‘Fusion’: New Frank Meyeresque Publication Welcome

For a long time, fusionism as a philosophical endeavor has been associated with National Review, where editor Frank Meyer was its primary articulator. Forget that Meyer did not choose the name. The term eventually came to describe his view that “the common source in the ethos of Western civilization from which flow both the traditionalist and the libertarian currents, has made possible a continuing discussion which is creating the fusion that is contemporary American conservatism,” as he wrote in 1962. He continued:

Fusionism helped create the conditions by which distinct groups on the right with different precepts and aims (albeit with considerable overlap) — traditionalists, libertarians, anti-communists — were able to exist and collaborate in the same movement. That coexistence should not be confused with fusionism itself, as many mistakenly do. But those conditions played a considerable role in birthing the modern conservative movement.

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Jack Butler

Jack Butler is a former submissions editor at National Review.

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Frank Meyer

For a long time, fusionism as a philosophical endeavor has been associated with National Review, where editor Frank Meyer was its primary articulator. Forget that Meyer did not choose the name. The term eventually came to describe his view that “the common source in the ethos of Western civilization from which flow both the traditionalist and the libertarian currents, has made possible a continuing discussion which is creating the fusion that is contemporary American conservatism,” as he wrote in 1962. He continued:

Fusionism helped create the conditions by which distinct groups on the right with different precepts and aims (albeit with considerable overlap) — traditionalists, libertarians, anti-communists — were able to exist and collaborate in the same movement. That coexistence should not be confused with fusionism itself, as many mistakenly do. But those conditions played a considerable role in birthing the modern conservative movement.