ve quit.” This is a funny snippet of dialogue because it sounds absurd even though it technically makes sense. If one quits smoking, then he is a non-smoker. And a non-smoker does not become a smoker just by smoking *one* cigarette. Call it the Waits Paradox: Once one has quit X, he is free to do X. I have recently been considering this logic in terms of atheism. I was raised as an evangelical Christian and, for many years, I took the religion quite seriously. At that time, all religious notions that were not fully in lock-step with my own were utterly anathema. Catholicism was a lost cause. Mormonism was laughable. Islam was backwards and dull. Hinduism, nutty. Buddhism, vaguely interesting and non-threatening but also, theologically, a non-starter. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### People over Place: Reviewing “The Culture Transplant” by Garett Jones URL: https://www.merionwest.com/people-over-place-a-review-of-the-culture-transplant-by-garett-jones/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:22.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/cHJpdmF0ZS9sci9pbWFnZXMvd2Vic2l0ZS8yMDIyLTExL2ZsMjgyMDY4OTAxNjYtaW1hZ2UuanBn.jpg) > “Any serious government would, therefore, develop and implement immigration policy with the utmost care. Instead, our governments are experimenting with unprecedented peacetime increases in immigration that further expand ethnic and cultural diversity.” In [a previous piece at *Merion West*](https://www.merionwest.com/mass-immigration-and-the-american-nation/) on immigration to the United States, I paraphrased Christopher Caldwell to ask if the United States can stay the same with different people in it. The vital question of what a nation is—and how it sees itself—relates to what our collective futures will be in the nations of the Anglosphere. This demands insightful analysis and careful argumentation from those who know what they are talking about. Fortunately, we have precisely that mix of virtues in [Garett Jones’ book](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Culture-Transplant-Migrants-Make-Economies/dp/1503632946/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=1978ZQQWO99GO&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.i9-nheqhHxfuvSIzl5H4rquzaqRNHw8Kj2N2QS1lK9mqKhXVLjLHB%5FuSqBa3wJUEthBRLmQtzk8UVwI3OFBUoIt0FDjCLRzUxDfiMsXHxrieYrI23ejSE6isNikjLGZpop8ne%5Fyy0nsrpiRMu%5F07QWzWlFxYJ7K893A-zbR0nW2-EiX%5FThxt8YwQ-tjLPqMfHWFFxpKM6Cm3GmTF2ih6fsBDqBqezsE5seTbbbJym6E.AzKvDVtGJl6CgfdkK4Dlm6spRxlKhPSvHXeENyC97CQ&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=the+culture+transplant&qid=1711881684&s=books&sprefix=the+culture+transplant%2Cstripbooks%2C115&sr=1-1&ref=merionwest.com) *The Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move To a Lot Like the Ones They* Left, which was released with Stanford University Press in 2022\. With this book, Jones brings the heavy artillery of statistical analysis and knowledge of the literature to bombard the opposition with evidence that immigration has a deep effect on our economies and cultures and that this effect persists down the generations. Any serious government would, therefore, develop and implement immigration policy with the utmost care. Instead, our governments are experimenting with unprecedented peacetime increases in immigration that further expand ethnic and cultural diversity. The book’s provocative thesis is: “Immigration, to a large degree, creates a culture transplant, making the places that migrants go a lot like the places they left. And for good and for ill, those culture transplants shape a nation’s future prosperity.” Bolstering the thesis is the evidence Jones assembles to support his argument. He presents the facts in a straightforward manner. He explains in plain language the complexities of economic research and the workings of the “deep roots” literature that together provide the ammunition for his argument. **People Matter More Than Place** Drawing upon the research of Columbia University’s Xavier Sala-i-Martin to buttress his own contention that cultural factors are central to whether various economic systems succeed or fail, Jones points to the last 500 years of European expansion on a global scale. And guess what? “A lot of what people think of as just ‘the power of geography’ isn’t that at all—it’s really culture in disguise. How can I be so sure? Because particularly over the last five centuries, since the great age of European exploration and conquest, people have moved. They’ve moved in their millions from one country to another, sometimes voluntarily, all too often not. And when they moved, they almost never fully assimilated.” The places Europeans moved to—taking their culture, beliefs and ideas with them—became more like the places they left. We see this in their economic performance. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “I ask your forgiveness; I am a mountain tiger” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/46139/ Last updated: 2025-05-11T03:57:23.000Z “Why does she ask forgiveness?/For what and from whom?/Why does she call herself/a mountain tiger?” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Sanctimony: A Political Vice from Which We Must Escape URL: https://www.merionwest.com/sanctimony-a-political-vice-from-which-we-must-escape/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:12.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/The-Need-To-Resource-Feminist-Movements-Has-Never-Been-Greater%E2%80%94So-Wheres-the-Money-for-Feminist-Organizing-1024x478-1.jpg) > “Watching this quasi-religious mentality migrate leftward and displace more rational, humanistic values has been painful.” I spent my youth attending evangelical Christian schools during the presidency of George W. Bush, arguably what will come to be seen as the peak of the Christian Right’s influence on American politics. For the most part, it was not pleasant. Among other things, the experience instilled in me a lasting hostility toward conservative priorities and religious faith. But the years since then have suggested that this hostility is rooted in something deeper and is not necessarily reserved for religion or even the Right. I have recognized that I have a profound, visceral hatred for sanctimony. Sanctimony implies pretensions of moral superiority. To some extent, sanctimony is, therefore, unavoidable wherever moral ideals are at issue and the orthodoxies they buttress feel insecure. When I was a teenager, the loudest moralists were clearly on the Right, and their moralism was deep-fried in religious fundamentalism. Conservative Christians obsessed over abortion, gay marriage, and—possibly the silliest culture war ever fought on American soil—[creationism](https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/07/01/chapter-4-evolution-and-perceptions-of-scientific-consensus/?ref=merionwest.com). [The neoconservative wing of the Republican Party](https://www.britannica.com/topic/neoconservatism?ref=merionwest.com) represented another prominent source of sanctimony, with particularly disastrous results abroad. Every era has its pieties, and pieties naturally tend to generate more fanatics and conformists than heretics. It may be that every brand of politics has its own pieties as well. Liberal sanctimony may have reached its boiling point during the presidency of Donald Trump, but it had been brewing well before. The millennium opened with a liberalism that differed very little from conservatism. Clintonian triangulation had neutered whatever vestiges of progressivism remained in the Democratic Party, while also shifting the entire American political spectrum toward the Right. Under President Barack Obama, Democrats compensated for this lack of substantive difference by embracing the most nauseatingly trite rhetoric imaginable. President Obama’s [invocations of](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpU0ebtmkPA&ref=merionwest.com) “the arc of history” as a source of long-term hope evoked a mix of Martin Luther King Jr. and Francis Fukuyama. However inspiring at first, the metaphor sounded increasingly saccharine as the culture war mutated and views of both history and the future darkened. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Review: “A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation” by Antón Barba-Kay URL: https://www.merionwest.com/review-a-web-of-our-own-making-the-nature-of-digital-formation-by-anton-barba-kay/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:23.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Wikimedia_Foundation_Servers-8055_14.jpg) (Wikimedia Foundation Servers) > “Barba-Kay’s central claim is that digital technology is categorically different from prior technologies. It is not just a matter of degree but, rather, a matter of kind.” Technology is neutral; it is just a matter of how one uses it. [We have heard](https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/4t6x0v/is%5Ftechnology%5Fneutral%5Fwhy%5For%5Fwhy%5Fnot/?ref=merionwest.com) this adage countless times. But it is not true. For one, if we give a child a hammer, we all know what happens: Everything looks like a nail, and we get dings, dents, and holes everywhere. Even a tool as basic as the humble hammer has the power to nudge us in a certain direction—toward hammering. If that is what happens even with simple tools, what about complex digital omni-tools that can do much more than hammering—what do they nudge us toward and how do they form us? Antón Barba-Kay offers penetrating answers to these types of questions and more in [*A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Transformation*](https://www.amazon.com/Web-Our-Own-Making-Formation/dp/1009324772/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=2ZS8MRS2I1RKA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JmcK4GbJUOZOD2r-v96lyURuvJgknz-Ks4l-8rkj0sLSP4su0UuWl7QV-G98OsacooCvZjxAan%5FsOU3FoKFdE-Ygx-awI6TbpDjUZMFnOA9zt%5FWqpvB5d9SgijYgO694mVTDxs203nWE%5FEM21LannhbyBKWD4RmT-KbPoesDM7YGlobOzFKh0ReOHG1zwDU8Zo%5FSvMQa82gHi0ThJffD3JoKBd12vUmCW0epdAGq%5FoY.mjVQdUUnvJpdR0sMuCnH8YZMxP37YSFciKJx1tjF7yQ&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=a+web+of+our+own+making+the+nature+of+digital+formation&qid=1711647732&sprefix=a+web+of+our+own+making%2Caps%2C799&sr=8-1&ref=merionwest.com), which was released last year with Cambridge University Press. The Deep Springs College professor with a dry wit and a sharp pen takes on the sacred cows of the techno-optimists and challenges the techno-pessimists for missing root causes. He does all of this while uncovering the digital revolution’s effects when it comes to personal habits, community, politics, and more. Barba-Kay’s central claim is that digital technology is categorically different from prior technologies. It is not just a matter of degree but, rather, a matter of kind. “Our largest problems are all problems in kind—problems intrinsic to the structure and logic of digital technology itself—not in degree,” Barba-Kay notes. This may seem like a strong contention, but I think mounting evidence and our personal and collective experiences confirm this. Digital devices are more than just tools like hammers, books, or telegraphs. They are omnipresent omni-tools of unending use and possibility. Digital devices predict, change, respond, and connect us to a global network of other devices, people, information, and entertainment, the scale of which is unimaginably massive and beyond anything that could be considered human in scale. Digital technologies have become so woven into the warp and woof of our lives that we barely even notice when we are engaging with them. There has been a blurring of the lines between the digital and the real. And Barba-Kay argues that “this changes everything.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Edgar Kunz’s “Tap Out” and “Fixer” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/edgar-kunzs-tap-out-and-fixer/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:24.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/kunz.jpg) > “Edgar Kunz, the author of *Tap Out* and *Fixer,* does not refer to himself specifically as blue collar, proletarian, or working class. Well-meaning others, such as mentor Edward Hirsch, do so, referring to *Tap Out* as ‘gutsy, tough-minded, working-class poems of memory and initiation.'” Reviewing poetry is a delicate matter. It is crucial to separate the strands of author biography and the press’s angle of marketing from the poetry itself, as the latter sometimes get confused with an assessment of a book’s poetics as such. While there is a case to be made for a surge in “new Armenian American poetry” or “a breakout first collection by an Appalachian writer,” such categories, while flavorful in announcing a possible theme or emphasis, ultimately have limited relevance to a cooler assessment of a volume’s quality as poetry. Even less so in the case of a long-oversold category such as “working-class poetry,” which has successfully endured as a diffuse, quasi-economic badge of honor and “marginalized” meaningfulness. This latter is a rare sight indeed, given the economic state of the United States, in which increasing numbers of Americans, approaching a majority, can no longer afford [rent](https://www.livenowfox.com/news/renters-us-can-no-longer-afford-rent-study?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=And%20this%20is%20affecting%20a,new%20Intuit%20Credit%20Karma%20report.&text=To%20gather%20data%2C%20the%20company,20%2D26%2C%202023.) or [mortgage](https://www.newsweek.com/us-housing-mortgage-delinquency-rise-fed-rates-impact-transunion-report-1867945?ref=merionwest.com) payments. Therefore, given its majority status, might one more accurately simply say “poet,” no adjective required? To gain immediate insight into this longstanding phenomenon, one need only look into a special issue of the venerable [*World Literature Today,*](https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/section/16-american-working-class-poets?ref=merionwest.com) “16 American Working-Class Poets,” with titles such as “Redemption at Ray’s Grocery Store,” “The Bra Factory,” and “Why I Don’t Work Construction.” The first two authors are university professors, and like the third, also do not work construction. Are they then faux proletarians? Or simply former ones? Thus, working-class becomes a term of nostalgia, or merely a highly relative term as one enters middle class life, more a barroom boast, than the unique daily reality of a protected poetic class. The topoi of struggle and overcoming the hard-knocks life become more a brand than a current reality. And hyper capitalist America, based on its misleading and selective myth of the hard-won prosperity of the immigrant, loves this brand. It makes us good to see the little guy represent. Yet it is legitimate to ask whether this is a good-faith proposition, and whether the romanticism with which it is imbued is leading to poetry of sufficient finesse and subtlety, or whether a plainspoken, down-to-earth vocabulary, often overpraised for its “spare” qualities, is doing modern poetry a disservice, in its tenuous claim to relatability and speaking intelligently to the hypothetical masses. Is one destined to be swept into the devil’s bargain of entering a Raymond Carver gestalt, in which the representation of everyday people, in the closest approximation of what they talk about when they talk about whatever they talk about, supplants all other considerations of style and genre? It is hard to read such writing innocently when it is culturally exalted to a categorical imperative. This issue becomes even more complicated when it dovetails, as it sometimes does, [with the Charles Bukowski School of Anti-Poetics](https://www.thechainedmuse.com/post/charles-bukowski-undisciplined-satirist?ref=merionwest.com), which has done much to encourage limited literacy and a wholesale lack of caring about formal elements, e.g., poetics, seeing the practice rather as a spontaneous outburst, the rawer the better, embellished by adherence and professed allegiance to the metaphysics of the gutter. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Jewish People Are Both Middle Eastern and European URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-jewish-people-are-both-middle-eastern-and-european/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:20.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/3625.jpg) (An illustration of the Second Temple) > “Given that the Middle East used to be far more ‘Western’ and even ‘European’ than it is now, there is no cultural disconnect between ‘Western’ and ‘Middle Eastern’ Jews. Jews can be both at once.” Among the many controversies over the existence of Israel, there is a widely held [belief](https://www.jimena.org/ashkenazi-jews-are-middle-eastern/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=But%20if%20Ashkenazi,signaling%20allies%20of%3F) that “white Jews,” or Ashkenazi Jews, are inherently alien to the Middle East. Fortunately, there is also no dearth of people who are keen to object. For example, the journalist Joshua Robbin Marks has [made a persuasive case](https://www.jimena.org/ashkenazi-jews-are-middle-eastern/?ref=merionwest.com) that “Ashkenazi Jews Are Middle Eastern.” Arguing that “the ethnogenesis of the Jewish people” happened in Israel, he avers that Ashkenazim are no less directly descended from that original population than their Sephardic and Mizrahi brethren. Marks claims that all Jews, Ashkenazim included, belong to the region. The conception of Jews as Middle Eastern has a storied past. At times, it is Jews themselves who frame their heritage this way. In 1921, novelist Jakob Wassermann [wrote](https://www.rodoni.ch/TESTI-PER-PORTALE/wassermann.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) that his life as a Jew and a German was a confluence of “both spheres, the Oriental and the Occidental.” But Wasserman seemed sensitive to what some may consider an indelicately worded implication of this idea. “The Germans,” Wassermann observed, often imputed an “Asiatic sensuality” to Jews which they viewed as polluting German culture. For other authors, the identification of Jews as Oriental has often entailed mistrust and aversion. For instance, in [his 1964 book](https://www.google.de/books/edition/Suicide%5Fof%5Fthe%5FWest/V8XXBQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&ref=merionwest.com) *Suicide of the West*, James Burnham recounts an exchange he had with an unnamed liberal who was “an avowed atheist, of Jewish origin.” These identity markers are among Burnham’s reasons for suspecting that the man does not identify himself with the cause of “Western, Christian civilization.” The implication seems to be that the Middle Eastern origins of Jews necessarily means they are non-Western. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Life Cycle of the Cabbage White Butterfly URL: https://www.merionwest.com/life-cycle-of-the-cabbage-white-butterfly/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T02:50:03.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### In Defense of TikTok URL: https://www.merionwest.com/in-defense-of-tiktok/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:21.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Tiktok-in-mobile-phone-130909-pixahive.jpg) > “Like most members of Generation X, I had never used TikTok, but when the political push to ban it intensified in 2023, I pulled out an old smartphone and installed TikTok to see what the fuss was all about.” I teach a class called [“Logical Reasoning in Human Genetics”](https://globalcenters.columbia.edu/news/logical-reasoning-human-genetics-lecture-1-basic-concepts-human-gene-mapping?ref=merionwest.com) all around the world, and one of the main messages in the class is to encourage everyone to think critically for themselves and not believe something just because “everyone knows that.” As Confucius [wrote](http://www.acmuller.net/con-dao/analects.html?ref=merionwest.com#div-16), “If everybody hates something, you’d better check into it. If everybody loves something, you’d better check into it.” I usually follow this up with an analogy that rings true for most Americans: In our politically divided country, sometimes Democrats are right, and sometimes Republicans are right, but when the two parties agree, we are almost always in big trouble. To wit, a wide bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives [recently passed a bill banning TikTok](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/politics/20240313-congress-tiktok-ban-bill-vote-dg/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) (or at least forcing Chinese investors to divest their ownership of TikTok), which, for me, immediately raised a number of red flags. One of the main arguments for banning TikTok is that [TikTok, Inc is a subsidiary of Beijing-based company ByteDance](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/16/tik-tok-debate-claims/?ref=merionwest.com) operating in the United States. As such, there is the concern that Beijing might use TikTok to spread its views via [an influence operation](https://apnews.com/article/china-tiktok-facebook-influencers-propaganda-81388bca676c560e02a1b493ea9d6760?ref=merionwest.com). Then, there is also the risk that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) might engage in [data harvesting](https://theconversation.com/china-could-be-harvesting-tiktok-data-but-much-of-the-user-information-is-already-out-in-the-open-201897?ref=merionwest.com) regarding the social media activities of American citizens. This has also been raised to defend the proposed ban. In this essay, I will focus on the first of these issues, which I find to be more worrying as a pro-free-speech Libertarian and will then deal briefly with the data privacy and national security concerns as well. Like most members of Generation X, I had never used TikTok, but when the political push to ban [it intensified in 2023](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/01/new-tiktok-ban-bill-passes-key-house-committee-on-a-party-line-vote.html?ref=merionwest.com), I pulled out an old smartphone and installed TikTok to see what the fuss was all about. Why did so many people want this app discontinued? When I posted a short video on TikTok about why I joined (and what I was trying to understand about the “dangers of TikTok”), the responses I received were mostly of the flavor of “On TikTok, I can say ‘F— Joe Biden’ or ‘Vaccines don’t work’” or “TikTok allows me to talk about Hunter Biden’s Laptop” without being censored. Personally, I think the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines performed surprisingly well, and I have no personal animus toward the Biden family, but it was clear to me from these comments that the federal government has less control over content moderation on TikTok than it has on Facebook, YouTube and X. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Age of Jihad URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-age-of-jihad/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:15.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/russia-shooting-01.jpg) (Getty Images) > “As a result, an air of fear hangs over society, regardless of the fact that the likelihood of falling victim to such an attack is very low indeed. But this is how terror works.” When a group of Muslim men shouted “Jihad, Jihad, Jihad” at a protest following [Hamas’s massacre](https://www.hamas-massacre.net/?ref=merionwest.com) of Israeli civilians, the London metropolitan police [downplayed](https://uk.news.yahoo.com/government-met-failing-action-against-105441242.html?guccounter=1&guce%5Freferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce%5Freferrer%5Fsig=AQAAAGfZejRrYQGn45CvX30GaeNHKmKpscCS0gQk4TW50OtS6bSpCOtZ7AM0fZB1ILyA5Fle8l3MRAStRrHe7DibmLgrxJ1nnqItLdrBeg8dGDn2mD4rnjKZ5D5CvNz9TeY5%5FkEnTmKQar75jEUYv3tfur1jLVJoCcAaSCJBEciSBaMk&ref=merionwest.com) the incident stating that “\[t\]he word has a number of meanings.” While this is [not wrong](https://www.britannica.com/topic/jihad?ref=merionwest.com), the recent [terrorist attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocus%5FCity%5FHall%5Fattack?ref=merionwest.com) on a Moscow concert hall, [which killed at least 140 people](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/death-toll-moscow-concert-hall-attack-rises-140-108542079?ref=merionwest.com) and maimed and injured many more, serves as a bloody reminder of what we are up against: a fundamentalist ideology that views the murder of innocents and non-combatants as part of a “holy war” against infidels. The semantic elasticity of the term “jihad” makes it the perfect watchword for Muslim extremists organizing and operating in Muslim-minority countries as it gives them plausible deniability and allows them to denounce any criticism as Islamophobia, which [as Andrew Cummins put it](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8654906-islamophobia-is-a-word-created-by-fascists-and-used-by?ref=merionwest.com), is “a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.” Meanwhile, we do not know when and where the next Islamist terror attack will occur. As a result, an air of fear hangs over society, regardless of the fact that the likelihood of falling victim to such an attack is very low indeed. But this is how terror works. After a number of years during which Islamic terrorism seemed more of a lone-wolf phenomenon than a well-orchestrated strategy (consider, for example, the [2020 terrorist attack in Vienna](https://www.merionwest.com/is-the-west-at-war-with-islam/)), October 7th and the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow on March 22nd have shown that organized jihadism is back. We live in an age of violent jihad, with international terrorist networks pulling the strings. These networks have embedded themselves in Muslim communities around the globe, including in metropolitan areas in the West. This is, of course, not to say that Muslim citizens are all potential terrorists; however, it does say something about the purported “religion of peace” and its role as a fifth column undermining Western liberal-democratic society. