Michael Harrington
| Michael Harrington | |
|---|---|
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| Chairman of Democratic Socialists of America | |
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In office 1982–1989 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Edward Michael Harrington, Jr. February 24, 1928 St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
| Died | July 31, 1989 (aged 61) |
| Spouse(s) | Stephanie Gervis |
| Children | Alexander Harrington, Edward Michael "Ted" Harrington III |
| Occupation | Politician, author |
Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington, Jr. (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist, writer, author of The Other America, political activist, political theorist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founding member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
In 1973, he coined the term neoconservatism.
He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 24, 1928, to an Irish-American family. He attended St. Roch Catholic School and St. Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Thomas Anthony Dooley III. He later attended the College of the Holy Cross, the University of Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both leftist politics and Roman Catholicism. He joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement, a communal movement that stressed social justice and nonviolence. Harrington enjoyed arguing about culture and politics, and his Jesuit education had made him a good debater and rhetorician.
On May 30, 1963, Harrington married Stephanie Gervis, a freelance writer and staff writer for the Village Voice. He died on July 31, 1989, of cancer.
Harrington was an editor of the newspaper The "Catholic Worker" from 1951 to 1953. However, he became disillusioned with religion. Although he would always retain a certain affection for Catholic culture, he ultimately became an atheist.
In 1978, the periodical Christian Century quoted him: "I am a pious apostate, an atheist shocked by the faithlessness of the believers, a fellow traveler of moderate Catholicism who has been out of the church for 20 years." Harrington observed of himself and his high school classmate, Tom Dooley, that "each of us was motivated, in part at least, by the Jesuit inspiration of our adolescence that insisted so strenuously that a man must live his philosophy."
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