About a decade after Miller's massively researched book was published, the American Jesuit Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) stepped forward to undertake a massive study of Ramus and Ramist logic. Ong's massively researched dissertation about the history of the verbal art of logic and rhetoric from antiquity down to the time of Ramus and beyond was published, slightly revised, in two volumes by Harvard University Press in 1958:
(1) Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse [in Ancient and Medieval Western Culture] to the Art of Reason [in the Age of Reason]; briefly, Ramism, according to Ong, represented a historic shift from imagining the verbal arts of logic and rhetoric as being deployed in a dialogic spirit with a real or imagined adversarial position(s) to imagining the verbal arts as monologic working out one's own line of reasoning;
(2) Ramus and Talon Inventory, a briefly annotated listing of more than 750 volumes by Ramus and his allies and his critics that Ong had tracked down in more than 100 libraries in the British Isles and Continental Europe (he had received the financial assistance of two Guggenheim Fellows to carry out his library research).
Subsequently, Ong reflected at length about the in-group/out-group psychodynamic that Pally reflects on in her 2022 book in the title essay of his 1962 book The Barbarian Within: And Other Fugitive Essays and Studies (Macmillan, pp. 260-285). Ong's 1962 title essay "The Barbarian Within: Outsiders Inside Society Today" is reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Hampton Press, 2002, pp. 277-300). However, even though I find Ong's discussion of in-groups and out-groups fascinating, I have to say that the psychodynamic he uses so skillfully would not lend itself for use by those in American politics today. It is for the use of those today who want to take a step back from American politics and analyze how in-group vs. our-group rhetoric is being used.
In any event, when young John Milton (1608-1674) was a student at Cambridge University, Ramist logic dominated the curriculum. Later in Milton's life, he wrote a textbook in logic in Latin based on Ramus' work in Latin, the lingua franca of the time. Later still in Milton's life, after he had become famous as a poet and pamphleteer in English, he published his logic textbook in Latin in 1672. Ong and Charles J. Ermatinger edited and translated Milton's Logic in volume eight of Yale's Complete Prose Works of John Milton: 1666-1682, edited by Maurice Kelley (Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 139-407) - with an eloquent "Introduction" by Ong (pp. 144-207). Ong's "Introduction" is reprinted, slightly shortened, as "Introduction to Milton's Logic" in volume four of Ong's Faith and Contexts, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Scholars Press, 1999, pp. 111-142).
In any event, I have gotten a bit ahead of myself here by jumping ahead to Milton's Logic.
In the spring 1964 semester, Yale delivered the prestigious Terry Lectures at Yale University, the expanded version of which was published as the book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press, 1967). In it, Ong discusses the cultural psychodynamic that he characterizes as polemic (for specific page references, see the "Index" [p. 354]).
However, upon further consideration of how to best characterize the cultural psychodynamic in question, Ong chose to refer to it as agonistic in spirit in his book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality [Gender], and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981), the published version of his 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University.
By happy coincidence, Pally happens to use the term agonism in her 2022 book (pp. 12, 18, and 133) - borrowing it from Chantal Mouffe's online article "In Defence of Left-Wing Populism" in The Conversation (dated April 29, 2016): Click Here
Now, in my recent OEN article "Michael Czerny and Christian Barone on Pope Francis," I discuss their co-authored book Siblings All, Sign of the Times: The Social Teaching of Pope Francis, translated from the Italian by Julian Paparelli (Orbis Books, 2022; orig. Italian ed., 2021).
In my recent OEN article, I say, "Under the subheading "A heart open to the whole world: Immigration as an opportunity for enrichment and interchange" (p. 109), Czerny and Barone say in note 15 on page 110, "[Pope] Francis admires the thought of Romano Guardini and his [book] L'opposizione polare is one of the significant texts of the pope's formative years. Pope Francis has made the art of holding opposing realities, experiences, and sensibilities together in creative tension a distinctive feature of his personal and pastoral reflection. Our co-authors then provide us with three references to publications in Italian. However, I would point out that the lay Italian Catholic Massimo Borghesi's intellectual biography of Pope Francis has been translated into English as The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Intellectual Journey, translated from the Italian by Barry Hudock (Liturgical Press Academic, 2018; orig. Italian ed., 2017).
"I discuss Borghesi's intellectual biography of Pope Francis in my wide-ranging 5,150-word review essay "Massimo Borghesi's Book on Pope Francis, and Walter J. Ong's Thought" that is available online through the University of Minnesota's digital conservancy:
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/200703
"I have no problem with Pope Francis' admiring Guardini's thought about polar opposites or with the pope's own practice of "the art of holding opposing realities" in tension. However, we today often hear about polarization. Polarization is real in American culture wars. Consequently, I would urge Czerny and Barone, or even Pope Francis himself, to use real-life examples of polarization in American culture wars and discuss how we might proceed to hold those seemingly polar positions in tension in a way that might turn out to be fruitful and instructive."
However, Pally discusses real-life examples of polarization in American culture wars - mostly from the standpoint of white evangelicals.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
