Over a period of several decades, Ong
studied various aspects of male agonistic tendencies in Western culture. All of
Ong's work needs to be understood in the context of his massively researched
1954 Harvard University doctoral dissertation, which was published in two volumes
by Harvard University Press in 1958. With financial assistance from two
Guggenheim Fellowships, Ong lived abroad for almost four years and worked in
more than 100 libraries in the
In his masterwork Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason, Ong delineated how Ramus and Ramism switched dialectic and rhetoric from what Ong styles dialogue to something that he styles monologue. Before Ramus and Ramus, both dialectic and rhetoric were based on a deeply felt orientation toward pro and con debate or dialogue, usually with a strong sense of the real or imagined adversarial position. Think, for example, of how St. Thomas Aquinas sets forth in his Summa theologiae separate objections and then later on responds to each objection in turn. His way of proceeding represents a formal and systematic agonistic or dialogic pattern of thought. By contrast, Ramus and Ramism favored a strong orientation toward simply setting forth one's own line of thought -- in principle, without any formal consideration of real or imaginary adversarial positions. In practice, Ramus and his followers made spirited response to real adversarial positions. But it should be noted that many of Ramus's followers were Protestant preachers. Ramism was especially well suited to preaching from a pulpit, where immediate debate was not common.
Of course, Ong also attended to and
carefully delineated a number of other themes in this formidable volume, which
was reissued in 2004 by the
But modernity does not employ
manliness and thumos to the same degree as they were employed in oral cultures,
as
However, Mansfield could have
deepened and enormously enriched his discussion of various matters touching on
manliness and thumos by drawing Ong's account of the emergence of Western
modernity in print culture in Ramus,
Method, and the Decay of Dialogue; Ong's 1959 discussion of puberty rites,
which is reprinted in Ong's Rhetoric,
Romance, and Technology (Cornell University Press, 1971: 113-41); Ong's
seminal consideration of agonistic tendencies in the title essay in The Barbarian Within (Macmillan, 1962: 260-85),
which is reprinted in An Ong Reader
(Hampton Press, 2002: 277-300); Ong's discussion of polemic structures in The Presence of the Word (1967: 236-55);
Ong's discussion of agonistic or contesting tendencies in his 1967 preface to
the English translation of Hugo Rainer's Man
at Play (1967: ix-xiv), which is reprinted in An Ong Reader (2002: 345-48); Ong's discussion of male agonism in his
1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University, mentioned above, published as Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality
[Gender], and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981); Ong's 1982
plenary address to the American Catholic Philosophical Association, which is
reprinted in An Ong Reader (2002:
479-95); Ong's discussion of agonistic tendencies in his lengthy introduction
to Milton's Logic in volume eight of
Yale's Complete Prose Works of John
Milton (Yale University Press, 1982: 139-205), which is reprinted in Ong's Faith and Contexts: Volume Four
(Scholars Press, 1999: 111-41). Ong has also discussed agonistic tendencies more
briefly elsewhere, even in his most widely known book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (Methuen,
1982: 43-45). Had
In most of Ong's works mentioned above, he has taken a largely phenomenological approach to describing agonistic tendencies. However, in Fighting for Life he adds a discussion of the male hormone testosterone as making a decisive difference in connection with male agonism. But then he also adds a typically Freudian conjecture to his mostly phenomenological account. He conjectures that male agonism springs from male insecurity. To be sure, male insecurity is real enough, as is female insecurity. However, in my book Walter Ong's Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (Hampton Press, 2000: 172-77), I have set forth my critique of Ong's discussion of male insecurity. As I note, the complete opposite of agonism would be non-agonism or catatonic inertia, which would not contribute to sustaining human life. Regardless, of whatever insecurity males may have, the tendency of male agonism to contribute positively to human life is far too important to diminish it by seeing it as some kind of compensation for male insecurity. As I have intimated above, I think that Homer, Plato, and Aristotle got it right when they referred to the thumos as a key part of the human psyche. Even though the spiritedness of thumos can go woefully awry at times, we humans would be helpless without this important part of the psyche to help spur us to action.
In a provocative essay entitled "'Deliverance'
and
But What About Female Agonism?
Lawrence Summers of Harvard provoked the rage of certain feminists by comments he made regarding women and science. In brief, he mentioned biological differences (as does Ong) and suggested that girls and women may be more interested in other pursuits than in the pursuit of science. As Summers seemed to indicate, girls and women may be socially conditioned to pursue certain other pursuits more strongly. In effect, he appeared to imply that the single-minded pursuit of science is "a guy thing," to use a common expression. Shame on him! However, I cannot fault him for suggesting that social conditioning is an important variable in the lives of girls and women. It is an important variable, as it also is in the lives of boys and men.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