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Jordan Peterson’s Conversation with Destiny Can Teach Us URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-jordan-petersons-conversation-with-destiny-can-teach-us/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:15.000Z ![(Youtube)](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/jp.png) > “Paradoxically, as the amount of online content available for consumption increases, conversations with as interesting a dynamic range as the one between Peterson and Destiny seem fewer and farther between.” The other night, my husband and I settled in on the couch—full snacks and blankets mode—to experience a monumental media event. No, it was not the Oscars or the Golden Globes. It was not a football game or a State of the Union address. It was something much, I would say, better? It was the great [Jordan Peterson vs. Destiny debate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycDUU1n2iEE&ref=merionwest.com). Recorded in February and released on YouTube this past Thursday, this showdown had been long-anticipated by Internet standards—a few weeks—by myself and whoever else resides in the thin middle section of the Venn diagram where Peterson’s and Destiny’s audiences overlap. It was as entertaining as I hoped it would be, and I know why. It was because I remember the term [“foil”](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/foil-literature/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=What%20is%20a%20foil%20in%20a%20narrative%3F,brave%2C%20the%20foil%20is%20timid.) from seventh grade English class. Destiny and Peterson put on a fine show because they are perfect literary foils of one another, shedding light on the other’s distinguishing characteristics through sheer force of contrast. In one corner, we had the notorious Peterson, [who favored socialist policies in his youth](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=maps+of+meaning+book&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&ref=merionwest.com) and now decries big government at the conservative media outlet [*The Daily Wire*](https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus-jordan-peterson?utm%5Fcampaign=peterson&utm%5Fmedium=paid&utm%5Fsource=googlesearch&utm%5Fcontent=na%5Fsubscriptions&mid=g&cid=peterson&xid=0&gad%5Fsource=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw5ImwBhBtEiwAFHDZx6S4Szrc4ZPXVpcME-sHOwfYFfe8x56Uumdr%5F6sfwD9FV8IdkbM-ARoCFQcQAvD%5FBwE). In the other, we had the equally infamous Destiny—Steven Bonnell for long—who once championed George-Bush-era conservative policies and now [uses the X handle](https://twitter.com/TheOmniLiberal?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor&ref=merionwest.com) “TheOmniLiberal.” Peterson has the superpower to shoehorn the story of [Cain and Abel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5FpuRaCdAw&ref=merionwest.com) into virtually any conversation; Destiny can be found proclaiming the virtues of atheism. Peterson’s career [is studded with](https://www.psych.utoronto.ca/people/directories/all-faculty/jordan-peterson?ref=merionwest.com) establishment credentials, yet now he is intensely skeptical of “establishment” anything. Destiny rose to notoriety through new media, tripping into political commentary through video game streaming, yet he is a frequent defender of the institutions Peterson decries. Peterson has said he dislikes conflict. Destiny positively enjoys it. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Not All Self-Immolations Are Made Equal URL: https://www.merionwest.com/not-all-self-immolations-are-made-equal/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:16.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/self-immolation-aaron-bushnell.jpg) (Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images) > “Aaron Bushnell was not a hero or a martyr akin to the self-immolators of anti-imperial conflicts past; he was likely a mentally ill, terminally online man in his mid-20s who was in a lot of pain that he transposed onto a conflict halfway around the world that in no way personally affected him.” On February 25, 2024, 25-year-old United States Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell shocked people around the United States [and the world](https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/26/suicide-vs-genocide-rest-in-power-aaron-bushnell?ref=merionwest.com) when he doused himself in an accelerant and [set himself on fire outside of the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C.](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/28/us/aaron-bushnell-israel-embassy-fire.html?ref=merionwest.com) This was done ostensibly to show his love for Palestinians and his desire for them to be free (indeed, he screamed “Free Palestine!” repeatedly as the flames ate away at him). The video, if one can stomach it, is a punch in the gut for anyone with a shred of conscience but not for [the reasons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtnzamUj4WE&ref=merionwest.com) being discussed [in some corners](https://www.newsweek.com/aaron-bushnell-called-hero-pro-palestinian-self-immolation-1873454?ref=merionwest.com). In many at-this-point-predictable cases, figures such as [Cornel West](https://www.newsweek.com/cornwell-west-praises-aaron-bushnell-pro-palestinian-self-immolation-1873973?ref=merionwest.com), [Chris Hedges](https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/01/chris-hedges-aaron-bushnells-divine-violence/?ref=merionwest.com), and [Jill Stein](https://www.wdtv.com/2024/02/27/green-party-presidential-candidate-honors-aaron-bushnell/?ref=merionwest.com) came out to praise Bushnell’s actions as an “example,” “a religious act “of “divine violence,” and an “extraordinary sacrifice,” respectively. Senator Bernie Sanders [offered a few words for](https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-breaks-silence-aaron-bushnell-self-immolation-1873586?ref=merionwest.com) the public suicide, stating that, “it \[spoke\] to the depths of despair that so many people are feeling now about the horrific humanitarian disaster taking place in Gaza.” In general, there was no shortage of reverence from much of the self-described “anti-imperialist” (or “anti-Zionist”) Left for what Bushnell did. But his actions must have also rung familiar to anyone who has despaired at his own existence but decided not to go through with what many see as the logical conclusion of such despair. Despite [what publications such as *The* *Nation* have said](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/aaron-bushnell-gaza-self-immolation/?ref=merionwest.com), we have no reason to “take Aaron Bushnell at his word (and deed),” much less accept the historical invocations of other self-immolators as a reason to see moral nobility in Bushnell’s actions. The truth is that Bushnell was a young man mired in First World ennui that can only be cured by replacing one rabidly religious belief (namely, [the Christian one from his upbringing](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/aaron-bushnell-israel-embassy-childhood-b2503351.html?ref=merionwest.com)) with another cloaked in the guise of a secular concern for human rights. Bushnell was not a hero or a martyr akin to the self-immolators of anti-imperial conflicts past; he was likely a mentally ill, [terminally online man](https://www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/comments/1b2mx5i/aaron%5Fbushnell%5Fwas%5Fa%5Fradical%5Fwho%5Fbelieved%5Fin/?ref=merionwest.com) in his mid-20s who was in a lot of pain that he transposed onto a conflict halfway around the world that in no way personally affected him. This, among many other reasons, is central to why those tempted to compare Bushnell’s actions to those of other self-immolators in history ought to reconsider. The most famous self-immolation of the 20th century was that of [Thích Quảng Đức](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thich-Quang-Duc?ref=merionwest.com), a Buddhist monk living in South Vietnam who, like many Buddhists in that country in the 1960s, watched with growing alarm at the persecution of Buddhists at the hands of the American-backed government of Ngô Đình Diệm. This was significant because Diệm was part of the Catholic minority that held most of the power in South Vietnam. When this fact was combined [with what was known as the](https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/vietnam-diem-the-buddhist-crisis?ref=merionwest.com) “Buddhist crisis,” it was not difficult to conclude that there was a true, arguably impassable rift between the two religious communities. [According to historian Edward Miller](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/abs/religious-revival-and-the-politics-of-nation-building-reinterpreting-the-1963-buddhist-crisis-in-south-vietnam/9453A833814450228504E74DFDD7A08E?ref=merionwest.com), “the crisis emerged from a clash of modernizing visions,” with the Buddhist nationalist vision predating the Diệm government by several decades. In addition to this clash of nationalist visions, Miller explains, “The protests also reflected growing Buddhist anxieties about the Diệm government’s nation-building agenda for South Vietnam. By the time the crisis began, Buddhist leaders had concluded that this agenda (which Diệm referred to as the ‘Personalist Revolution’) was incompatible with their plans to realize Vietnam’s destiny as a ‘Buddhist nation’.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Possible Solution to the Standardized Testing Debate URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-possible-solution-to-the-standardized-testing-debate/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:26.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/testing-istock_custom-9b43852df212c2f0f96fc490518ce1d441d817b2-s1600-c85.webp) > “The video games also adapted to my inputs and choices in real time, which meant they could capture my strengths and weaknesses, a fuller view of my aptitude than just a number from how many multiple choice questions I got right.” To use standardized tests, or not to use standardized tests, that is the question. Some colleges dropped the requirement; [others have reinstated it](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2024/02/22/yale-university-to-reinstate-standardized-test-requirement-for-admissions/?sh=1cd0d923182f&ref=merionwest.com). Critics of standardized testing argue that it blocks a wider range of talented young people from applying to college. Its proponents point to how standardized testing scores[ correlate strongly with college performance](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/07/briefing/the-misguided-war-on-the-sat.html?ref=merionwest.com) and enable [low-income students to demonstrate their preparedness and aptitude](https://news.mit.edu/2022/stuart-schmill-sat-act-requirement-0328?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=We%20are%20reinstating%20our%20requirement,academic%20readiness%20when%20they%20apply.). The protracted nature of this debate reveals at least some incompatibility between today’s state of affairs and the decades-old tradition of standardized testing. Although the SAT [underwent somewhat significant changes in 1995](https://www.baltimoresun.com/1994/06/12/sat-scores-to-increase-under-new-rating-system/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Beginning%20in%20April%201995%2C%20the,under%20the%20new%20scoring%20method.), many of the fundamentals of standardized testing—as well as the circumstances surrounding it, from test-day anxiety to vocabulary flash cards—have remained the same, even as American society has changed so much since the mid-1990s. Today, the tests are facing an “opt out movement,” which [gained popularity in 2015](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/nyregion/new-york-state-students-standardized-tests.html?ref=merionwest.com). [Nearly 200,000 students](https://nypost.com/2023/12/31/metro/almost-200k-students-boycotted-ny-state-standardized-tests-in-parents-rights-revolt/?ref=merionwest.com) in the state of New York “boycotted” standardized tests last spring. And we cannot blame them. Young people today have been brought up by smartphones, video games, and social media influencers, not just their parents. That is what is wrong with this new generation—a popular sentiment, yet nothing new. Perhaps every generation in human history has looked down on the next. Enough of that and of forcing the old on the new. And though it is common to critique standardized testing [from the perspective of racial bias](https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:770766?ref=merionwest.com) (though this is [very much disputed](https://www.skeptic.com/reading%5Froom/standardized-admission-tests-fairer-than-other-measures-not-biased?ref=merionwest.com)), I would argue, today, the fundamental problem is actually with its structure and form. Standardized tests must change at their core, and their becoming video games may be ideal. Video games are well suited for assessing aptitude because they can examine players for skills that colleges and employers value, often skills the games also already make players use. A [2022 study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666956022000368?ref=merionwest.com) by Timothy Jordan and Mukesh Dhamala and published in *Neuroimage: Reports* found that video game players generally make quicker and more accurate decisions than non-players. Recent studies support that gaming can enhance [attention](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00047/full?ref=merionwest.com), [memory](http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.35721?utm%5Fsource=For%5FThe%5FMedia&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=ftm%5Flinks&utm%5Fterm=102422), and [impulse control.](http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.35721?utm%5Fsource=For%5FThe%5FMedia&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=ftm%5Flinks&utm%5Fterm=102422) Although there are [academic drawbacks](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17711364/?ref=merionwest.com) to spending hours per day playing video games, the reality is that games requiring certain cognitive skills probably can be reengineered to measure these skills. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Return URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-return/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:31:27.000Z “I am alive and you’re alive, and hope exists,/but I have to bid farewell to these words of mine,/which I will never shout, because I’m but a man. “ _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Mass Immigration and the American Nation URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mass-immigration-and-the-american-nation/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:17.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/migrants-battle-texas-national-guard-78744157_41dda9.jpg) (Over 100 illegal immigrants rush a border fence in El Paso, Texas on March 21, 2024) > “The monthly encounters under President Biden have been like nothing else seen in American history. There are estimates that, in 2023, there were more illegal alien encounters per month than babies born to American mothers.” Mass immigration into Western nations is among the defining issues of our time. It will continue to be so. The numbers that have come already are extraordinary. What is even more extraordinary is that the numbers likely to come in the future—unless something significantly changes—will make the currently extraordinary quantity seem small. The United Kingdom [has been experiencing its own version of this flood](https://conservativereader.substack.com/p/henry-george-with-our-level-of-migration) over the last several years. But the epicenter of this new normal is the United States of America. Mass immigration constitutes one of the core elements of the new civil religion of the American ruling class, motivated by its [New Moral Order](https://chroniclesmagazine.org/view/the-post-christian-moral-order/?ref=merionwest.com). The consequences for the United States as a nation have already been immense. Going forward they are set to be truly seismic. The question of numbers must be considered first. Legal immigration into the United States [has stood at](https://www.prb.org/resources/trends-in-migration-to-the-u-s/?ref=merionwest.com) 1-2 million persons per year for decades now. Alongside the legal numbers are the illegal numbers. Under President Donald Trump these began to fall, through a combination of immigration enforcement and outside circumstances such as the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic [and the response to it](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/27/key-facts-about-title-42-the-pandemic-policy-that-has-reshaped-immigration-enforcement-at-u-s-mexico-border/?ref=merionwest.com). However, with the election of President Joe Biden and [the end of COVID-19-era measures](https://www.npr.org/2023/05/12/1175865631/biden-administration-ends-title-42-what-now?ref=merionwest.com), the number of illegal aliens that has crossed into the United States is simply staggering. Various measures that President Biden [implemented early on in his presidency](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/01/11/key-facts-about-u-s-immigration-policies-and-bidens-proposed-changes/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Since%20President%20Joe,family%2Dbased%20immigration.) effectively opened the United States’ Southern Border to all of those seeking to come. It is estimated that there have been [at least 6.5 million](https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/September-Startling-Stats.pdf?ref=merionwest.com), and possibly [as many as 10 million border crossings](https://thehill.com/opinion/4423296-matthews-illegal-immigrants-double-under-biden-and-thats-just-the-start/?ref=merionwest.com) since President Biden took office in January of 2021, the vast majority of those across the United States’ long border with Mexico. The [monthly encounters](https://twitter.com/BillMelugin%5F/status/1740760905569460246?ref=merionwest.com) under President Biden have been like nothing else seen in American history. There [are estimates that](https://twitter.com/fentasyl/status/1740779371529740380?ref=merionwest.com), in 2023, there were more illegal alien encounters per month than babies born to American mothers. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Grappling with Liberalism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/grappling-with-liberalism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T17:25:33.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Berlin_Wall_1979_02.jpg) (The Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate in February, 1979 by Ad Meskens) > “Modern liberalism, equally, cannot go on as it is at the moment, veering toward destruction, becoming ever more decrepit and ineffectual, incapable of meeting the challenges—domestic, geopolitical, planetary—of the 21st century.” There “used to be Hegelians, now there are nihilists,” complains Pavel Petrovich in Ivan Turgenev’s great [19th century novel](https://www.amazon.com/Fathers-Sons-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/019953604X?ref=merionwest.com) *Fathers and Sons*. The progress-loving liberal aristocrat, a man of the previous age, an age apparently of principles, an age which recognized rights and obligations—the era, that is, preceding the emancipation of the serfs in Russia in 1861—is miffed. Told that nihilism denotes a man “who doesn’t recognize anything,” who “approaches everything from a critical point of view…a man who doesn’t acknowledge any authorities, who doesn’t accept a single principle on faith,” Petrovich curtly responds that a nihilist is a person, rather, “who doesn’t *respect* anything.” For Evgeny Vasilev Bazarov, the “abominably cocky” self-professed nihilist at the center of Turgenev’s narrative, simply to condemn everything, or pull everything down, while neglecting to build something new in its place simultaneously is a perfectly legitimate course of action. No, it is the most *useful* thing a person could do, he proclaims. Cognizant, however, of the inevitable consequences of such rash and violent deeds—the substitution, namely, of “brute Mongol force” for civilization–Petrovich condemns Bazarov’s sentiments as satanically arrogant. The two men, the first a refined, if somewhat prissy and, maybe, complacent, romantic advocate of gradual reform, the second, a long-haired, lowly-born medical student, clinically scientific to the point, almost, of psychopathy, represent in pure form the two poles of generational conflict in post-emancipation Russia that Turgenev identified and depicted so powerfully in his magnificent mid-century novel. Perhaps it never went away. Perhaps generational conflict, intermingling, of course, with class, gender, and racial antagonisms, has been a historical constant ever since Turgenev wrote, the baton being passed merely from nihilists to anarchists and Marxists to reactionaries and fascists and authoritarians to new liberals and New Dealers to Fabians and social democrats to hippies and New Leftists and onto libertarians and, finally, so-called Third Wayists, according to time and place. Perhaps. But what is certainly clear is that generational conflict is alive and well-thriving, in fact—in today’s Western liberal democracies. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### America Has a Writing Problem. How Do We Solve It? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/america-has-a-writing-problem-how-do-we-solve-it/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:07:18.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/computer_desk_email_laptop_programming_smartphone_technology_typing-913528.jpgd_.jpeg) > “According to the most recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 24% of eighth and 12th graders are ‘proficient’ in writing.” America, we have a writing problem. Today’s employers—desperate for talented employees—consistently complain that job applicants are bad writers. Need examples? Look at Long Island, where [70% of local CEOs](https://www.newsday.com/business/hiring-job-skills-qualified-applicants-fh0vyp4x?ref=merionwest.com) note poor writing skills among job seekers, in addition to a lack of initiative and unrealistic expectations about pay. Even beyond New York, the numbers do not lie, and they are not promising. According to the most recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), [only 24%](https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2011/2012470.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) of eighth and 12th graders are “proficient” in writing. And it does not get much better in college: While nearly 80% of college students rate themselves as “proficient” in terms of oral and written communication, [north of 40% of employers](https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/job-skills?ref=merionwest.com) say the same. [Three in four employers](https://www.inc.com/kaleigh-moore/study-73-of-employers-want-candidates-with-this-skill.html?ref=merionwest.com) want a stronger focus on written communication skills at the college level. Writing simply is not prioritized enough, and a dearth of relevant research is a testament to this lack of emphasis. For instance, while Congress mandated NAEP testing for math and reading every two years, it will [take decades](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2022/01/26/we-get-national-reading-test-results-every-2-years-writing-try-20/?sh=5f6bd5c73b9d&ref=merionwest.com) to analyze national writing test results in a similar fashion. While the “most recent” NAEP data is startling, it comes from 2011—13 years ago. And the next NAEP writing test [will not be done until 2030](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2022/01/26/we-get-national-reading-test-results-every-2-years-writing-try-20/?sh=5f6bd5c73b9d&ref=merionwest.com). _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On Arthur Sze’s “The Silk Dragon II” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/on-arthur-szes-the-silk-dragon-ii/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:40.