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Stanley McChrystal's Book On Character, and Walter J. Ong's Thought (REVIEW ESSAY)

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Thomas Farrell
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My favorite mom-son porn video featuring Cory Chase in the role of the mom is "My Three Sons."

Granted, I could mute the soundtrack and watch those two mom-son porn videos just to see the visual aspect of each mom-son porn video. But I cannot imagine ever doing that - and I cannot imagine that most young boys and men of all ages would ever mute the soundtrack on mom-son porn videos and just watch them for the visual aspect. You see, the soundtrack of various mom-son porn videos is indispensable for establishing the fantasy skit in the mom-son porn videos. Yes, the voices of the exhibitionistic woman and the exhibitionistic man playing the roles of mom and son in the fantasy skits of mom-son porn videos that are available free on the internet are indispensable. No soundtrack = no entertainment value.

Now, taking various hints from Ong, I have written about our contemporary secondary oral culture in my essay "Secondary Orality and consciousness Today" in the well-organized anthology titled Media, Consciousness, and Culture: Explorations of Walter Ong's Thought, edited by Bruce E. Gronbeck, Thomas J. Farrell, and Paul A. Soukup (Sage Publications, 1991, pp. 194-209).

Now, each chapter in McChrystal's new 2025 book On Character: Choices That Define a Life is a complete short and precise essay on its own. No chapter depends on another chapter to complete it. In principle, you could read these various chapters in whatever order you might like. But McChrystal did put the chapters in the order that I have listed them here.

The author is a retired U. S. Army general, and his experiences in the Army are featured in certain essays - as are his reflections of certain prominent events in American history and on certain prominent authors in our Western cultural history.

Now, there is a striking resemblance between the brevity of McChrystal's 68 short essays in his new 2025 book On Character and the brevity of Marshall McLuhan's short chapters in his 1962 book in media-ecology titled The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (sic), mentioned above.

In the tumultuous 1960s, the younger generation raised on television could read McLuhan's media-ecology account of the print culture that emerged in our western cultural history after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s - the print culture in which the older generation in the 1960s had been groomed.

Now in 2025, the younger generation of Americans who have grown up enjoying free porn videos on the internet can learn now about character by reading the retired U.S. Army general McChrystal's new 2025 book On Character.

Now, in McChrystal's Chapter 29: "Being Obsessed: Some Endeavors Warrant Obsessive Focus," he focuses on the quality of "Being Obsessed" with something. No Doubt I have been obsessed with Ong's media-ecology thought over my adult lifetime. More generally, whenever I am engaged in writing something, such as an OEN article, I am obsessive in working on it until I have completed it.

Now, in McChrystal's Chapter 44: "In Patient Pursuit of Greatness: Great Comes More from Unwavering Effort Than from Brilliance" (pp. 138-141)," he embraces the idea of pursuing greatness (to state the obvious). But the pursuit of greatness is not a widely endorsed pursuit. See Robert Faulkner's book The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics (Yale University Press, 2008).

But also see Maurice B. McNamee's book Honor and the Epic Hero: A Study of the Shifting Concept of Magnanimity [Greatness] in Philosophy and Epic Poetry (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960).

Ah, but do I see myself in my life as being dedicated to the pursuit of greatness? Yes, I do - yes, even in my retirement years (after the end of May 2009) in writing 670 OEN articles (starting on October 2009), I have been dedicated to the pursuit of greatness. And in my own estimate, how am I doing in my pursuit of greatness? In my own estimate, I am doing just fine in my pursuit of greatness. For example, my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word 665th OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klien on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025), mentioned above, cogently exemplifies my pursuit of greatness in writing my various OEN articles over the years (starting in October 2009).

Now, in my own pursuit of greatness in my life, I have been helped in my pursuit of greatness by the great examples of two of my Jesuit teachers at Saint Louis University: Father Ong and Father McNamee (1909-2007; Ph.D. in English, Saint Louis University, 1945; dissertation on Francis Bacon and the verbal arts of grammar and rhetoric, directed by Marshall McLuhan). Also see McNamee's book Recollections in Tranquility (Saint Louis University Press, 2001).

In conclusion, Stanley McChrystal has lived a long and full life. In each of the 68 autobiographical chapters in his new 2025 book On Character: Choices That Define a Life, he recollects in tranquility certain events of his own life to set up the over-arching argument that he makes in the book. But when I ask myself who would profit the most from reading McChrystal's over-arching argument, I cannot formulate an answer that I find convincing myself. Thus, prospective readers of his book are left with the book's title and subtitle and its table of contents to determine if it is a book that they want to engage with as a possible catalyst for their own further reflections on their own lives.

Now, I am extraordinarily used to reflecting on my own life. But the fact that I found that the book prompted me to reflect further about certain things is my life is not really a reliable indication that you will find things in McChrystal's new 2025 book that prompt you to reflect further about your own life - that is, things that he says may evoke images in your mind and prompt your associative thinking about similar things in your own life experience. In other words, as you read McChrystal's words, you should allow his words to evoke images in your mind and prompt your associative thinking to think about similar things in your own life experiences.

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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