My National Review story began in Connecticut, where my parents often saw William F. Buckley sailing Patito, his 36-foot sloop, on Long Island Sound or popping into the corner store downtown. Years before that, as a student at Yale University, my mother often saw Buckley’s son in the dining hall between classes. And when my mother was a kid, her father watched Firing Line on TV.
I grew up in Florida and had no knowledge of my family’s familiarity with and fondness for Buckley’s magazine until I was older. Having just celebrated my five-year anniversary with National Review, I feel I’ve come full circle, grateful to have a place to call my intellectual home that feels like an extension of my roots. If you feel a similar connection to this essential publication, please consider donating to our spring webathon.
The life of the mind was important to my parents. While we had plenty of fun, they emphasized reading books and newspapers above all else. Never did I catch them binge-watching a reality TV show or doing anything else that would insult their intelligence.
“Learn something, why don’t ya!,” my late seventy-something father would declare with comical indignation as he slapped a print issue of National Review over whatever device had captured my attention at that particular moment in adolescence.
The playful prodding worked. I read National Review regularly as I entered high school and college. If I wanted to sharpen my thinking, vocabulary, and arguments, I would pick up the latest edition of the magazine. In Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw narrates: “When I first moved to New York City and I was totally broke, sometimes I would buy Vogue instead of dinner. I felt it fed me more.” I found that National Review invigorated in me a gusto for preserving America, and it has fueled me ever since.
If National Review is to continue nourishing the next generation, we’ll need generous readers like you to support us.
I’ve discovered that unfortunately, many members of my generation appear less interested in the deep contemplation and good-faith debate you can find at National Review every day. Much of Gen Z, at least those who frequent social media, are searching for quick answers to complicated political questions. Some are falling into edgelord escapism, blaming their economic and social insecurities on whichever bogeyman happens to be convenient on a given day.
Times like these offer a test of which media outlets and personalities have intellectual integrity and believe in higher knowledge, and who will pander to the addictive content machine for cheap clicks and dollars.
National Review has taken the more difficult and ethical path, providing our audience with the most rigorous and enlightening articles — and videos — defending the eternal principles that the American conservative tradition is based on.
National Review is not a place for cop-outs and convenient excuses; we don’t pretend the threats we face from enemies abroad are imagined or indulge in conspiracy theorizing of the kind that generates clicks and revenue for lesser outlets.
National Review is brain food, the kind my parents insisted we eat before school every day. It will sustain the mind and the soul and impart a calm wisdom. And that’s the kind of citizen our republic was designed for. If you agree, please contribute to our cause, so we can keep cooking, as Gen Z says.