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/7397.jpg.webp) (Tang Dynasty era art—The Emperor Ming Huang Traveling in Shu) > “Whatever one may say about the People’s Republic of China today, it once offered the model of the poet-emperor, as well as poets employed in political life, wedding governance to lyric spirit.” Imagine if our country were governed by poets. As is well known, Plato would have cast us (yes, I am one too) out of an ideal city-state as deceivers, leaving more room for the all-important philosophers. This point of view persists in the present, except that our philosophers today are lawyers practicing philosophy without a license. We are living through an epoch so virulently anti-intellectual, that even the pragmatic Plato would be shocked. Worse still, poetry is not so much despised in the United States as ignored, unless it is comfortable doggerel. Verse will only raise ire from the anti-poetry crowd if it bursts into view by blatantly sporting the wrong politics in the wrong forums. Yet poets understand that whatever its current negligible public reception, in poetry reside virtue and truth, sometimes in their purest and most lucid forms. Poetry does not have to wax topical to strike deep into human motives with its swift, keen perception. And that in itself can change minds. It has no imperative to comment on the news because it *is* the news. In [“A Defence of Poetry,”](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5428/5428-h/5428-h.htm?ref=merionwest.com) Percy Bysshe Shelley went so far as to declare that through their grasp on reason and imagination, poets are “the institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society.” Big talk, that. But hard to disavow, even though our society leaves room for only one national Poet Laureate to go around rousing the troops. The United States Poet Laureate is like Washington D.C., which sits close to the center of power but does not have congressional representation. Thus its ceremonial presence is symbolic and ultimately ironic. Whatever one may say about the People’s Republic of China today, it once offered the model of the poet-emperor, as well as poets employed in political life, wedding governance to lyric spirit. In the Tang Dynasty, 10th century, Li Jing and his son Li Yu were both recognized as accomplished poets. Let it be said, however, that poets and poetry were not precisely of the people, by the people, and for the people. Poets tended to be highly trained scholars who had passed grueling imperial examinations, and not infrequently wannabe officials writing mediocre verse to ascend in rank. Nevertheless, poetry mattered in the public sphere. It was believed that if one were well read in poetry, he would be a better administrator—a shocking thought in these United States, where politicians are more likely to read the political biographies of other politicians for talking points than to crack a used copy of Wallace Stevens or Claude McKay. But, in Confucian China, the moral value of poetry, its central place in a subject-citizen’s enlightenment, was patent, as scholar [Bo Yün-Tien](https://www-jstor-org.msmc.idm.oclc.org/stable/pdf/20631530.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A843cba3aee1f28a125f666ba34c9e26f&ab%5Fsegments=0%2Fbasic%5Fsearch%5Fgsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=&initiator=search-results&acceptTC=1&ref=merionwest.com) tells us. It was a primary way to understand the Dao. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Indian and Draw Near, White Man URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-indian-and-draw-near-white-man/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:37.000Z “And working together, what might we become?/citizens of a single kingdom./you could find it all in the palm of your hand/alongside Indian, yellow and black.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Texas and Florida Content Moderation Laws Would Open Pandora’s Box URL: https://www.merionwest.com/texas-and-florida-content-moderation-laws-would-open-pandoras-box/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:41.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/137231145_ee1de99f8c_b.jpg) (The United States Supreme Court/zacklur) > “A transparency mandate passed by Congress can avoid the controversial and difficult work of legally defining the terminology and specific guardrails for online safety and viewpoint neutrality.” The United States Supreme Court is currently [reviewing](https://time.com/6762361/supreme-court-social-media-moderation/?ref=merionwest.com) controversial “free speech” laws in Texas [(House Bill 20)](https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-defends-texas-law-prohibiting-big-tech-censorship-scotus?ref=merionwest.com) and Florida [(Senate Bill 7072)](https://www.flgov.com/2021/05/24/governor-ron-desantis-signs-bill-to-stop-the-censorship-of-floridians-by-big-tech/?ref=merionwest.com). While well intended, these laws would allow the states of Texas and Florida to interfere with—and even override—the content moderation decisions of online platforms. In effect, they may compel the platforms to enable the broadcast of specific content in order to satisfy the desires of these state governments to achieve viewpoint balance, even if said content may be imminently harmful to specific persons or groups. With insufficient guardrails to ensure both online safety and viewpoint diversity, future government decisions on acceptable content risk being politically motivated and partisan, resulting in arbitrary conclusions that depend on which political party is in power at a given time. Additionally, if these state laws are upheld and enforced, other states will likely pass similar laws. This would result in a jumble of potentially 50 different state-level rules that would make it nearly impossible for platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, and others to operate effectively. Further complications would arise because users move around constantly throughout the states. The proper place for any laws pertaining to content moderation rules is clearly at the federal level. Rather than introducing a direct role for Congress or state government to influence or direct the content moderation policies and actions of social media companies, a transparency-focused approach can achieve many of the same goals without opening the door for potential future government control over online content. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Walking the Butter Mill Trail URL: https://www.merionwest.com/walking-the-butter-mill-trail/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:45.000Z “I sometimes think I don’t belong here/in this wood–that the tree’s knots/are frowns grown for me, or the leaf crunch/is a worm cracking a crass joke at my expense.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What an International Environmentalist Movement Misunderstands URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-an-international-environmentalist-movement-gets-wrong/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:42.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Forest_paths_Floyen_Bergen_Norway_julesvernex2.jpg) (Forest in Bergen, Norway by Jules Verne Times Two) > “Scientific progress has the potential to be more salutory than legal regulation. To return to Odin’s advice in the *Hávamál* once more, the power of the human mind is mankind’s most reliable ally.” Environmentalist attitudes [are nearly ubiquitous](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315334838%5FAsatru%5F-%5FA%5FReligion%5Fof%5FNature?ref=merionwest.com) within the community of modern-day Germanic and Norse pagans. Literature professor [Stefanie von Schnurbein](https://www.ni.hu-berlin.de/de/personal/svs/svs%5Fen%5Fhtml?ref=merionwest.com) [notes](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315334838%5FAsatru%5F-%5FA%5FReligion%5Fof%5FNature?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20the,religion%20of%20nature%E2%80%99) the ascendant community’s “widespread self-understanding” as adherents of a “religion of nature.” Britain’s [Pagan Federation](https://www.paganfed.org/heathenry/?ref=merionwest.com) has long [considered](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/22/paganism-stonehenge-environmentalism-witchcraft?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=All%20you%20have%20to%20believe%20to%20be%20a%20pagan%2C%20according%20to%20the%20federation%2C%20is%20that%20each%20of%20us%20has%20the%20right%20to%20follow%20our%20own%20path%20%28as%20long%20as%20it%20harms%20no%2Done%20else%29%3B%20that%20the%20higher%20power%20%28or%20powers%29%20exists%3B%20and%20that%20nature%20is%20to%20be%20venerated.) reverence toward nature central to its worldview, and ecological anxiety has [fueled](https://crcc.usc.edu/swedish-ecologist-revives-old-norse-myths-and-rituals-to-tackle-environmental-crises/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=And%20Kornevall%20is,the%20Middle%20Ages.) the rise of Norse and other pagan religions in recent years, notably in Iceland. The number of specifically Germanic pagans was [estimated](https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/01/worldwide-heathen-census-2013-results.html?ref=merionwest.com) at just over 36,000 worldwide in 2014, but this subgroup is a microcosm of a much larger collection of movements with similar beliefs. Journalist Liel Leibovitz [writes](https://www.commentary.org/articles/liel-leibovitz/paganism-afflicts-america/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=A%20decade%20later%2C%20the%20Pew%20survey%20posed%20the%20same%20question%2C%20and%2C%20if%20it%20is%20to%20believed%2C%20there%20are%20now%20about%201.5%20million%20Americans%20professing%20an%20array%20of%20pagan%20persuasions%2C%20from%20Wicca%20to%20the%20Viking%20lore%2C%20making%20paganism%20one%20of%20the%20nation%E2%80%99s%20fastest%2Dgrowing%20persuasions.) that there are roughly 1.5 million pagan Americans belonging to a nexus of groups which constitute “one of the nation’s fastest-growing persuasions.” By one estimate, about 10% of American pagans belong to the Germanic variety. This would amount to 150,000 people, a huge increase over the 2014 figure. As of 2022, 1.4% of Iceland’s population [profess](https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-report-on-international-religious-freedom/iceland?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Asatruarfelagid%20%28Icelandic%20paganism%29%2C%201.4%20percent) Norse paganism; this is [allegedly](https://crcc.usc.edu/swedish-ecologist-revives-old-norse-myths-and-rituals-to-tackle-environmental-crises/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Iceland%E2%80%99s%20tradition%20of%20Old%20Norse%20paganism%2C%20%C3%81satr%C3%BA%2C%20is%20enjoying%20a%20renaissance%20in%20an%20environmentally%20minded%20modern%20form%3B%20it%20is%20the%20country%E2%80%99s%20fastest%20growing%20religion.) “the country’s fastest growing religion.” Those Germanic pagans who defy the prevailing pattern of environmentalism have come under fire from the majority in the movement. Thus, in a passionate [essay](https://www.patheos.com/topics/2014-religious-trends/pagan/american-asatru-and-the-environment-michael-strmiska-072314?ref=merionwest.com), paganism expert Michael F. Strmiska astonishingly argues that the American Ásatrú (Norse pagan) community is not nearly conservationist enough. However, closer examination reveals that the step from Germanic paganism to environmentalism is far more tenuous than commonly assumed. Even passionately conservationist heathens themselves seem confused about how their environmentalism can be traced back to their religion. For instance, [John Halstead](https://naturalisticpaganism.org/author/johnhhalstead/?ref=merionwest.com), a pagan environmentalist activist, [disputes](https://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-paths-blogs/the-disenchantment-of-hard-polytheism.html?ref=merionwest.com) fellow pagan Jes Minah’s contention that polytheists should view their gods as entities distinct from themselves. Minah argues that if one views, say, a river as inhabited by a spirit separate from oneself, one must restrain oneself from polluting said river: “When we are in a relationship”—in this case, with a river spirit—“we must consider the other.” Halstead rightly objects that this reasoning does not establish a logical path to conservationism. “\[W\]ho determines whose needs take precedence when (inevitably) there is a conflict between the needs of the river spirit and the needs of human beings?” he sensibly asks. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Why I Don’t Rely on Hope URL: https://www.merionwest.com/why-i-dont-rely-on-hope/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:22.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/photo-4875.jpgd_.jpeg) > “People have told me that this approach is a kind of hope in itself, that I have found hope in the way I abandoned hope. At that point, the words we choose do not matter much. What does matter is getting out of bed in the morning and finding work worth doing.” “Where do you find hope?” “How do you sustain hope?” Those are probably the most common questions in response to more than three decades of writing and lecturing about today’s [multiple cascading social and ecological crises](https://therevelator.org/inconvenient-apocalypse/?ref=merionwest.com). For years I struggled with how to answer, wanting to be honest but sensitive to the anxiety that typically motivates questioners. My answers have changed over the years, but my various responses always seemed inadequate to me. In the past few years, after much reflection about my life, I have settled on a simple response: I do not find hope anywhere, and I cannot sustain what I do not have and never had. Hope has never been terribly relevant in my life and has never been a large part of my motivation to act in the world. I know that hope is important for most people and that many find reasons to have hope. Neuroscientists and psychologists have called this tendency in most people an [“optimism bias,”](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982211011912?ref=merionwest.com) and I have no quarrel with those who hold onto it. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Thucydides Can Teach Us About Today’s Multi-Matrixed World URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-thucydides-can-teach-us-about-todays-multi-matrixed-world/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/President_Volodymyr_Zelenskyy_took_part_in_the_festivities_marking_the_9th_anniversary_of_the_National_Guard_of_Ukraine._52773022625.jpg) > “The *History of the Peloponnesian War* teaches that victory in such a war comes at enormous cost to both sides, so much so it can blur the distinction between victor and loser: everyone loses. This is the same lesson the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza impart.” The age of American hegemony in place since the end of the Cold War is over. The United States will remain an economic superpower and, if it navigates an incredibly divisive and legally complex election later this year, it can look forward to internal prosperity, but its role as global hegemon is coming to an end. While President Joe Biden [asserts](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/biden-american-leadership-holds-the-world-together/2023/10/19/0fa319ca-0ab4-4cc3-bcf5-e7603f30409f%5Fvideo.html?ref=merionwest.com) that “America n leadership holds the world together,” funding for Ukraine to fight back Russia’s invasion remains blocked in a partisan political system. There is a cumulative tiredness and disillusionment around America’s foreign interventions. A second Donald Trump presidency would rapidly accelerate America’s retreat from the global stage and seriously undermine alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ([NATO](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/17/trump-comments-nato-conference?ref=merionwest.com)), foundations of the post-1945 international system. A fear that the United States will abandon Ukraine is causing much consternation in European capitals, but also in Taiwan and with all of America’s allies worldwide. We are moving into a new era, in which international norms are fragmenting, and new dynamics of power are forcing violent change. Øystein Tunsjø, at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, [argued](https://eastasiaforum.org/2020/04/04/the-new-us-china-superpower-rivalry/?ref=merionwest.com) in 2020 that the world had entered a new United States–China bipolar international system. While China’s domestic stability and prosperity usually takes precedence for Beijing, and there are challenges to both on the horizon, when it comes to foreign policy, Beijing’s priority is managing its superpower rivalry with the United States. [Graham Allison](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/graham-allison?ref=merionwest.com) of Harvard University’s Kennedy School has suggested that this emerging superpower rivalry will lead to conflict more often than not. Allison turns to a passage in Greek historian [Thucydides’](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thucydides-Greek-historian?ref=merionwest.com) *History of the Peloponnesian War*, the fifth century B.C. conflict between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides [writes:](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D23&ref=merionwest.com) “The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable.” In his book, *Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?,* Allison defines the Thucydides trap (a term he coined in a 2012 [article](https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/thucydidess-trap-has-been-sprung-pacific?ref=merionwest.com)) as a tendency toward war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as the hegemon. Allison does not argue that war is always inevitable but, rather, that it is a strong and increasing possibility, [claiming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides%5FTrap?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=In%20Graham%20Allison's%20words%3A,the%20rule%2C%20not%20the%20exception.), “When a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power,” as China arguably threatens to displace the United States, “the resulting structural stress makes a violent clash the rule, not the exception.” Allison is not the only person to warn of a potential conflict. In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping [cautioned](https://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2015-05/08/content%5F20660129.htm?ref=merionwest.com), “We all need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Turkey Buzzard URL: https://www.merionwest.com/turkey-buzzard/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:42.000Z “Here on a narrow one-lane/overgrown with cattails and ivy/the circle of turkey buzzards draws closer.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Bianca Stone, What Is Otherwise Infinite URL: https://www.merionwest.com/bianca-stone-what-is-otherwise-infinite/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:39.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/FI1JwdfWUAAL_6m.jpeg) > “By that token, perhaps Bianca Stone is just the poet for our times. Her verses wrestle with a dirty angel, one that bites and kicks. There is no snow-white falcon in her pages. But she does not quit.” Bianca Stone is a visual artist and poet, best known until now for [the collection](https://www.amazon.com/Someone-Elses-Wedding-Bianca-Stone/dp/1935639749?ref=merionwest.com) *Someone Else’s Wedding Vows.* Her [2022 poetry book](https://www.amazon.com/What-Otherwise-Infinite-Bianca-Stone/dp/1951142977?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Written%20in%20four%20sections%20with,and%20tongues%2C%E2%80%9D%20writes%20Stone.) *What Is Otherwise Infinite* is a witty yet dolorous search for what life can mean when God feels distant or simply inaccessible, yet weirdly omnipresent. The book’s tone of backtalk by a chronic backslider caught in a cyclical mental Via Crucis could suggest that *Infinite* is governed by poststructuralist sass, in which there is no [transcendental signified](https://medium.com/@paulaustinmurphy2000/jacques-derridas-endless-one-upmanship-erasing-the-sign-b8d92be9ec0c?ref=merionwest.com), à la Derrida. Yet this is not the case. Stone’s poetic mindset here is captured in the cognitive dissonance existing between Neoplatonism, with its rationalist consciousness and demands for strict proof, and Scholasticism, the latter being faithful, secure, self-sure, yet beset by its own dogma. Stone is like an audiophile wanting the separation and clarity of digital media yet still craving the pops and crackles of analog sound. This is a chronicle of grit and mud. For as is the case with the great Christian mystics, Stone’s persona is governed by moods ranging from momentary ecstasy to tormented near-defeat, in this taxing, rewarding volume. This poetry’s penchant for bleak expression, as in “Yield,” feels strangely enlivening. “Get down on your knees and be thunderstruck with language. Start in like those fanatics you read about who stop eating and drinking and live on the breath of irises, heavy mist.” On the other hand, Stone’s extravagant and quirky sensibility provides a stream of images and similes that stray into comedy and dark wit, as in “Mary Magdalene,” in which Jesus’s favorite Girl Friday might just be trapped in an eternal temp job. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Grant Havers: The Conservative Tradition in Canada URL: https://www.merionwest.com/grant-havers-the-conservative-tradition-in-canada/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:44.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/canada_ottawa_parliament_ch_teau_laurier_river_park_modern_art-1051587.jpgd_.jpeg) > “Yes, as you mentioned, one of the most interesting findings of *Lament for a Nation*, which came out in 1965—it’s Grant’s most famous book—is that in Grant’s view, there’s really no such thing as American conservatism.” On December 21st, *Merion West* contributing writer Henry George and *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince were joined by [Grant Havers](https://www.twu.ca/profile/grant-havers?ref=merionwest.com) for a discussion about the latter’s writings and the topic of Canadian conservatism. Grant Havers is an associate editor at *VoegelinView* and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Trinity Western University in Canada. He is the author of [the 2009 book](https://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-Politics-Christian-Grant-Havers-ebook/dp/B004YLK4DY?ref%5F=ast%5Fauthor%5Fdp&ref=merionwest.com) *Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love* and [the 2013 book](https://www.amazon.com/Leo-Strauss-Anglo-American-Democracy-Conservative-ebook/dp/B07X1MZLMT?ref%5F=ast%5Fauthor%5Fdp&ref=merionwest.com) *Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy: A Conservative Critique* and has contributed to outlets such as *[The American Conservative](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/grant-havers/?ref=merionwest.com),* [*Chronicles*](https://chroniclesmagazine.org/remembering-the-right/remembering-george-grant/?ref=merionwest.com), and [*Modern Age*](https://isi.org/modern-age/a-christian-hegel-in-canada/?ref=merionwest.com). During the conversation, Professor Havers discusses the conservative Canadian tradition (yes, there is one, he argues); replies to Leo Strauss in defense of historicism; Marshall McLuhan; and the health of right-of-center politics in modern Canada. With the exception of the final question, which was posed by Mr. Prince, all of the questions were asked by Mr. George. *This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.* **I’ll start by asking you to talk about your personal background, your academic background, and what led you to where you are today.** I was born and raised in Alberta in Western Canada, which is really the cradle of conservative populism in the Canadian tradition. And I think that had an impact on me from the beginning of my life. I was also raised in a loosely Protestant tradition, which I think has stayed with me as an influence when it comes to certain values that I have. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Show and Tell URL: https://www.merionwest.com/show-and-tell/ Last updated: 2026-06-29T04:17:58.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### The Politicians Who Almost Never Were URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-politicians-who-almost-never-were/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:45.