As I say, Ong did not succeed in his efforts to turn his fellow American Catholics away from the spirit of contending with modernity that Philip Gleason describes in his book CONTENDING WITH MODERNITY (1995) and toward the spirit of formulating and cultivating a multi-dimensional mystique along the lines that Ong outlines in his first book, FRONTIERS IN AMERICAN CATHOLICISM (1957).
In a recent email message to me, a witty colleague observed that "Americans don't write national epics anymore; they write epic theories of American literature."
Take a hint from his comment, I would say that Ong wrote an epic cultural theory in the body of his work, contextualizing and historicizing American cultural history in relation to the whole of cultural history. Thus Ong's extensive body of work is an enormous national treasure and resource for all Americans today to study as part of their own personal efforts to develop insights about their own personal lives and acceptance of their own personal history in relation to the whole epic sweep of cultural history.
Today we Americans urgently need to renew our commitment to our experiment in representative democracy as our form of government in the elections of 2012 by defeating as many Republican candidates running for elective office in the United States. The Republicans are up to no good. The Republicans should be defeated in the 2012 elections, so that we can renew the American covenant as our American way of life, renew our American personal and collective identity, renew the great American myth about America as a land flowing with milk and honey, and renew our American civil religion. After all, people do not live on bread alone.
But people also do not live on big-sounding speeches alone such as the big-sounding speeches that Barack Obama excels in delivering.
However, the most effective way that Americans today can renew our experiment in representative democracy is by not voting for Republican candidates in the 2012 elections. With their anti-government rhetoric, Republicans today are up to no good.
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