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-XGKB6nFP0NTzOV5-scaled-e1708628090617.jpeg) > “Although these no doubt play a role, even a cursory glance at recent election results (not to mention those of the past) makes clear that variables beyond the control of the candidate are often determinative, as well as that the best man does not necessarily win.” In 1980, just two years removed from his 1978 defeat to incumbent Congressman Frank Thompson by 24 points, Chris Smith, a 27-year-old employee of his family’s sporting goods business, [was elected to](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/10/nyregion/decade-of-rep-smith-fluke-to-tactician.html?ref=merionwest.com) the United States House of Representatives. Arguably running as just token opposition to the longtime incumbent in the 1980 rematch, [events](https://www.newsweek.com/events-dear-boy-events-143481?ref=merionwest.com) intervened. In February of that year, Congressman Thompson was one of the six members of Congress implicated in the [Abscam](https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/abscam?ref=merionwest.com) scandal. Along with three of the other implicated members of Congress, Congressman Thompson persisted in running for re-election despite his indictment. (Only one, Congressman John Jenrette, [would win re-election](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/03/weekinreview/the-nation-exit-mr-lederer.html?ref=merionwest.com).) In a nearly mirror image result from 1980, then-candidate Smith won with approximately 57% of the vote. (1) Given that Congressman Smith had little previous political experience and due to the long-standing Democratic tilt of the New Jersey district he now represented, the press at the time considered his victory a fluke and predicted that he would almost certainly be a one-term Congressman. To this point, following a debate with his 1982 re-election opponent, former New Jersey state Senate president Joseph P. Merlino, Merlino [allegedly said to Congressman Smith](https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/beat-it-kid/?ref=merionwest.com), “Beat it, kid…I’m talking to the press. When I get to Washington, look me up. I may give you a job as a page.” But, come November, Congressman Smith did the impossible for a second time and dispatched with Merlino, winning 53% of the vote. Today, Congressman Smith is the dean of New Jersey’s congressional delegation and has served longer than any member of Congress in the history of the state. Congressman Smith and [Congressman Hal Rogers of Kentucky](https://halrogers.house.gov/biography?ref=merionwest.com) are currently [the two longest-tenured members of the House](https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/who-are-the-longest-serving-members-of-congress/?ref=merionwest.com), and between January of 2019 and when fellow New Jersey Congressman Jeff Van Drew [switched parties to become a Republican](https://apnews.com/article/9c058c6123efdc75bc3919936309e6b5?ref=merionwest.com) in December of that year, Congressman Smith was the only Republican member of New Jersey’s congressional delegation. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Other Victims of the Surveillance State URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-other-victims-of-the-surveillance-state/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:46.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/pexels-photo-169978.jpeg) > “No doubt \[Araya\] Baker’s experience is legitimate, and, of course, it is true that state surveillance is a very serious problem, but paranoid delusions are real, too.” The surveillance state is a threat to everyone in a free country. But that does not mean that it impacts everyone in the same way. For some, state surveillance may provide a welcoming sense of security. For others—activists, whistleblowers, libertarians, and the like—the surveillance state is not only the ultimate villain; it also directly threatens their way of life and their basic sense of freedom. Then there is a third group: the paranoid, the neurotic, and the delusional. For these individuals, the surveillance state does not even need to exist in reality; its purported or hypothetical existence is enough to be utterly life-deranging. When discussing the issue of surveillance, this third group is invariably ignored, which inadvertently feeds into delusional beliefs, causing unnecessary harm to a delicate group in society. It is important to be aware that we live in some kind of a surveillance state, but it is equally important for media outlets to realize that their coverage of this topic is contributing to rising levels of paranoia in our society. According to [Daniel Freeman](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/484678?ref=merionwest.com), the author of [the 2008 book](https://www.amazon.com/Paranoia-21st-Century-Daniel-Freeman/dp/0199237506?ref=merionwest.com) *Paranoia: the 21st Century Fear*, “Over-reporting of dangers fosters a culture of paranoia…The more something is repeated, and the more graphic and emotional it is, the greater the impression it makes upon us.” Paranoia in our culture has been [on the rise](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/are-they-out-get-you-paranoia-rise-flna1c9466256?ref=merionwest.com) for a while. Some researchers believe that [as many as 1 in 6 people](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25734251-300-the-evolutionary-origin-of-paranoia-and-why-it-is-becoming-more-common/?ref=merionwest.com) fall somewhere on a paranoia spectrum. Consider how surveillance is described by mainstream outlets. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [warns that the](https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/nsa-surveillance?ref=merionwest.com) government “operates in near-total secrecy,” wielding “unchecked power” to “spy” on our phone calls, text messages, emails, and Internet activity. According to *[Vice](https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjvmpv/eyes-everywhere-congress-is-about-to-vote-to-expand-mass-surveillance-of-americans-experts-warn?ref=merionwest.com)*, the government is actively trying to expand mass surveillance until there are “eyes everywhere.” A recent article in *[Slate](https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/ai-mass-spying-internet-surveillance.html?ref=merionwest.com)* ups the threat even further, arguing that while the Internet brought about mass surveillance, “AI will enable mass spying.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Smart Fish Don’t Bite URL: https://www.merionwest.com/smart-fish-dont-bite/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T16:57:31.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Social Justice Segregationism: Is Separate More Equal After All? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/social-justice-segregationism-is-separate-more-equal-after-all/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:41.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/pexels-photo-256491.jpeg) > “These claims put forward by critical social justice-oriented scholars and educationists all lead to the same conclusion: educational justice for black and OC students begins with schools or classrooms segregated by race and ethnicity.” Historically, white people have been responsible for neighborhood and school segregation. The story is well-known and oft-told: Jim Crow laws, redlining, Southern “Massive Resistance,” discriminatory zoning, and white flight. All of this is true. Although some may add nuances [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/opinion/redlining-systemic-racism.html?ref=merionwest.com) and [there](https://www.city-journal.org/article/what-drove-white-flight?ref=merionwest.com), no one who knows their history would argue otherwise. It is a commonplace lament today that seven decades after the Supreme Court ended school segregation in [*Brown v. Board of Education*](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/brown-v-board-of-education?ref=merionwest.com), and nearly 60 years since [the Fair Housing Act](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fair-Housing-Act?ref=merionwest.com) outlawed redlining, neighborhoods and schools remain segregated. The various reasons given for this persistence—legacies of Jim Crow, covert racism, persistence of discriminatory zoning, etc.—all boil down again to a single cause: white people. It is white people who cluster in racially homogeneous neighborhoods; it is white people who send their children to racially homogeneous schools; and it is white people who leverage their political clout to block policies that promote integration by race and class. For the sake of argument, let us assume that this is also true. Segregation in neighborhoods and schools persists today because of the covertly racist individual decisions and collective political action of white people up to the present day. My question is: Do the social justice-minded scholars, activists, educators, and pundits who ritually condemn the segregative consequences of decisions and actions taken by white people genuinely object to racial segregation itself? I have my doubts. Most of what I hear from those who claim to speak for black and of-color people (OCPs) has strong segregative implications. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Sophistry of the New Right Activism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-sophistry-of-the-new-right-activism/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:47.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-8ZtUD3pSCf5Nem-scaled-e1708025762216.jpeg) > “Rufo’s ‘New Right Activism’ is not the prescription of one who, following Socrates, seeks to be virtuous, but rather one who, following Faust, sacrifices his soul to achieve victory.” It is perhaps the most banal of truisms that politics is not about truth but, rather, about narrative. In the world of politics, it is easy to be cynical about the polemics of politicians, the judgment of journalists, and the antics of activists, grifters, hucksters, and talking heads who are in the game of spin. But in the conspiracy-mongering cesspool of the postmodern Right, where *any* information from “Establishment” figures or institutions is treated as just another mendacious language game of the Left that deserves insurmountable suspicion, scorn, and rebuke, the distinction between truth and narrative increasingly seems to have been lost altogether. With former President Donald Trump and *[bullshit](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit?ref=merionwest.com)* at the helm of the Republican Party, the postmodern Right has devolved into naked sophistry. When former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy [posted](https://twitter.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1747127549312766416?ref=merionwest.com) on X on January 16th, after suspending his campaign, that his “entire campaign is about speaking the TRUTH,” as if capitalizing “truth” made it a truer statement, it was easy enough to roll one’s eyes and chalk it up to spin. But this was from a man who [seems to have never met a conspiracy theory he did not like](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/05/vivek-ramaswamy-conspiracy-theories-iowa/?ref=merionwest.com), no matter how often it has been debunked, such as the idea that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hatched the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in order to entrap the perpetrators, or the absurd allegation that January 6th was an “inside job.” After recently being [asked](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0ZN0I8-t-0&ref=merionwest.com) in Iowa about 5,000 pedophiles in the Department of Defense whom President Trump supposedly arrested in 2019, Ramaswamy did not miss a beat, responding that they need to be held accountable without a flinch of doubt that the assertion was true. Most recently, he has felt right at home [engaging in](https://x.com/VivekGRamaswamy/status/1751944730114498838?s=20&ref=merionwest.com) “some wild speculation” that pop icon Taylor Swift [is](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/31/first-thing-us-rightwing-conspiracy-theory-claims-taylor-swift-is-an-election-psyop?ref=merionwest.com) being used as a psy-op to sway the upcoming presidential election. The right-wing conspiracy theorist par excellence, Alex Jones, [has even dubbed](https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/alex-jones-calls-vivek-ramaswamy-alex-jones-20?ref=merionwest.com) Ramaswamy “Alex Jones 2.0.” For Ramaswamy, it has never been about the truth. It has always been about winning. It is not winning the race, of course, since he was trounced in Iowa. It is about winning praise from a sufficiently large audience that he should come to the attention of people who will advance his brand. Branding makes sense for a man with a billion dollars and an entrepreneurial background, and it does not seem a stretch to infer, especially after his fawning endorsement of President Trump, that he has been aiming for Vice President or a Cabinet position all along, assuming President Trump wins the general election. If he has to sacrifice “TRUTH” on the altar of bull—, the national limelight is worth it. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Journey Through Mountains URL: https://www.merionwest.com/journey-through-mountains/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:16.000Z “So many stars and mountains, crests and sky,/Are we not fools to think that we can know/What underlies such intricate designs?” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Lisa Olstein’s Dream Apartment URL: https://www.merionwest.com/lisa-olsteins-dream-apartment/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Dream-Apartment-cover-e1708025804660.jpeg) (Copper Canyon Press) > “The Dream Apartment is no Barbie’s Dream House. It is rather an abode of opaque and backlit, sometimes hard-edged reverie.” W.B. Yeats [wrote that](https://polyarchive.com/william-butler-yeats-on-poetry/?ref=merionwest.com) “we make out of the quarrels with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.” In *[Dream Apartment](https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/dream-apartment-by-lisa-olstein?ref=merionwest.com),* her 2023 book of poetry from Copper Canyon Press, Lisa Olstein does exactly this. Our country breathes an atmosphere of ceaseless rhetoric, in which the distillation of dirt-stained thought into a purer language feels ever more difficult, if not impossible. We are buried in words, most of them rhetorical. That fact is a renewed call to the importance of poetics to cleanse the ear, thus the mind. Strangely, too many poets believe their first duty is to say something significant in the public sphere, specifically pronouncements that are social, racial, ethnic, gender-relevant, political, thus important and in that “quarrel,” the status of words immediately gets degraded to a mere vehicle, making poetry like every other kind of writing, essentially rhetoric broken into lines and studded with images as decoys. The steely sharp scythe of poetry gets dulled to a blunt instrument. Or it becomes the equivalent of downloading stock photographic images from Google and uploading them to your document. If that rhetorical impulse led to the heroic couplets of [Pope](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44892/eloisa-to-abelard?ref=merionwest.com), or the epic stanzas of Derek Walcott’s *[Omeros](https://allpoetry.com/poem/14327961-From--Omeros--by-Derek-Walcott?ref=merionwest.com),* one might agree more easily to this declamatory urge. These days, however, lyric mode is being dragooned too often into service for grand, noble themes of identity and social consciousness far beyond its innate capacity for *how* to represent a thing. Poets seem more concerned with words pointing straight to what they represent. Further, every image is automatically conscripted into service as a metaphor. It is hard to tell the difference between a blackbird on the wing and a drone sent to destroy a housing complex. Here is where the Romantics had it right, in their focus on lyric poetry as a moment of vivid perception, shimmering with polyvalent detail. No amount of cerebral experimentation has changed that necessary aspect of lyric. We go to poetry to experience first, think after. Into this surfeit of mind-numbing meaning comes Olstein, clear eyed, to restore the dignity of the quarrel with oneself. Olstein is a nimble post-modernist, afraid neither of the couplet nor the broken line on a scattershot page. Clarity and half-meaning both have their prerogatives in her poetry. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “Godmother of Consumer-Driven Healthcare”: An Interview with Regina Herzlinger URL: https://www.merionwest.com/godmother-of-consumer-driven-healthcare-an-interview-with-regina-herzlinger/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:43.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/79175965_10157210492133172_6060078647111319552_n.jpg) > “For example, with a container of yogurt, I know its price, calories, calcium content, and vitamin content. But if I need a hip replacement, I have no data to judge the quality of the physician, hospital, or other sites where the surgery might be performed.” On February 2nd, *Merion West’s* Henri Mattila interviewed Harvard Business School (HBS)’s Regina E. Herzlinger, who serves as the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration. Notably, she was the first woman to serve as chair or earn tenure at the school. Active in formulating national policy, Professor Herzlinger drafted Senator John McCain’s presidential healthcare platform and has also consulted for both the United States Congress and the President’s office on healthcare policy. She established the HBS Health Care Initiative and received the inaugural HBS Student Association Faculty Award for her excellence in accounting education. Among numerous private sector engagements, Professor Herzlinger co-founded two firms in medical technology and served on several corporate boards, including Cardinal Health and John Deere. Her [new book](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=60926&ref=merionwest.com) *Innovating in Healthcare: Creating Breakthrough Services, Products, and Business Models* will be available later this year. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Mihai Nadin: Disrupter of Science URL: https://www.merionwest.com/mihai-nadin-disrupter-of-science/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:44.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/BW-headshot.jpg) (Mihai Nadin) > “\[My book seeks to\] disrupt science in the sense that it gets us away from the myth that doing more physics and chemistry will be the answer to understanding the living and, in particular, the human being.” On January 15th, [Dr. Mihai Nadin](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sz6WPrcAAAAJ&hl=en&ref=merionwest.com), an emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Texas at Dallas, joined *Merion West* contributing editor Jonathan Church for a discussion about Dr. Nadin’s new book *[Disrupt Science: The Future Matters](https://www.amazon.com/Disrupt-Science-Matters-Mihai-Nadin/dp/3031439562/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=38UKZKSNWEIXD&keywords=disrupt+science&qid=1706456228&sprefix=disrupt+scien%2Caps%2C193&sr=8-1&ufe=app%5Fdo%3Aamzn1.fos.f5122f16-c3e8-4386-bf32-63e904010ad0&ref=merionwest.com)* and the nature of what he calls anticipatory systems. Dr. Nadin is widely revered as the father of anticipatory systems in computing. Throughout his interdisciplinary career, he has written more than 30 books and over 200 academic papers in science and philosophy. Formerly a director of [the Institute for Research in Anticipatory Systems](http://www.anteinstitute.org/?ref=merionwest.com) at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dr. Nadin’s primary research focus is on the nature of these anticipatory systems. In *Disrupt Science*, Dr. Nadin assesses many of our most pressing societal problems such as the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and artificial intelligence, while advocating for the cultivation of what he calls “an anticipatory mindset.” Dr. Nadin argues that an anticipatory mindset overcomes the shortcomings of a deterministic worldview that one finds in mechanistic science, as opposed to in biological science. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. **Thank you for joining me today, Dr. Nadin. To get started, how would you summarize the nature of anticipatory systems?** Anticipatory systems are characteristic of the living. There is no stone or anything that is not alive that performs in an anticipatory manner. The living—in order to survive—have to be anticipatory. For me, anticipation is definitory of life. Life, in order to survive, in order to exist, has to be anticipatory. Why? Because we live in a world that is in continuous change. And, in order to adapt to the change—in order to be able to survive in a changing world—one has to, as a living entity, deal with possible futures. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Burma URL: https://www.merionwest.com/burma/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T02:49:56.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Daniel A. Cox: Taking the Pulse of Gen Z URL: https://www.merionwest.com/daniel-a-cox-taking-the-pulse-of-gen-z/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:45.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/28083375162_ded8c8ecc3_b.jpg) (Creative Commons) > “One of the really significant differences in terms of how young people are being raised today and their formative and teens years and previous generations is how slowly they’re reaching major milestones, such as getting married \[and\] owning a home, the sort of signs of adulthood…” On January 29th, [Daniel A. Cox](https://www.aei.org/profile/daniel-a-cox/?ref=merionwest.com), the Director of the Survey Center on American Life and a Senior Fellow in Polling and Public Opinion at the American Enterprise Institute, joined *Merion West* editor-in-chief [Erich J. Prince](https://www.merionwest.com/author/erichjprince/) to discuss the work his center is doing, particularly as it pertains to surveying and seeking to understand Generation Z. Generation Z, which typically refers to those born after 1996 and up to the early 2010s, has been observed to possess key difference from preceding generations, including when it comes to engagement with [risky behaviors](https://twitter.com/robkhenderson/status/1424782447540154379?lang=en&ref=merionwest.com), [dating](https://www.aei.org/podcast/dr-daniel-cox-on-dating-religion-and-civic-health/?ref=merionwest.com), [politics](https://www.aei.org/articles/the-war-within-gen-z/?ref=merionwest.com), and, of course, [social media use](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/?ref=merionwest.com). Dr. Cox earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in American government from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and has been a frequent commentator in the press, including at outlets such as [*FiveThirtyEight*](https://fivethirtyeight.com/contributors/daniel-cox/?ref=merionwest.com) and *Business Insider*. He also [frequently posts on X about](https://twitter.com/dcoxpolls?ref=merionwest.com) the trends his center is observing. In their conversation, Dr. Cox and Mr. Prince discuss the political gender gap within Generation Z, including the observed trend of young men becoming more conservative and young women becoming more liberal; what Dr. Cox [calls](https://www.americansurveycenter.org/newsletter/americas-friendship-recession-is-weakening-civic-life/?ref=merionwest.com) “the friendship recession”; and the impact of social media on the development of young people. This interview appears in video form: _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### On the Redundancy of the Terms “Right” and “Left” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/on-the-redundancy-of-the-terms-right-and-left/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:48.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/14992.jpg.webp) (The opening of the Estates-General of 1789\. Isidore-Stanislas Helman/Public Domain) > “Is there anyone who can give a clear definition of Leftist or Rightist doctrine with which even half of those who consider themselves to be on the Left or the Right would agree? I am inclined to doubt it…” A few centuries ago, Europe was afflicted by religious conflicts of such intensity that they culminated in a struggle—known to history as the [Thirty Years’ War](https://www.worldhistory.org/Thirty%5FYears'%5FWar/?ref=merionwest.com)—in which around a third of the inhabitants of its central region were killed. Subsequently, everyone agreed that the only solution to the trouble was for each state to recognize the rights of other states to have their own religion, and the [Treaty of Westphalia](https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0073.xml?ref=merionwest.com) was signed. Pretty soon, the notion of a life-and-death struggle for the imposition of one or the other version of the same religion began to seem absurd. Even to an 18th century observer like [Voltaire](https://homepages.uc.edu/~martinj/French/Essai%20sur%20les%20Moeurs.pdf?ref=merionwest.com), the European humanity of the 17th century appeared not only barbaric but certifiably insane. Apart from a few refractory places like Ireland, the great division between Catholicism and Protestantism vanished as a serious issue—in the political realm, at least—without the victory of one over the other. As it slowly passed, however, a new, secular species of political division emerged. The French Revolution gave birth to the modern West and at the same time to its ur-conflict: Left versus Right. It did so by virtue of the utterly contingent fact that the factions which [sat in the left and right-wings](https://www.history.com/news/how-did-the-political-labels-left-wing-and-right-wing-originate?ref=merionwest.com) of the chamber in the French National Assembly took to calling themselves “the Left” and “the Right.” Ever since, people in the West have learned to define themselves, moderately or emphatically, by which of the two camps they fall into. In the United Kingdom, for instance, it is common for people to say things like, “I’ll never vote \[for one or the other of the main parties\],” simply because of the perception that one is the voice of the Left and the other of the Right. The division is not of great consequence in times of political stability, when sanity generally prevails over ideology. However, in troubled times, when economic instability or global conflicts begin to press on our day-to-day lives, the emotional appeal of the two camps increases. During such periods, people of the emphatic frame of mind seek answers from their idols on the Left or the Right—Vladimir Lenin or Benito Mussolini; former Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn or former President Donald Trump (tragedy really does repeat itself as farce). The more moderate sort of Leftist or Rightist then begins to question whether they really have a political home, and are too tortured by the idea of what they have lost to realize that they never needed one. This happened after the September 11th attacks when the emphatic Leftists gravitated toward anti-Western groups like [A.N.S.W.E.R.](https://www.answercoalition.org/?ref=merionwest.com) and [the Stop the War Coalition](https://www.stopwar.org.uk/?ref=merionwest.com). More sensible people, who continued to identify with *the* Left but did not wish to be associated with *that* Left wrote books about their disillusionment with titles like [*What’s Left?*](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/jan/28/politicsphilosophyandsociety.iraq?ref=merionwest.com) (Nick Cohen) or [*The Fallout*](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/02/politics?ref=merionwest.com) (Andrew Anthony). Or, otherwise, they drafted manifestos, like [the Euston Manifesto](http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism%5Fand%5Fwar/Euston.htm?ref=merionwest.com) of the British Marxist and long-time contributor to the *New Left Review*, Norman Geras, to clarify that *their* Left was the “anti-totalitarian Left.” Others of the liberal-Left persuasion, such as the American public intellectual Sam Harris, [took to using the term](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J70pBCj8krA&ref=merionwest.com) “the regressive Left,” so as to distinguish their mild, Democrat-voting version of Leftism from that advanced by what has increasingly come to be known as the [“Woke Left.”](https://theconversation.com/left-is-not-woke-a-philosophers-plea-for-universalism-and-progress-is-a-frustrating-polemic-219202?ref=merionwest.com) The same thing happened on the “Right” when then-candidate Trump rose in the Republican Party and saner politicians who thought of themselves as paragons of an old-fashioned Right, like [former Governor Mitt Romney](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/10/22/mitt-romney-republican-donald-trump-failure-character/71281845007/?ref=merionwest.com) and [Senator John McCain](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/mccain-message-trump/index.html?ref=merionwest.com), joined conservative commentator [Andrew Sullivan](https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/12/leaving-the-right/193506/?ref=merionwest.com) in the political wilderness, while chancers such as Steve Bannon set about re-defining what was meant by “right-wing.” Lately, in light of the [pogrom-supporting faction](https://quillette.com/2023/11/28/why-intersectional-leftists-defend-hamas/?ref=merionwest.com) of the Left which has been making a vulgar exhibition of itself since October 7th, a younger generation of moderate and Jewish “Leftists” are questioning where [they belong](https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-781583?ref=merionwest.com). Indeed, the struggle for the soul of the American Left can be traced back to [Sidney Hook’s](https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/studies-in-intelligence/archives/vol-38-no-5/origins-of-the-congress-for-cultural-freedom-1949-1950/?ref=merionwest.com) polemics against the Soviet sympathizing Left in the 1940s and 1950s. At that time, the “Right,” too, was going through a [similar tribulation](https://www.history.com/news/dwight-eisenhower-joseph-mccarthy-red-scare?ref=merionwest.com). Was it best represented by its presidential candidate, General Eisenhower, or the inebriated demagogue Joseph McCarthy—the Trump of his time—for whom Eisenhower was nothing but a closet communist? The above only begins to touch on the difficulties any historian of the Left or the Right must encounter if they aim to discover the real meaning of these factions. Is the political Right, for instance, best represented by the reactionary conservatives like [Edmund Burke](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nq925?ref=merionwest.com) and [François-René de Chateaubriand](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francois-Auguste-Rene-vicomte-de-Chateaubriand?ref=merionwest.com), who insisted on turning back or arresting the changes pulling the world away from the old feudal order and toward the acquisitive and capitalistic society that developed in the 19th century? Or is it to be represented by the economic liberals of that age, who believed that the world would be liberated by free trade and free markets? Certainly, today, free-market fanatics, or libertarians, are strongly associated with the political Right. Such has been the case since the emergence of the Austrian neo-liberal school of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. But in the age of the [Corn Laws](https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/326/petitions-committee/news/99040/petitions-and-the-corn-laws/?ref=merionwest.com) such tendencies were decried by those who thought of themselves as being on the Right as socially corrosive radicalism. It is true that Racialism, as developed by people like Houston Stewart Chamberlain and taken up by Adolf Hitler, is strongly associated with a political far-Right. Yet Nazism was neither conservative nor economically liberal; it was a revolutionary movement with an economic regime of [autarky](https://www.richardjevans.com/lectures/autarky-fantasy-reality/?ref=merionwest.com), barter, conscripted and billeted labor, workers’ passports and organized leisure time. Progressively, it resembled the “Leftist” [Bolshevist](https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/OrwellGeorge-Review-Bordenau-1940.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) one it so fervently claimed to be resisting. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### To Give Ukrainians Justice, Look to Nuremberg URL: https://www.merionwest.com/to-give-ukrainians-justice-look-to-nuremberg/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:49.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/16777-1000x745-1.jpg) (The Nuremberg Trials) > “While allies should provide Ukraine with the resources needed to push as far toward the Russian border as possible, they should also start to think about post-war justice. Resolving the war will involve more than just agreeing to where lines are drawn on a map.” In the spring of 2024, both Ukrainian and Russian forces will push to break their current strategic deadlock. In war, gains and losses of momentum and morale can quickly turn small victories into routs, but in the type of attritional warfare happening in Ukraine, battles are mostly won by the side with superior production and logistics of munitions. [Russia has turned its economy into a war machine](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-27/russia-s-breakneck-military-buildup-bolsters-sanctioned-economy?leadSource=uverify%2520wall&ref=merionwest.com), and Ukraine’s allies need to match Russian arms production, while continuing to put pressure on technology choke points in Russia’s production chain through sanctions and embargoes. While allies should provide Ukraine with the resources needed to push as far toward the Russian border as possible, they should also start to think about post-war justice. Resolving the war will involve more than just agreeing to where lines are drawn on a map. The desire for revenge must be suppressed, but justice and reparations are needed for the victims. How one war ends can define how the next one starts. During the Second World War, the Allies, understanding the need for justice, convened a [War Crimes Commission](https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1945-01-17/debates/f8ee0ac3-f637-4059-9f35-282debc20172/UnitedNationsWarCrimesCommission?ref=merionwest.com) two years before the war ended. It decided justice would be delivered by a series of trials in the German city of Nuremberg, under new laws. Valeriia Melnyk, Head of the Division for International Cooperation within the [Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office](https://www.gp.gov.ua/?ref=merionwest.com), told me in a recent interview that the laws that emerged from Nuremberg could provide the model for Ukraine. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Taking a Second Look at Nikki Haley URL: https://www.merionwest.com/taking-a-second-look-at-nikki-haley/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:46.000Z ![(Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley speaking with attendees at the Republican Jewish Coalition's 2023 Annual Leadership Summit at the Venetian Convention & Expo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada/Gage Skidmore)](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Nikki_Haley_53299196876.jpg) > “It is true that one of the most important rules in politics is that ‘You can’t lose your base,’ but it is also true that in order to win competitive elections, broadening one’s base is essential, and Ambassador Haley might be able to accomplish that.” In December of 2019, well before the 2020 presidential election and a few weeks before then-President Donald Trump [achieved his highest Gallup net approval rating](https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Line%20graph.,during%20his%20presidency%20was%2041%.) of his presidency following [his 2020 State of the Union Address](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNECVmfJtxc&ref=merionwest.com) and acquittal at his first Senate impeachment trial, I authored [a media criticism column titled](https://www.mediavillage.com/article/the-next-media-darling-of-presidential-politics-nikki-haley/?ref=merionwest.com) “The Next Media Darling of Presidential Politics: Nikki Haley,” anticipating a future Haley presidential candidacy accompanied by relatively warm media coverage, even from the generally left-of-center national press. It was obvious that the former Ambassador to the United Nations and former Governor of South Carolina “harbored,” as they say, presidential ambitions. That much was clear. But somewhat more surprisingly, a national press typically quite hostile to Republican candidates held its fire—not quite embracing her, of course, but refraining from the degree of character assassination typically aimed at Republican officeholders with national aspirations. (1) To her critics from the Right, this treatment on the part of the press is proof of her deep-seated left-leaning sympathies and a potential future reality that should she be elected President of the United States, she would behave as a Republican-lite, [a member of the alleged](https://twitter.com/DonWildmanJR/status/1750190417101086925?ref=merionwest.com) “uniparty political establishment” that dominates Washington, D.C. and prevents conservative principles promised on the campaign trail from becoming policy. Former President Donald Trump, according to most of those holding this view, is the only person capable of bridging this divide; even Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, arguably the most effective chief executive in recent memory, falls short. (I have heard from certain hardcore backers of President Trump’s that Governor DeSantis is secretly a Democrat, [a plant](https://twitter.com/DaveCombs72/status/1749599960067182789?ref=merionwest.com), and the like.) A vote for Ambassador Haley is a vote for the deep state and for war, [we are told](https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1749237886657139031?ref=merionwest.com). Now, there is little doubt in my mind that former President Trump would be more effective when it comes to implementing prized policy commitments favored by conservatives, particularly of the America First variety, than would Ambassador Haley. And, so there is no confusion, I favored actions such as President Trump [withdrawing from the](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/29/us-withdrawing-from-who-289799?ref=merionwest.com) World Health Organization, [playing hardball with](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1K12BW/?ref=merionwest.com) North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states, and [reconsidering aspects of](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/tpp-trump-trade-nafta.html?ref=merionwest.com) American trade policy, moves that a President Haley would be unlikely to favor. (Differing [from some of his detractors on the Right](https://twitter.com/emeriticus/status/1347020833559085058?ref=merionwest.com), I consider President Trump to have been a reasonably effective President of the United States, especially considering the fact that he was under relentless investigations, impeachment proceedings, and the like throughout his entire presidency.) _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “The Great Awokening” and Christianity URL: https://www.merionwest.com/christianity-secularists-and-the-great-awokening/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:32:01.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/blm-scaled-1.jpeg) > “Just as wokeness has eroded traditional liberal values like free speech, freedom of thought, merit, and individualism at an institutional level, it has also eroded traditional Christian doctrine within churches, seminaries, and Christian publications.” The late 2010s and early 2020s witnessed what many cultural commentators [have dubbed](https://unherd.com/thepost/where-did-the-great-awokening-come-from/?ref=merionwest.com) “the Great Awokening.” Entertainment, sports, politics, and the corporate sphere were suddenly suffused with the language of social justice and critical theory. Talk show hosts [scrambled to interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dteOQPzc%5Fso&ref=merionwest.com) newly-minted luminaries such as Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi. “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” [turned into a](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/as-diversity-equity--inclusion-hits-9-3-billion-in-global-spending-watch-out-for-these-key-trends-in-2022--301487159.html?ref=merionwest.com) multi-billion dollar industry. Every facet of public life was shaped by new, overarching narratives of privilege and oppression. However, secular people may not realize that the Great Awokening shook the religious as well as the non-religious world. As evangelical Christians, we have seen the language, ideas, and overall outlook of social justice seep into the church. Just as wokeness has eroded traditional liberal values like free speech, freedom of thought, merit, and individualism at an institutional level, it has also eroded traditional Christian doctrine within churches, seminaries, and Christian publications. In [our recent book](https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Dilemma-Theories-Justice-Ideology%5FImplications/dp/073698870X?ref=merionwest.com) *Critical Dilemma,* we spoke primarily to Christians, showing how the ideas at the heart of wokeness (or what we call “contemporary critical theory”) are fundamentally incompatible with Christianity. That said, we did not write our book for Christians alone. In this essay, we would like to make the case that it is crucial for non-Christians to engage with explicitly Christian analyses of contemporary critical theory, for multiple reasons. First, [roughly two-thirds of the population](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-religious-composition-has-changed-in-recent-decades/?ref=merionwest.com) of the United States identifies as Christian, and approximately one quarter identifies as “born-again” or “evangelical” Christian. Although self-identification is a poor gauge for people’s actual beliefs or behavior, it does show just how influential Christianity has been in shaping our culture historically. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The Age of Unnecessarily Complicated Academic Writing Is Over URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-age-of-unnecessarily-complicated-academic-writing-is-over/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:51.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/pexels-photo-5009083.jpeg) > “The fact is that effective communication is hard. Clear writing is hard. For the typical undergraduate—and no doubt the typical academic scholar or scientist—it is easier to string together vague buzzwords in meandering sentences than it is to say something clearly and concisely.” Academia has failed in many respects. It has become too expensive, too ideological, and, frankly, it produces too much [useless or misleading research](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/how-much-of-modern-academia-is-waste?ref=merionwest.com). Perhaps most egregiously, academia has even failed at its most basic task: to teach students to write and communicate effectively. Higher education encourages students to favor jargon-heavy, needlessly complex prose over clear language. The consequence is a particular type of bad writing [described by Steven Pinker](https://www.chronicle.com/article/why-academics-stink-at-writing/?ref=merionwest.com) as “highfalutin gobbledygook.” Pinker and other prominent intellectuals have long griped about this bad writing problem in academia. Even [Albert Einstein](https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/how-einstein-can-help-you-improve-your-writing-skills-9496c23d24d8?ref=merionwest.com) advocated for clear writing over the needlessly complex, declaring, “If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough.” Nevertheless, academia is so accustomed to highfalutin gobbledygook, it is doubtful anything short of a miracle could ever fix the problem. Fortunately, we live in the era of miracles—technological miracles, at any rate. Unless there is some genuine value to needlessly complex writing in academia, it seems inevitable that ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence (AI) tools will eliminate incomprehensible academic papers. The benefits of this will not only save students from pumping out incoherent slop in the name of higher learning; it will also potentially help to improve academia’s terrible reputation with the public. In the mid-2010s, I worked as an editor for FindLaw. The writers under my purview were all lawyers, which generally meant that they were accomplished communicators. But no matter their competence level, I insisted that they periodically pass their writing through the [Hemingway Editor](https://hemingwayapp.com/?ref=merionwest.com) before submitting. This simple web-based application provides a readability score (e.g., “Grade 6”) and highlights in red any sentence that is overly complex. If a writer finds that his prose is over Grade 8 and has more than a few red-highlighted sentences, then generally it is too complex for lay readers and needs editing. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Death of the Polar Explorers URL: https://www.merionwest.com/death-of-the-polar-explorers/ Last updated: 2026-09-07T02:49:32.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Young Voters Do Not Belong Inevitably to the Left URL: https://www.merionwest.com/young-voters-do-not-inevitably-belong-to-the-left/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T17:25:47.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/CDQK4Z2AKDMQMGRF2ZZ2U3VL5E.jpeg) (Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images) > “However, outside of the contemporary United States and United Kingdom, a look at the composition of certain right-of-center political movements casts doubt on the reflexive association many hold between young people and voting for the Left.” On the evening of November 19th, not long after the polls had closed, President-elect of Argentina Javier Milei [bounced across a stage](https://twitter.com/upuknews1/status/1726550597720301662?ref=merionwest.com) in front of cheering supporters, having just been decidedly elected President of Argentina. It was a result not without its ups and downs in the months prior. The future President of Argentina, then a National Deputy for the City of Buenos Aires who previously enjoyed a colorful career in television commentary, music, and soccer, unexpectedly placed first in the primary elections in August. He was then favored going into the first round of the Argentine general election on October 22nd. However, as returns came in that night, it was clear that Milei had fallen well short of expectations and [found himself trailing](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-heads-polls-grip-fierce-economic-crisis-2023-10-22/?ref=merionwest.com) Minister of Economy Sergio Massa, whose candidacy many had dismissed given Massa’s role in a [deeply unpopular](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1367447/public-opinion-president-alberto-fernandez-argetina/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=Public%20opinion%20on%20President%20Alberto%20Fernandez%20in%20Argentina%202022&text=From%20October%20to%20November%202022,moderate%20disapproval%20with%2016%20percent.) administration marked by profound economic failures, most notably [skyrocketing inflation](https://tradingeconomics.com/argentina/inflation-cpi?ref=merionwest.com). Fortunately for Milei, Massa’s margin of victory on the evening of the 22nd was not large enough to stave off a runoff. (Milei and his allies [alleged voter fraud](https://www.ft.com/content/30d7654a-dd0e-470d-8320-bc6158ca77da?ref=merionwest.com) following the first round.) The media narrative began to shift in the time leading up to the November 19th final round as many in the press and in the Argentine political establishment began to express a degree of relief, believing that they might be spared a Milei presidency and, thus, the potential for a rather dramatic change from the Argentine status quo. But that was not to be, and within a short while of the voting’s conclusion in that final round, it became clear that Milei had won a commanding victory over Massa, [defeating him by a](https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/20/far-right-populist-javier-milei-becomes-argentinas-new-president?ref=merionwest.com) margin of 55.69% to 44.31%, qualifying the result in the minds of many observers as a “landslide” victory. Massa [won only three](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/after-electing-right-wing-populist-milei-as-president-argentina-faces-uncharted-path?ref=merionwest.com) of the country’s 23 provinces, and in provinces such as Santa Fe, home to the city of Rosario, which [has been plagued by](https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/rosario-a-city-under-threat-from-argentinas-murderous-drug-gangs.phtml?ref=merionwest.com) gang violence and elevated crime rates, President Milei’s margin of victory was remarkable. President Milei also narrowly won the City of Buenos Aires despite losing—albeit barely—Buenos Aires Province. (In Latin America, unlike [in the United States,](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/urban-suburban-and-rural-residents-views-on-key-social-and-political-issues/?ref=merionwest.com) those living in cities have been known [to](https://www.tse.gob.sv/2019/escrutinio-final/presidencial/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) [back](https://www.tse.gob.sv/2019/escrutinio-final/presidencial/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) conservative political parties and candidates at a higher rate than those living in rural areas, depending on the country.) Many of President Milei’s policy proposals, such as completely [doing away with](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/14/javier-milei-argentine-presidential-candidate-wants-to-abolish-central-bank.html?ref=merionwest.com) the Central Bank of Argentina and eliminating entire departments of the government, appear radical, as does his take-no-prisoners approach to rhetoric, denouncing “collectivists” [in language that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO%5FL2HsfVgg&embeds%5Freferring%5Feuri=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2F&source%5Fve%5Fpath=MjM4NTE&feature=emb%5Ftitle&ref=merionwest.com) few serious candidates for political office in the United States ever would. (With that said, President Joe Biden’s chest-thumping about [taking his chief political rival](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UilzDRQXES4&ref=merionwest.com) “behind the gym” is hardly “presidential.”) But President Milei’s approach reflects the dire situation in which Argentina finds itself, and this is why so many Argentines, long accustomed to voting for Peronists, demanded a starkly different course for the country. (1) (This was also perhaps exacerbated by the disappointment of [Mauricio Macri’s](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mauricio-Macri?ref=merionwest.com) nominally right-of-center presidency from 2015 to 2019.) When inflation [has soared by about 120%](https://www.npr.org/2023/10/12/1205357408/in-argentina-everyone-is-living-through-record-inflation-and-political-upheaval?ref=merionwest.com); approximately 40% of the population in a highly educated and resource-rich country lives in poverty; and an entire generation of youth sees no future in a country, one, I suppose, is open to trying something new—even dramatically new. This is all the more the case for those who must have some sense that things could be otherwise, being reminded from time to time that they live in a nation that around the time of World War I [had a similar per capita income to Switzerland and](https://latinaer.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40503-019-0076-2?ref=merionwest.com) in the early to mid part of the 20th century was on a similar economic trajectory to Australia and Canada. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Collective Punishment for Gaza? No. Collateral Damage? Unfortunately, Yes URL: https://www.merionwest.com/collective-punishment-for-gaza-no-collateral-damage-unfortunately-yes/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:25.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Flickr_-_Israel_Defense_Forces_-_Troops.jpeg) (Wikimedia Commons) > “*Any* dictatorship (and Hamas is one, of the Islamic theocratic variety) is first and foremost at war with the civilian population it controls, and then against other surrounding countries, only second.” In the aftermath of Hamas’ unwarranted, uncivilized, vicious, and [all but unprecedented attack on Israel](https://www.merionwest.com/war-in-israel-war-in-the-west/), one option for the aggrieved nation would be basically to level the small bit of real estate that is Gaza to the ground, into rubble and dust. This would, of course, imply that literally hundreds of thousands would die, if the death toll did not reach into the seven figures. Many women, children, and men, including the elderly, would perish, along with several thousand of the guilty perpetrators. The cry would go out that it would be unjust to impose collective punishment on Gazans. And imposing such collective punishment would certainly be unjustified. After all, these civilians were not guilty of perpetrating the crimes against Jewish humanity (Is there such a thing, in the view of many in Gaza?). Yes, many Palestinians [were celebrating in the streets](https://twitter.com/upuknews1/status/1726497869463777670?t=ddQFv7ipMPLnywbpwfH9tg&s=19&ref=merionwest.com) after the horror perpetrated upon the Israelis, and, yes, many [voted Hamas into office](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/1/26/hamas-wins-huge-majority?ref=merionwest.com). But gloating is not a capital crime. Nor is singing. In any case, the populace may well have been bullied into so doing. Certainly, no child in this territory can be seen as an appropriate target for any punishment whatsoever. To engage in collective punishment is to aim death and destruction on civilians, as does Hamas. So, what should Israel do in response to the tragedy recently inflicted upon it? It can aim at military targets and seek to reduce collateral damage to civilians as much as possible. That is, avoid collective punishment entirely. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Slavoj Žižek: “Freedom: A Disease Without Cure” URL: https://www.merionwest.com/slavoj-zizek-freedom-a-disease-without-cure/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:50.000Z [![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Zizek-Slavoj-2.jpg)](https://merionwest.com/app/uploads/Zizek-Slavoj-2.bmp?ref=merionwest.com) (Bloomsbury Press) > “So you see why people are not satisfied: I don’t propose simple solutions. In my old age, I’m returning from Marx to Hegel.” On January 15th, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek joined *Merion West* editor-in-chief Erich J. Prince to discuss the former’s [latest book](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/freedom-9781350357129/?ref=merionwest.com) *Freedom: A Disease Without Cure*, which was released with Bloomsbury Academic in October of last year. [Having earned doctorates at both](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp1651?ref=merionwest.com) the University of Ljubljana and the University of Paris VIII, [Professor Žižek](https://iep.utm.edu/zizek/?ref=merionwest.com) has since been affiliated with various universities, including the University of London, New York University, and his alma mater, the University of Ljubljana. He has published dozens of books and, through his frequent media appearances, has become perhaps the world’s most recognizable living philosopher. Professor Žižek is an expert, in particular, on the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Jacques Lacan and [is a contributing editor at](https://compactmag.com/masthead/?ref=merionwest.com) *Compact*. In their wide-ranging conversation, Professor Žižek and Mr. Prince discuss key themes from *Freedom;* why the book has, in Professor Žižek’s words, left some readers “unsatisfied”; [the 1991 Michael Tolkin film](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-rapture-1991?ref=merionwest.com) *The Rapture*; contemporary American politics, including former President Donald Trump and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders; virtual reality; the ongoing conflict in the Middle East; and proposed policies such as universal basic income. This interview appears in video form: _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Happened to the American Psychological Association? URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-happened-to-the-american-psychological-association/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T17:25:34.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/The_American_Psychological_Association_headquarters_in_Washington_D.C.jpg) (Harrison Keely) > “When the most influential psychological association in the world wants to replace an ethic of care for all individuals with a new woke normativity that is gaslighting the next generation of psychologists, their patients, and the public, it should lose all credibility.” The American Psychological Association (APA) has become an increasingly prejudiced and anti-Semitic organization that embraces [woke ideology](https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/2022/07/13/woke-psychology-and-new-racism/?ref=merionwest.com) under the rubric of social justice. In its unapologetic call for [decolonizing psychology](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/10/embracing-decolonial-psychology?ref=merionwest.com), the APA has shifted away from its universal emphasis on empathy, compassion, equality, and care for *all* individuals. The APA now embraces a political agenda that values [black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) group identities](https://www.apa.org/about/policy/racism-apology?ref=merionwest.com) over people of European ancestry, the latter of whom are demonized as oppressors responsible for [systemic racism](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2021/10/apology-systemic-racism?ref=merionwest.com), white supremacy, and the subjugation of others. In its enthusiastic zeal to [blame white people](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-doctor-wont-see-you-now-psychology-white-supremacy-politics-9a3c32b5?mod=opinion%5Flead%5Fpos5&ref=merionwest.com#comments%5Fsector) for all the ills of American society, the APA has become an unethical paragon of identity politics; it simply parrots the propaganda of social justice activism. In doing so, it contradicts its own professed values. In promoting a decolonial scheme, the APA further elides the complexity of objective truth and empirical facts, while rewriting psychology as a discipline. The history of psychology largely derives from the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis and a marginalized Jew. Now, Jews [are regarded as](https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/campus-radicals-and-leftist-groups-have-embraced-the-deadly-idea-of-settler-colonialism-b8e995be?st=0s1tep029r38rvt&reflink=desktopwebshare%5Fpermalink&ref=merionwest.com) imperial white supremacists and colonizers of Arab lands. The decolonial rhetoric the APA [espouses](https://www.merionwest.com/on-the-incoherence-of-decolonizing-the-academy/) also reinforces anti-Zionism and animus toward Jews. In its failure unequivocally [to support Israel](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/10/middle-east-violence-statement?ref=merionwest.com) following the October 7th pogrom committed by Hamas, [many](https://associationofjewishpsychologists.com/ajp-rebuttal-to-apa-statement/?ref=merionwest.com) psychologists [protested](https://www.psychaas.com/?ref=merionwest.com) the APA’s moral turpitude. [Petitions](https://www.change.org/p/open-letter-to-the-board-of-directors-of-the-american-psychological-association?ref=merionwest.com) were formed to [remove](https://www.change.org/p/demand-the-removal-of-dr-thelma-bryant-as-president-of-the-apa?ref=merionwest.com) Thema Bryant, the then-president of APA, for her refusal to address explicit anti-Semitism in the organization. Bryant’s politicalization of psychotherapy as a [decolonial praxis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db6U7qOm7IM&ref=merionwest.com) under the guise of [liberation psychology](https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/liberation-psychology-sample-chapter.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) only indoctrinates the next generation of professional psychologists and their patients in a deeply-flawed [critical social justice ideology](https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/2023/05/12/the-president-of-apa-says-we-need-a-decolonized-psychology/?ref=merionwest.com). The imprudent binary logic of pitting identities and racial groups against one another only advances divisiveness and discrimination, while also violating the basic [ethical code](https://www.apa.org/ethics/code?ref=merionwest.com) of treatment that is designed to ameliorate the suffering of any patient, regardless of his racial background or identity. This double standard is most conspicuous in the APA’s public statements, in its tolerance of anti-Semites in leadership roles, and in its failure to discipline ethical misconduct by certain Divisions under its auspices. The most egregious incidents of anti-Semitism have been perpetrated by [Lara Sheehi](https://canarymission.org/professor/Lara%5FSheehi?ref=merionwest.com), a [disgraced](https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/diversity-professor-accused-of-jew-hatred-and-advocating-violence-against-israel/?ref=merionwest.com) [psychology professor](https://fathomjournal.org/lara-sheehis-joyous-rage-antisemitic-anti-zionism-advocacy-academia-and-jewish-students-nightmares-at-gwu/?ref=merionwest.com) once at George Washington University, now in [Qatar](https://www.dohainstitute.edu.qa/en/Faculty/Pages/Details.aspx?Name=Lara%20Sheehi&ref=merionwest.com), who is an [outspoken anti-Semite](https://fathomjournal.org/burning-down-the-house-the-crisis-in-american-psychoanalysis-how-wokeism-and-identity-politics-are-destroying-the-profession-and-marginalising-jews/?ref=merionwest.com) and [supporter](https://freebeacon.com/campus/how-dare-you-slander-the-names-of-our-martyrs-inside-a-george-washington-professors-pro-hamas-tirade/?ref=merionwest.com) of [Hamas](https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/364367/the-teacher-is-devoted-to-hamas/?ref=merionwest.com), including condoning its recent massacre of Israeli citizens and foreign nationals under the guise of freedom resistance. Sheehi [is the current president](https://div39members.wildapricot.org/president/?ref=merionwest.com) of the APA’s Division 39: Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology. After numerous complaints about her flagrant bigotry and clear disdain for Israel, the APA did nothing to remove her from her position. To make matters worse, the majority of the Division 39 Board supports her, as well as the [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement,](https://usacbi.org/2023/01/sign-on-letter-in-support-of-dr-lara-sheehi/?ref=merionwest.com) which advocates for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. The entire Board of Section IX: Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility, which is a subdivision of Division 39, even [issued a public statement](https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/exclusive-american-psychological-association-distances-itself-from-internal-calls-for-liberation-of-palestine-from-zionist-aggression/?ref=merionwest.com) shortly after the October 7th atrocity in support of “Palestinian liberation,” which it [reissued](https://psychoanalyticactivist.com/2023/12/02/section-ix-board-of-directors-statement-in-support-of-palestine/?ref=merionwest.com) after the APA coached the group to issue a disclaimer. Not only is this anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic statement a racist screed, it is callously insensitive to the Jewish people in the wake of their collective suffering, when more innocent Jews were slaughtered [since the Holocaust](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/18/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-october-7th-terrorist-attacks-and-the-resilience-of-the-state-of-israel-and-its-people-tel-aviv-israel/?ref=merionwest.com). Moreover, the statement violates APA’s own [resolution against anti-Semitism](https://www.apa.org/about/policy/antisemitic.pdf?ref=merionwest.com), adopted by its Council of Representatives, that prohibits the demonization of Israel. The APA’s failure to sanction Section IX is a salient affront to its own standards. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “Neoliberalism” Is a Delusion of Marxists URL: https://www.merionwest.com/neoliberalism-is-a-delusion-of-marxists/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:47:59.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/gty-2628488-16_9.jpg) (President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) > “I have written previously that much of this ‘neoliberal’ nightmare is a myth, not because the world is without problems, but because the problems of the world are much too multifaceted, internally complex, and situationally unique for each problem to regarded as just another mutation of an invincible neoliberal virus replicating across the globe.” In the view of certain partisans on the Right, the chickens finally came home to roost following the horrific events of October 7th, when two prominent law firms decided to [rescind](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67152271?ref=merionwest.com) job offers to three students at Harvard and Columbia law schools. The decisions by these firms came following the revelation that these students were affiliated with public statements blaming the Israeli government for the murder and kidnapping of Israeli citizens by Hamas terrorists. For once, [words had consequences](https://twitter.com/CJFerguson1111/status/1714485591012737071?ref=merionwest.com) for left-wing activists after years of cancelation campaigns aimed at controversial (and often conservative) figures under the guise that [“words are violence.”](https://nypost.com/2020/06/21/words-are-violence-is-the-slogan-of-tyranny/?ref=merionwest.com) Activists on the Right appeared to find catharsis in trying to amplify the consequences by [doxxing](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/us/harvard-students-israel-hamas-doxxing.html?ref=merionwest.com) students who signed these anonymous letters strongly critical of Israel. Meanwhile, principled defenders of free speech [held](https://x.com/JeffreyASachs/status/1716812591652327564?s=20&ref=merionwest.com) [their](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/the-israel-palestine-conflict-makes-the-case-for-free-speech.html?ref=merionwest.com) [fire](https://reason.com/2023/10/25/ron-desantis-palestinian-students-censorship-free-speech-israel/?ref=merionwest.com). In keeping with its free speech bona fides, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) [urged pause](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67152271?ref=merionwest.com) while acknowledging that firms have the legal right to rescind job offers. Then, among the usual suspects in academia where many complaints about free speech crackdowns [have originated](https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/?ref=merionwest.com) in recent years, leaders of the faculty senate at the University of Pennsylvania [condemned](https://forward.com/fast-forward/566071/university-pennsylvania-israel-gaza-antisemitism-donors-statement/?ref=merionwest.com) the efforts of major donors to withdraw funds to protest the university’s inadequate response to anti-Semitic rhetoric on its own campus. In a letter, the three leaders wrote that “\[a\]cademic freedom is an essential component of a world-class university and is not a commodity that can be bought or sold by those who use their pocketbooks to shape our mission.” But this seemingly staunch defense of free speech against the priorities of Mr. Moneybags, by a university with a history of [speech codes](https://www.merionwest.com/the-dangers-of-campus-speech-codes-revisiting-the-water-buffalo-affair/) under former president Sheldon Hackney and a ranking of 247 out of 248 in the FIRE’s [2024 college free speech rankings](https://rankings.thefire.org/ran?ref=merionwest.com), perhaps inadvertently shined light on another front in the contemporary culture wars about free speech—namely, the obsession among left-wing academics and intellectuals with the threat that “neoliberalism” poses to speech, freedom, equality, and just about everything else. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Warning From South Africa URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-warning-from-south-africa/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T01:59:51.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/zuma-jailed-south-africa-petricic-130721.jpg) (The July, 2021 protests and looting in response to the imprisonment of former President of South Africa Jacob Zuma) > “One might notice that unlike in the 1990s, apart from a few occasional flare-ups, the struggle is no longer primarily between Xhosa and Zulu, or any African ethnicity for that matter. A crusade against whiteness had united black South Africans who would otherwise have been fighting among themselves.” In a 2017 article published in *The* *Daily Caller*, columnist Ilana Mercer [brought](https://dailycaller.com/2017/06/26/the-american-architects-of-the-south-african-catastrophe/?ref=merionwest.com) to light an under-appreciated aspect of South Africa’s anti-Apartheid movement: that activists espoused competing visions as to what the country should look like post white-minority rule. Not everyone was on board with the multiracial parliamentary democracy Nelson Mandela had in mind. The main opposition Mercer cited came from black South Africans who were unhappy with the fact that Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) party was dominated by an ethnic group other than their own. The ANC was majority Xhosa, while its chief rival, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), had a largely Zulu base. Supporters of the two movements [clashed](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/05/02/anc-vs-inkatha-anatomy-of-a-slaughter/18376419-7fe7-4539-8a6d-4c7012be8793/?ref=merionwest.com) violently in the streets leading up to the first multi-racial election in 1994. The IFP’s founder, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was Prime Minister of the Zulu Homeland. Homelands were self-governing ethnic enclaves set up by the Apartheid government for indigenous blacks, or “Bantu.” A Homeland’s size and location were based on rough estimates of where most members of a Bantu ethnic group lived prior to European colonization. Homelands were justified as a means to facilitate the eventual independence of various ethnically homogenous black countries while allowing white Afrikaners to have their own state as well. To that end, Pretoria [lobbied](http://kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/50/304/32-130-E84-84-al.sff.document.af000020.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) for international recognition of the Homelands. The 1970 Black Homeland Citizenship Act was passed to [expedite](https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/black-homeland-citizenship-act-1970?ref=merionwest.com) blacks’ acquisition of Homeland citizenship. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Cycling at Vésinet URL: https://www.merionwest.com/cycling-at-vesinet/ Last updated: 2025-06-12T16:58:58.000Z _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### “Systemic Racism” Is the Biggest Conspiracy Theory of Them All URL: https://www.merionwest.com/systemic-racism-is-the-biggest-conspiracy-theory-of-them-all/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:56.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/end-systemic-racism-marchers.jpg) (Clay Banks/Unsplash) > “The reason, as we will shortly see, that it is fair to characterize systemic racism as a nutty and sweeping conspiracy theory is that racism is, again and again, simply assumed to be the universal, underlying, unitary cause of multifarious phenomena for which other, more parsimonious, accurate, and complex explanations are blithely ignored or dismissed.” “\[W\]e all start with a profound and powerful tendency to believe that what we see repeated everywhere must be true. The beginning of wisdom…is to recognize this as a fundamental illusion. The most important truths tend, on the contrary, to be rare and secret, covered over by what is repeated everywhere.” – Arthur M. Melzer It is, by now, a commonplace occurrence for prominent figures on the Right to be tarred with the charge of supporting one or more ideas labeled as “conspiracy theories,” whether QAnon, Pizzagate; the Great Replacement; climate change denialism; Cultural Marxism; wildfire-starting Jewish space lasers; the Hunter Biden laptop controversy and the larger Biden-Ukraine shenanigans linked to it; the claim that the 2020 election was stolen through either outright fraud or just due to Big Media’s and Big Tech’s fat thumbs on the scale; that the media is generally anti-conservative or engages in an anti-conservative censorship and disinformation campaign involving government collusion, deplatforming, blacklists, and shadow-banning; any number of claims about the Coronavirus (COVID-19), whether that it was a “plandemic,” that it was the result of a leak from a lab linked to gain-of-function research supported by Anthony Fauci, that the vaccines are infused with Bill Gates’ microchips, or that the vaccines have significant, serious side effects and are not actually especially safe or particularly effective. I will leave it to each individual reader to decide which of the items on this list are true (which, of course, some are), which are utterly loony conspiracy theories (yes, there are some of those here as well), and which fall somewhere in between these poles. My focus here is different. While former President Donald Trump’s election fraud claim is often called the “Big Lie” by some, what truly deserves that moniker, coined in Hitler’s *Mein Kampf*, is the lie that has been repeated so often and been spread so far and wide by every establishment media outlet, educational institution, pandering politico, and multinational corporation that its total topsy-turviness has become invisible to us. I am speaking, naturally, of “systemic racism.” With the welling up of open anti-Semitism on most elite college campuses in the United States and the exposure of Harvard University’s elevation to its vaunted presidency of an unqualified, serial plagiarist Claudine Gay as a blatant affirmative action hire, the toxic DEI empire that has so thoroughly infiltrated our institutions finally has been subjected to some much-needed mainstream scrutiny. But after Gay was finally ousted long after her white peer, former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, was removed after their disastrous congressional testimony concerning such campus anti-Semitism, Gay and her backers [still had the temerity to claim](https://nypost.com/2024/01/03/opinion/gays-resignation-had-nothing-to-do-with-racism-and-everything-to-do-with-her-conduct/?ref=merionwest.com) that her race was the cause of her downfall—rather than, as is obvious to most fair-minded observers, the principal reason for her undeserved and rapid ascent through the Harvard bureaucracy. But why do such topsy-turvy accusations of racism still have any traction whatsoever? Surely, it is because the nutty idea that systemic racism continues to run wild in America has been seeded in all of our minds. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### A Taste of Poetry from the Late Tang Dynasty URL: https://www.merionwest.com/a-taste-of-poetry-from-the-late-tang-dynasty/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:57:58.000Z “Insects fall silent amid the sedge and cranes grow restive in the treetops,/Sensing this busy world no longer cares for the sentiments of old.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Nothing to Answer for: The Fearless Art of Morrissey URL: https://www.merionwest.com/nothing-to-answer-for-the-fearless-art-of-morrissey/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:57.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/morrissey-flashback.jpg) (ITV/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK) > “Refusing to take the path of least resistance when it comes to his career, Morrissey is the antithesis of the cookie-cutter ‘artists’ favored and propped up by the modern music industry.” Morrissey’s *You Are the Quarry* album [turns 20 this year](https://www.nme.com/news/music/morrissey-announces-you-are-the-quarry-20th-anniversary-shows-in-the-us-3552197?ref=merionwest.com). It was also the first record I ever heard by the iconic singer from Manchester, whose haunting vocal melodies and witty, introspective lyrics have captured the imagination of generations of fans. “Here is somebody who is able to encapsulate a lot of deep thought, gloss it with irony, and then repackage it with emotion,” the writer Will Self [once said](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUazSuex1j4&ref=merionwest.com) about the legendary recording artist. After hearing *You Are the Quarry* for the first time, I soon found out that “Moz,” as he is known to his fans, first appeared on the music scene in 1982 with his seminal proto-indie outfit, The Smiths. As a solo artist, he had three number one albums in England in three different decades. I also quickly discovered that Morrissey was no stranger to controversy. The outspoken frontman survived multiple cancellation attempts throughout his career. And he never apologized. Morrissey has always been a contrarian. Album titles such as *Meat Is Murder* or *The Queen Is Dead* and songs like [“Margaret on the Guillotine”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsq3H%5F6XuFA&ref=merionwest.com) set him apart from his pop contemporaries in the 1980s. A staunch anti-Royalist, anti-Thatcherite, and animal rights advocate, he quickly became something of a darling of the left-leaning music press in England. But the moment he offended progressive sensitivities, he faced accusations of racism and fascism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Young Americans Could Benefit From Conscription, Now More Than Ever URL: https://www.merionwest.com/young-americans-could-benefit-from-conscription-now-more-than-ever/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:52.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/apft.jpg) > “Although it might not have been glamorous, my time in the military helped me through challenges that currently burden many young Americans.” After graduating from high school, I did not move into a college dorm. Instead, I had my head shaved, and I began sleeping in a room with 15 strangers and waking up at 5 a.m. I had no choice. I was conscripted in my home country: Singapore. Although it might not have been glamorous, my time in the military helped me through challenges that currently burden many young Americans. Teenagers have faced a mental health epidemic over the last decade, worsened by the [Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic](https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/p0331-youth-mental-health-covid-19.html?ref=merionwest.com) and [habitual social media use](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/social-media-mental-health-anxiety-depression-teens-surgeon-general-rcna85575?ref=merionwest.com). Their[ physical](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2794534?ref=merionwest.com) and[ mental](https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/act-scores-drop-to-new-30-year-low-sat-scores-drop-as-well?ref=merionwest.com) fitness have dropped to record lows. And when these young people get to college, they often [close themselves off to](https://campus-speech.law.duke.edu/campus-speech-incidents/heather-mac-donald-claremont-mckenna-college/?ref=merionwest.com) opposing viewpoints, and recent events regarding anti-Semitism on college campuses reveal that some students lack critical thinking and [moral clarity](https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-shrugs-at-jew-hatred-hamas-attack-israel-civilian-murder-torture-rape-68f53256?ref=merionwest.com). These problems can be addressed through military service, which could justify restarting peacetime conscription in the United States. The low mental and physical fitness of today’s young Americans—obesity, drug use, low test scores—disqualifies [77%](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/09/28/new-pentagon-study-shows-77-of-young-americans-are-ineligible-military-service.html?ref=merionwest.com) of those aged 17 to 24 from serving in the military without a waiver. But reviving conscription could prompt expanding the [preparation programs](https://www.armytimes.com/news/2022/09/15/test-scores-drop-disqualification-rates-rise-at-army-recruiting-shops/?ref=merionwest.com) that exist for basic training to make all recruits fitter. In Singapore, the [army gives less-fit individuals](https://www.cmpb.gov.sg/web/portal/cmpb/home/before-ns/pre-enlistment-process/medical-screening-and-psychometric-test/physical-employment-standards-pes?ref=merionwest.com) office jobs that still have an army-like disciplinary structure. The disciplinary structure is hard on recruits. In the Singapore Army, discomfort was a daily experience, from the several hours of fitness drills, combat training, and military strategy lectures. We would sweat in Singapore’s heat and humidity the entire day and only receive access to showers late at night. We also faced tough consequences for minor mistakes. If just one person brought his phone to a training session, which was almost always prohibited, that meant 60 push-ups for the entire platoon. If just one person had his bed messy or locker dirty during a check, that was 60 push-ups as well. If we talked back to our commanders, that meant no returning home for a weekend. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### When They’ll Do Anything to Stop Him URL: https://www.merionwest.com/when-theyll-do-anything-to-stop-him/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:48:00.000Z Exiling, [jailing](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/09/presidents-pms-political-leaders-prosecuted-jailed?ref=merionwest.com), or even [murdering](https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/30/americas/mexico-political-killings-intl/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) those who pose a challenge to entrenched political power has long been the modus operandi of authoritarian leaders and corrupt regimes worldwide. Russian President Vladimir Putin is perhaps the most notorious current leader associated with these techniques, and he has been accused of involvement in the poisonings of [Alexander Litvinenko](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/21/1039224996/russia-alexander-litvinenko-european-court-human-rights-putin?ref=merionwest.com) in 2006 and [Alexei Navalny in](https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086012?ref=merionwest.com) 2020\. Of course, death by poisoning with no witnesses leaves the Russian government with room for [plausible deniability,](https://apnews.com/article/vladimir-putin-alexei-navalny-poisoning-325535308e61b232343514fb2cdfe3a5?ref=merionwest.com) and President Putin has denied any involvement, but that has not stopped the United States and its State Department from strongly condemning these actions, as well as consistently decrying any efforts abroad for leaders to sideline their domestic political opponents. In 2021, shortly after Navalny’s attempted assassination by poisoning, [a Moscow court outlawed organizations](https://www.npr.org/2021/06/09/1004938395/a-russian-court-has-outlawed-groups-linked-to-putin-opponent-alexei-navalny?ref=merionwest.com) linked to Navalny, arguably Russia’s most prominent critic of President Putin, [labeling them as “extremist.”](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57422346?ref=merionwest.com) The Russian government has tirelessly pursued Navalny with [charges dating back to 2012 for alleged embezzlement](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/02/02/3-things-to-know-about-navalnys-2014-fraud-case-a72804?ref=merionwest.com). And, in 2022, Navalny was convicted of fraud and contempt of court and, since then, has been incarcerated, including spending considerable time in solitary confinement. In early December, around the time that President Putin announced his re-election bid, [Navalny’s lawyers lost contact with him](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/22/europe/navalny-disappearance-putin-election-intl-hnk/index.html?ref=merionwest.com), and his whereabouts were unknown until December 25th, when perhaps due to global scrutiny, [he resurfaced in a remote prison colony](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/12/25/russia-opposition-leader-alexei-navalny-found/72027149007/?ref=merionwest.com) north of the Arctic Circle. At various points, the United States government has strongly condemned the Russian government’s cases and actions against Navalny. In reaction to Russia designating Navalny-affiliated organizations as “extremist,” State Department spokesman Ned Price [stated](https://www.state.gov/the-designation-of-navalny-affiliated-organizations-as-extremist/?ref=merionwest.com): “With this action, Russia has effectively criminalized one of the country’s few remaining independent political movements…This is not the first time Russian authorities have labeled groups ‘extremist’ in order to stigmatize supporters and justify abuses against them.” And, in August of this year, Matthew Miller, another State Department spokesman, [condemned Navalny’s charges](https://www.state.gov/conviction-and-sentencing-of-aleksey-navalny-on-additional-politically-motivated-charges/?ref=merionwest.com): “The United States condemns a Russian court’s further sentencing and conviction of opposition politician and anti-corruption campaigner \[Alexei\] Navalny to an additional 19 years in prison on unfounded charges of so-called ‘extremism.’ This is an unjust conclusion to an unjust trial. For years, the Kremlin has attempted to silence Navalny and prevent his calls for transparency and accountability from reaching the Russian people.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Taiwan and World War III URL: https://www.merionwest.com/taiwan-and-world-war-iii/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:52.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/1495313872456.jpeg) (Jason Lee/Reuters) > “The question of Taiwan is never far from the Chinese President’s thoughts, and nor should it be far from ours. The fortunes of the world rest on that island. No conflict in Eastern Europe or the Middle East is as likely to spiral into a global war.” Five years before his famous 1972 overture to Maoist China, President Richard Nixon [warned](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1967-10-01/asia-after-viet-nam?ref=merionwest.com) that “Asia, not Europe or Latin America, will pose the greatest danger of a confrontation which could escalate into World War III.” Nixon placed the peril in “the final third of the twentieth century,” but his counsel is more relevant in this third decade of the 21st century. Why? Because the world is now home to a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with the military strength successfully to invade Taiwan, and—equally important—a growing dread of imminent decline: enough, perhaps, to push a nervous dictator to make his move while he still can. Over recent weeks, [China’s economic slowdown](https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-economy-debt-slowdown-recession-622a3be4?ref=merionwest.com) has prompted President Xi Jinping to embark on a charm offensive, meeting with various world leaders to present a less belligerent face and assure the world that China remains open for business. But there is no sign of any change in President Xi’s obsession with conquering the coveted island. Indeed, at their recent meeting in San Francisco, President Xi tried to persuade President Joseph Biden to [depart](https://www.ft.com/content/908acb66-7e74-4f22-bfae-c842a44b668a?ref=merionwest.com) from the long-held American position of “strategic ambiguity.” He wanted the United States openly to oppose Taiwanese independence. President Xi did [assure](https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/APEC/Why-Xi-tried-to-assure-U.S.-he-has-no-plans-for-Taiwan-invasion?ref=merionwest.com) his counterpart that American reports of a planned invasion in 2027 or 2035 are false, but, lest we forget, this is the same man who once assured President Barack Obama that Beijing would never militarize the South China Sea, after which he [proceeded](https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/its-official-xi-jinping-breaks-his-non-militarization-pledge-in-the-spratlys/?ref=merionwest.com) to do exactly that. The question of Taiwan is never far from the Chinese President’s thoughts, and nor should it be far from ours. The fortunes of the world rest on that island. No conflict in Eastern Europe or the Middle East is as likely to spiral into a global war. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Yes, January 6th Was an Insurrection URL: https://www.merionwest.com/yes-january-6-was-an-insurrection/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:32:58.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/AP21006687618985-1620x1080-1.jpg) (President Donald Trump speaks to supporters on January 6, 2021 (Evan Vucci/AP)) > “The attempted insurrection by President Trump and his supporters had failed. But make no mistake: The violent events of January 6th were the direct result of a deliberate months-long campaign by President Trump to overturn illegally an election that he did not win.” In recent months, several states in the United States have taken up the question of whether former President Donald Trump should be excluded from ballots in the 2024 presidential election on the basis that he engaged in insurrectionary acts on January 6, 2021, in violation of [the Fourteenth Amendment](https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/?ref=merionwest.com) to the Constitution of the United States. For example, Michigan, Minnesota, and California have decided to allow President Trump to remain on the ballot. Colorado and Maine, however, have removed him from the ballot. As early as today, [it is expected that](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/30/donald-trump-us-supreme-court-challenge-maine-colorado-decision?ref=merionwest.com) President Trump will file an appeal to remain on the Colorado and Maine ballots. The recent decisions by [the Colorado Supreme Court](https://apnews.com/article/trump-insurrection-14th-amendment-2024-colorado-d16dd8f354eeaf450558378c65fd79a2?ref=merionwest.com) and [Maine’s Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows,](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/politics/trump-maine-14th-amendment-ballot/index.html?ref=merionwest.com) have created a firestorm of controversy among commentators on the Right, many if not all of whom believe that the decisions are political rather than judicial, the latest manifestation of a “deep state” conspiracy to disenfranchise Republican votes and keep President Trump out of the Oval Office. Although Laurence Tribe has [pointed out](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/laurence-tribe-trump-disqualified-constitution%5Fn%5F64e98643e4b0d17252143692?ref=merionwest.com) that President Trump has been disqualified rather than sanctioned, many on the Right act as if the decisions are a punishment, [angrily pointing out that](https://twitter.com/BasedMikeLee/status/1740793447240581266?ref=merionwest.com) President Trump has not been convicted of a crime. At the heart of the controversy is the two-fold question of whether the January 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol was an outright insurrection, as well as whether President Trump bears responsibility for inciting it. The answer should be crystal clear to anyone who has reviewed the abundance of publicly available evidence. The January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol by more than 2,000 supporters of President Trump’s was a riot directly incited by a months-long campaign by President Trump to overturn an election he did not win. The goal was to install himself illegally as president in lieu of the candidate who won more votes: President-elect Joe Biden. In other words, the January 6th riot was the violent climax of a deliberately directed coup attempt planned by the former President and his closest aides. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Sarcasm URL: https://www.merionwest.com/sarcasm/ Last updated: 2026-09-05T15:58:30.000Z “You returned to Rome Augustus triumphant./King of defeated nation I trailed behind./To this day the senators can’t tell/which of the two wore the wreath.” _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Thomas Friedman Is at It Again URL: https://www.merionwest.com/thomas-friedman-is-at-it-again/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:26.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/4709_11.jpeg) (IDF troops seen operating in the Gaza Strip in a handout photo released December 25, 2023\. (Israel Defense Forces)) > “What is certain, however, is that part two of this degradation will occur in the not too distant future, and part three some time after that, if this advice of this *New York Times* columnist is followed.” Thomas Friedman, the columnist at *The New York Times*, [is at it again,](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/opinion/israel-gaza-ceasefire.html?smid=nytcore-android-share&ref=merionwest.com) with more silly advice for Israel vis-à-vis Hamas in a column earlier this month. This time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) should make Hamas an offer *they cannot refuse*: not a pause, not a ceasefire, not even a truce. Rather, a total cessation of the Israeli defensive incursion, and total peace. Hamas remains in full power over Gaza. The Israelis remove their soldiers from that area and bombs Hamas no more. The only thing this terrorist organization has to do in return is to hand over not one or two, not even a dozen, but all of the hostages it now holds. Nor would Israel release even a single Palestinian prisoner they now hold. Instead of land for peace, it would be hostages for peace. There is more than one can shake a stick at wrong with this proposal. First of all, as Friedman himself concedes, “Yes, the morning after \[this agreement when Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader\] comes out \[of his tunnel\], many Gazans will carry him on their shoulders and sing his name for dealing such a heavy blow to the Jews.” It is difficult to overestimate the loss of morale this would create in Israel. Israel [suffered a savage blow on](https://www.merionwest.com/iran-invades-israel-through-hamas/) October 7th, and the main perpetrator is dancing around in the streets with his adoring fans. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### It’s a Somber New Year for K-12 Schools URL: https://www.merionwest.com/its-a-somber-new-year-for-k-12-schools/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:55.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/042320-md-school-closed-59-borowski-soc.jpg) > “If the recovery effort is not expanded to involve all the resources that every community has to offer, our young people, especially the most vulnerable, face a diminished future.” With each passing year, the staggering kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12) student learning loss from pandemic school closures becomes more apparent. It haunts America’s education system—its ghost an emergency [described as](https://www.nwea.org/research/publication/educations-long-covid-2022-23-achievement-data-reveal-stalled-progress-toward-pandemic-recovery/?ref=merionwest.com) “education’s long COVID.” Valiant educator-led [efforts are underway](https://caldercenter.org/sites/default/files/CALDER%20WP%20275-1222.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) to remedy the problem. With that said, an early lesson of these recovery efforts is that K-12 educators alone cannot solve the problem. As schools enter the new year of 2024, K-12 leaders and classroom educators must reboot and broaden their current problem-solving efforts to develop community-wide recovery strategies. If the recovery effort is not expanded to involve all the resources that every community has to offer, our young people, especially the most vulnerable, face a diminished future. For example, Stanford University economist Eric Hanushek [calculates ](https://hanushek.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Hanushek%202023%20EdNext%20October%206.pdf?ref=merionwest.com)that if learning loss is not reversed, the average student’s lifetime earnings will be 6% lower, the equivalent of a 6% income tax surcharge on students’ working lives. Nor will these losses be equally distributed: The most disadvantaged will suffer the worst consequences. A supercharged community recovery strategy should be honest about the enormity of learning loss. It must be informed by the most promising evidence on what is working to remedy the problem. And it must include a community report card with timely and reliable accountability information on the progress being made to remedy learning loss and what work needs to be done. **The Learning Loss Puzzle** The assessment provider Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) [reports](https://www.nwea.org/uploads/Educations-long-covid-2022-23-achievement-data-reveal-stalled-progress-toward-pandemic-recovery%5FNWEA%5FResearch-brief.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) that students in grades three to eight lost ground in reading and math during the 2022-23 school year. On average, they need four more months in school to catch up to pre-pandemic levels, though “average” hides variation across grades, subjects, and characteristics such as race and income levels. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Islam and the West: Culturally and Theologically Divided URL: https://www.merionwest.com/islam-and-the-west-navigating-the-cultural-and-theological-divide/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T17:25:49.000Z The [current demographic transformation of](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/?ref=merionwest.com#:~:text=An%20estimated%203.7%20million%20Muslims,estimated%20980%2C000%20Muslim%20refugees%20who) Western Europe makes me think of the migration period at the end of the Roman Empire. And when a self-hating, [oikophobic](https://a.co/d/9QR92vx?ref=merionwest.com) culture has established itself among the leading echelons of Western societies, as it has today, our leaders have little compunction about welcoming external elements that in some cases are extremely hostile to the host civilization. Western oikophobes and allophiliacs like to refer to Islam as a religion of peace and to point out that terrorist and other violent acts are committed by a very small minority of Muslims. But the fact of the matter is that a very large proportion of Muslims, and certainly of Arab Muslims, sympathize with many of the violent actions performed in the name of Islam–the “silent majority” of which Western oikophobes like to speak is, in fact, comprised of those [who support extreme dogma](https://www.awrad.org/en/article/10719/Wartime-Poll-Results-of-an-Opinion-Poll-Among-Palestinians-in-the-West-Bank-and-Gaza-Strip?ref=merionwest.com) but who, at least until recently, did not talk about it to their Western associates. All the while, it is only the minority that wholeheartedly rejects it and fully embraces Western freedom of speech, intellectual skepticism, and the full legal equality of women with men, and of Jews with others. Before proceeding further, however, I should point out what should be obvious but nowadays is the sort of thing that must be explained even to adults: General statements about groups of people or about systems of faith are not meant to include every individual member of that group or every practitioner of that system. An analysis and critique of certain aspects of Islam is not tantamount to bigotry and is not an attack on individual Muslims, though some both Muslims and non-Muslims will perceive it as such; there are, of course, Muslims who embrace Western civilization. But an analysis and synthesis of certain facts should be welcome in any society that purports to support the disinterested pursuit of truth. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Against Michelle Wu’s Anti-Market Real Estate Proposal URL: https://www.merionwest.com/against-michelle-wus-anti-market-proposal/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:26.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Wu3.jpg) (Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images) > “If Chairman Wu were in power when Henry Ford was ruining the blacksmith, horse training and saddle making industries, she would have taxed the latter and subsidized the former. How about when computers took out the typewriter, carbon paper, and correction fluid (Wite-Out) industries?” Madame Chairman Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, [has been supportive of offering](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-12/boston-offers-tax-breaks-to-turn-empty-office-glut-into-housing?ref=merionwest.com) a tax subsidy to landlords who convert their commercial real estate to residential units. Why, pray tell, is she interfering with the free enterprise system (okay, okay, what little of it exists in Beantown) in this manner? Thanks to the Coronavirus (COVID-19), [the demand for office space has declined](https://bostonrealestatetimes.com/prolonged-period-of-subdued-office-demand-at-half-to-two-thirds-of-pre-pandemic-levels-signals-stability-for-the-foreseeable-future/?ref=merionwest.com) precipitously. Business firms have found they can get the job done with at least some of their employees working from home, at least on a part-time basis. Thus, the lesser need for office space. This, of course, is a world-wide phenomenon, hardly limited to the United States, to Massachusetts, to Boston. But Madame Wu is taking the lead in this type of political response. Talk about teaching grandma to suck eggs. If Chairman Wu were in power when Henry Ford was ruining the blacksmith, horse training and saddle making industries, she would have taxed the latter and subsidized the former. How about when computers took out the typewriter, carbon paper and [correction fluid (Wite-Out)](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/who-still-buys-wite-out-and-why/567311/?ref=merionwest.com) industries? This economic interventionist would undoubtedly have put her thumb on the scales once again, supporting the nerds and taxing their competitors. Then, there is the case of mobile phones supplanting, what, well, lots of stuff: cameras, telephones, flashlights, paper maps, etc. Again, this central planner would have rolled up her sleeves and helped this process along, in the precise direction it was moving anyway, without any of her help, thank you very much. What is wrong with that? In each of these past cases, including the present one, she would have just been rendering the market more efficient. Helping it out, helping it along, as it were. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Woke Kids Are Speaking; Weak Adults Are Listening URL: https://www.merionwest.com/woke-kids-are-speaking-weak-adults-are-listening/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:33:02.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/palestinian-student-protest-columbia.jpeg) (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) > “The university protest movement largely took shape at the same time when our society’s disproportionate valorization of youth and youthful opinion began in the 1960s, when our whole nation began to come apart at the seams, an unraveling that, despite brief periods of rollback, has continued apace to this day.” In recent weeks, we have witnessed elite college students across the nation stand up boldly to defend the terrorist group Hamas’ right to terrorize, execute, and kidnap children and the elderly alike and parade [half-naked bodies of female victims](https://www.indiatoday.in/world/video/body-of-german-woman-who-was-kidnapped-paraded-by-hamas-found-israel-2455694-2023-10-30?ref=merionwest.com) through the streets. Although the denizens of elite universities represent a particularly egregious species of moral monstrosity, those students are, sadly, also representative of a much larger contingent of their age cohort. But the problem, as I will explain in what follows, is not only their views; it is also that we encourage people so young (and even younger) to voice their uninformed and unenlightened views in the first place and that we then proceed to approach those opinions as though they were anything more than teachable moments, as though they were worthy of our serious political, rather than pedagogical, engagement. In October, [a Harvard-Harris poll](https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/HHP%5FOct23%5FKeyResults.pdf?ref=merionwest.com) had found that while 95% of those over age 65, 91% of those 55-64 and 88% of those 45-54 sided with Israel in the conflict, among those between the ages of 18 and 24, only 52% supported Israel, with the other 48% taking the side of Hamas. As opposed to the 9% of those over 65 who believed that “the Hamas killing of 1,200 Israeli civilians \[i\]n Israel can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians,” among those 18-24, a slight *majority—*51%—held the killings were justified, even though 62% in that age category believed those killings were also “genocidal.” As that survey likewise reported, those same young’uns also had a very tenuous grasp of basic facts. Among [many other misconceptions](https://nypost.com/2023/12/14/opinion/our-youth-are-misguided-not-evil-theyve-been-taught-lies-about-israel-hamas/?ref=merionwest.com) they had, more than a third—36%—of them did not know that Hamas [is a terrorist group](https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/hamas.html?ref=merionwest.com), as designated by the American government (among many others); only 16% of those 65+ were unaware of that designation. Moreover, though the call for the annihilation of Israel is right there in [Hamas’ charter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas%5FCharter?ref=merionwest.com), the survey showed 42% of the 18-24-year-olds believed Hamas is trying to make peace with Israel rather than destroy it, as compared to the 4% of those over 65 who credited such nonsense, and though the notion that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza on October 17th, as initially reported by Hamas, [has been thoroughly discredited](https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-initial-independent-review-shows-evidence-bomb-strike/story?id=104126146&ref=merionwest.com), 45% of the 18-24-year-olds, as opposed to just 13% of the over-65-year-olds, lacked the cognitive flexibility to revise their opinions to fit the facts. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How KFC Gives Prisoners a Taste of Normal Life URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-kfc-gives-prisoners-a-reminder-of-normal-life/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:33:03.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/kfc-fried-chicken.jpg) (Shutterstock) > “I said a silent prayer, asking for the strength to get through another day of being incarcerated, and climbed down from my steel bunk, ready to navigate the gossip, fighting, and ordinary drama that come with prison life.” Fast food makes its way to a prison slowly, but the rare chance we inmates have to eat burgers and chicken is a reminder of how simple changes in daily routines could make American prisons more humane. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting that prisoners need all the salt and fat that makes fast food so hard to resist but, rather, that allowing prisoners a taste of normal life is psychologically healthy. The story of one recent day in Washington Corrections Center in Shelton demonstrates this. I woke up that day, as always, looking at the stained concrete walls of my prison cell. I said a silent prayer, asking for the strength to get through another day of being incarcerated, and climbed down from my steel bunk, ready to navigate the gossip, fighting, and ordinary drama that come with prison life. Slipping into my shower shoes, I grabbed my towel, toothbrush, and toothpaste and headed toward the bathroom. Much of prison life is predictable. That morning, I would expect to see the prisoner Big Mike (yes, the nickname reflects his size) sitting at his table, hunched over a book. Snook, a 75-year-old prisoner who has been incarcerated for more than 50 years, would be lounging in his usual chair. Other prisoners would be sitting lethargically at the steel tables with their earbuds; loud music is a common coping mechanism that helps incarcerated individuals psychologically prepare for another day. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Richard Kemp: Israel’s Existential Campaign to Destroy Hamas URL: https://www.merionwest.com/richard-kemp-israels-existential-campaign-to-destroy-hamas/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T03:33:04.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/idf-soldiers-gaza.jpg) Israel Defense Forces in Gaza on November 8th (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters) > “Hamas wants to maximize the death of its civilian population. The purpose is to get the international community, the United Nations, the United States, other governments around the world, to condemn Israel, to vilify Israel, to delegitimize Israel, and undermine the Jewish state in that way.” On December 8th, [Colonel Richard Kemp](https://richard-kemp.com/?ref=merionwest.com), a highly decorated veteran of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency campaigns throughout the world, joined *Merion West* contributing editor Jonathan Church for an in-depth discussion about the war in Gaza. Colonel Kemp is a retired officer in the British Army and [a trustee of](https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/3976196/full-print?ref=merionwest.com) the UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers. He has served in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, and Northern Ireland. In 1994, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his work in cultivating intelligence in Northern Ireland. He is [the author of](https://attackstatered.com/?ref=merionwest.com) *Attack State Red*, a 2009 book about his experience as a soldier in Afghanistan and described as an “unputdownable account of a British battle group on the offensive.” He currently spends his time as a writer, commentator, consultant, and speaker on topics such as leadership, security, counterterrorism, defense, and intelligence. In their discussion, Colonel Kemp and Mr. Church discuss the November 24th to November 30th Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the hostage deal and its aftermath, the Jericho Wall document, strategic and tactical aspects of the ongoing war, and the humanitarian crisis. *A video version of this conversation can be found at the bottom of this page. The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.* **Since Israel has resumed its \[military\] operations \[on December 1st\], does Israel confront a strengthened or refreshed Hamas? How much damage has Hamas sustained in the war so far, in terms of infrastructure, weapons, planning ability, manpower, and all of that?** I think Hamas has not gained a great deal from the truce that occurred for a short period of time. Obviously, it wouldn’t have hurt them. They were very enthusiastic to have this ceasefire, to give themselves time. I think their expectation, their hope, was that sufficient pressure internationally would be applied against Israel so that the fighting would not resume. I think that was their plan. That obviously hasn’t worked. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### The True Origin of Palestinian Suffering Was Not 1948 URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-true-origin-of-palestinian-suffering-was-not-1948/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:27.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Mufti-Main.jpg) Amin al-Husseini (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) > “However, there was one man who positioned himself very early on as an opponent to this growing Jewish presence in his homeland. This man was Haj Amin al-Husseini, who, in 1921, became the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.” “The Palestine Holocaust is the result of a plot by foreign colonialism and World Jewry.” —Haj Amin al-Husseini It is frequently said that the troubles plaguing the Palestinian people go back to 1948, [the year of the](https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba?ref=merionwest.com) *Nakba*, or “disaster.” To a Palestinian nationalist, the *Nakba* refers to the ethnic cleansing by Jewish soldiers who uprooted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and forced them, at gunpoint, into the desert. These soldiers, and their families, would soon be living in these Palestinians’ old homes, with zero intention of ever giving them back. Given this context, it is perhaps understandable that the term “Holocaust” was frequently invoked by Palestinian and other Arab notables [in their writings on the subject](https://www.amazon.com/Through-Eyes-Mufti-Translated-Annotated/dp/0853039607?ref=merionwest.com) (though it is perhaps unsurprising given that the Arabic word “nakba” means the same thing as the Hebrew word “shoah”). However, there is a broader geopolitical context in which we can see additional moral complexity at work in 1948\. The Holocaust being only three years old, the material imperative was compelling for a Zionist project that argued that the Jews would never be safe without a land of their own. The Jews could point to the near destruction of their people and culture in Europe as their Exhibit A. And, shortly thereafter, the Arabs would have the displacement of their people and culture in Palestine as their own Exhibit A. This inherent conflict between moral failure and moral imperative has long since been the fuel for many of the emotions underlying the long-running Israel-Palestinian conflict. It clearly has no “correct” answer, or at least not an obvious one if one sees the need for Jewish statehood *and* abhors imperialistic conquest. Taking that difficult position—as many are attempting to do—inevitably requires us to understand the suffering felt by the Palestinian people over the years. This is why a deeper examination of the relevant history—and the figures driving it—is in order if we are to understand this suffering. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Phyllis Chesler: Modern Feminism’s Failure to Condemn Hamas URL: https://www.merionwest.com/phyllis-chesler-modern-feminisms-failure-to-condemn-hamas/ Last updated: 2026-09-12T04:00:29.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/AA6TUKNYEKRH3ZATTONVNR3F7M.jpg) > “The feminists have deserted Jewish women. And it wasn’t just Jewish women. There were Arab Muslim women, and there were Thai Buddhist women. No doubt many Christian women or some Christian women who were also raped, murdered, and kidnapped.” On December 5th, Phyllis Chesler, an Emerita Professor of Psychology at City University of New York, joined *Merion West* contributing editor Jonathan Church for a discussion about violence against Israeli women during the ongoing conflict. The author of 20 books Dr. Chesler, who earned a Ph.D. in psychology from The New School for Social Research, is well known for her work on feminism and issues affecting women and girls. She co-founded the Association for Women in Psychology in 1969 and has been vocal about the interests of women both domestically and globally, including [drawing attention to](https://phyllis-chesler.com/pages/about-phyllis?ref=merionwest.com) the treatment of women in many Muslim-majority nations such as when it comes to honor killings. In their discussion, Dr. Chesler and Mr. Church examine how women have been victimized during and after October 7th; the reaction by many in the modern feminist movement; and what feminism means more broadly. *Editor’s Note (12/16/2023): A video of the conversation can be found at the bottom of this page.* **Thank you very much for agreeing to an interview. You have had an extraordinary career in terms of longevity, prodigious output, and impact, having to do with feminism. The first question is very basic—it may even seem frivolous—but, as an entry point, how would you define feminism? Or, in other words, what do you see as its main aims and purposes?** What it was—and has been—is the belief that women are human beings and, therefore, worthy of human rights and equal rights in all areas. That’s very simple and not complicated. That is not what feminism is now. That is not what feminism became. I’m, of course, thinking of the 19th century. And I’m thinking of the 1960s and 70s, and maybe part of the 1980s. Then everything took a turn south for the worst. Feminism became concerned not with sex-based rights, but with identity-based rights and with LGBTQIA+ and transgender rights, leaving behind any passionate concern with the battering of women, the raping of women, the sexual harassment of women, the honor murder of women, polygamy, and child marriage. These were forbidden and uninteresting subjects, for feminists in the academy, because these violence-against-women issues cut across every race, every ethnicity, every geographical region, every religion. Were they to focus on it, they might find themselves having to name men of color, Muslim men of color, men of color who were previously colonized, quote unquote. And that became increasingly forbidden. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### Beyond Profit: The Value of the Humanities URL: https://www.merionwest.com/beyond-profit-the-value-of-the-humanities/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:58.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/102938333_10158611033027454_5346215853205658734_n.jpg) (Jack Devlin/Yale University) > “When privileging science and math in the curriculum at the expense of the humanities, education sacrifices what is most essential: the important civic function of the humanities. As a result, we produce ‘a nation of employees, not citizens.'” *Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from the author’s [2023 book](https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-9197-4?ref=merionwest.com) Philosophical Sojourns in Aesthetics, Existence, and Education, which was released with Cambridge Scholars Publishing.* In April of 2021, writing in the *Washington Post,* philosopher Cornel West and writer Jeremy Tate [criticized](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/19/cornel-west-howard-classics/?ref=merionwest.com) the administrative decision to dissolve the classics department at Howard University, the only historically black college or university at the time with a classics department. Despite protests and efforts to save the department, in 2022, it was eliminated. It must be noted that as grim as this decision appears, limited instruction in classics continues within the university on an ad hoc basis. We encounter an even more alarming situation when turning our attention to the recent activity at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam, where administrators are in the process of eliminating programs in the humanities. In October of 2023, the university announced that over the next three to four academic years, nine academic programs [would be](https://www.sunypotsdamphilosophy.com/?ref=merionwest.com) phased out. Of the nine, seven are courses and majors from the liberal arts, and they include undergraduate degrees in such fields as philosophy, art history, and theatre. From these examples, it is clear that many universities favor academic disciplines that efficiently deliver a tangible and quantifiable education and [are embracing](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Social%5FEfficiency%5Fand%5FInstrumentalism%5Fin/rU1FAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&ref=merionwest.com) a utilitarian or instrumental model for schooling. History professor Peter W. Fettner [shares similar sentiments with both West and Tate](https://www.academia.edu/875988/The%5FCrisis%5Fin%5Fthe%5FHumanities%5Fand%5Fthe%5FCorporate%5FAttack%5Fon%5Fthe%5FUniversity?ref=merionwest.com) and attributes the decline of the humanities to the trend of corporatizing the structure of the university. This, unfortunately, embraces the misguided assumption that the purpose of a “democratic” education can be understood in terms of vocationalism and instrumentalism. With this line of thought, higher education must encompass concrete, quantitative, and standardized markers for academic achievement, inextricably linked to economic productivity. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### What Elon Musk and Bill Gates Might Have in Common URL: https://www.merionwest.com/what-elon-musk-and-bill-gates-might-have-in-common/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:58.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Bill-Gates-Elon-Musk-71f6dcc17d124342b36a0b67dda97fa4.jpg) > “Musk still seems to have his wits about him when managing his other companies, when speaking on longform podcasts, or when staying conveniently on message with regard to China. So what is it about X that is specifically causing Musk to lose his composure and his business sense?” The company formerly known as Twitter has not been good for Elon Musk. It has been a terrible investment, a distraction from his other companies, and has caused significant [harm to his reputation](https://www.forbes.com/sites/shannbiglione/2023/02/01/houston-elon-musk-has-a-reputation-problem/?ref=merionwest.com). Following the [recent incident](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXmcq47hVpI&ref=merionwest.com) where he told advertisers who left the platform to “Go f— yourself,” it seems obvious to many people that Musk is legitimately losing his mind. “He’s clearly turning into Howard Hughes,” [Kara Swisher](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/elon-kissinger-cuban-haley-ipos-and-guest-rob-copeland/id1073226719?i=1000637168816&ref=merionwest.com) declared. There are certainly similarities between Musk and Hughes, the “crazy aviators” as *[Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2019/04/04/earth-to-elon-billionaire-howard-hughes-fought-the-law-and-financial-gravity-first?ref=merionwest.com)* dubbed them in 2019\. But this comparison seems premature. While Musk might be showing signs of mental instability, so far his craziness is contained primarily to issues involving X. Musk still seems to have his wits about him when managing his other companies, when speaking on longform podcasts, or when staying conveniently on message with regard to China. So what is it about X that is specifically causing Musk to lose his composure and his business sense? If there is a rational answer to this question, it likely has something to do with Musk’s novel perspective on philanthropy. Musk is not known for his philanthropy. Among billionaires, he [ranks among the lowest](https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2022/09/27/the-forbes-philanthropy-score-2022-how-charitable-are-the-richest-americans/?sh=3d74ababa098&ref=merionwest.com) in philanthropic giving. He defends this record by arguing that his companies are a form of philanthropy because they all exist to serve humanity. At the [2022 Met Gala](https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-asked-charity-twitter-buy-met-gala-philanthropy-1702976?ref=merionwest.com), a reporter from *Entertainment Tonight* asked Musk why he spent $44 billion buying Twitter when he could have used that money for charity or philanthropy. Musk answered: “Well, I do do a lot of things philanthropically. My companies are intended to do good for the future of humanity…With Tesla trying to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport and energy, and SpaceX is providing Internet to the least served people around the world.” _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### How Scholars and Activists Have Reinvented Our Understanding of Racism URL: https://www.merionwest.com/how-scholars-and-activists-have-reinvented-our-understanding-of-racism/ Last updated: 2026-09-11T02:08:59.000Z ![](https://cdn.merionwest.com/app/uploads/Kendi-DiAngelo-CRT-Marxism.jpg) > “In short, we have dogma, and from dogma, cognitive errors in reasoning inevitably ensue.” *Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from a talk given by the author at the online [Counterweight](https://counterweightsupport.com/?ref=merionwest.com) conference in September of 2022.* In the summer of 2020, at the height of race protests, I wrote in an [article](https://the-agonist.github.io/essays/2020/07/01/essays-church.html?ref=merionwest.com) for *The Agonist*: “In the last few decades, the academy as well as the world of ‘social justice’ activism, has undergone a revolution in how it views the nature of racism and how to solve it. Racism is no longer about consciously, or even unconsciously, held attitudes and beliefs that result in explicit discriminatory behavior at the individual level or at the institutional level of legislation, courts, and university curricula. No, racism is society itself. That is, racism is viewed as a defect in the DNA of society itself, perpetually self-replicating like a dangerous cancer. In other words, it is systemic. Not simply, and accurately, in the sense that there are deep structural inequalities that have resulted in black Americans [dying of COVID-19 at three times the rate of white people](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/black-americans-death-rate-covid-19-coronavirus?ref=merionwest.com), and whites enjoying [lower unemployment rates](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm?ref=merionwest.com) or [higher median income](https://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpswktab3.htm?ref=merionwest.com) than blacks. All of this is categorically and incontrovertibly true. But while the academy and the activists rightly and consistently point to these disparities in outcomes, they also claim that we will never make progress in reducing these inequalities if we do not address the “systemic” ideologies and discourses of Whiteness.” This new way of thinking is what I call the reification of systemic racism. It is a particular way in which racism has been reinvented and redefined in recent decades by race scholars and activists in fields such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Whiteness Studies, and sociology. The notion of systemic racism, then, is our focal point for examining what I call the reification of racism. In my article for *The* *Agonist*, I described how scholars and activists have come to think about systemic racism in terms of ideologies and discourses of a dominant culture, identified as “Whiteness,” that stand as pillars holding up the scaffold of systemic racism. _This post is for paying subscribers only._ _Includes the latest 500 public posts. Use `/sitemap.xml` for the complete archive of public content._