In these two books and in certain related essays, some of which are reprinted in An Ong Reader: Challenges for Further Inquiry (2002), Ong laser-focused on the contesting spirit - which at times is understandably described as competitiveness, the hallmark of Western economic liberalism (also known in short as capitalism).
But in Ong's 1981 book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness, he focuses especially on what he refers to as male agonistic behavior (from the Greek word agon, meaning contest or struggle).
The American novelist William Faulkner (1897-1962) detail how tragically awry male agonistic behavior can go at times in his 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom!
But also see Warwick Wadlington's book Reading Faulknerian Tragedy (Cornell University Press, 1987).
In addition, see Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1979).
Now, the shrewd Irish American Catholic Harvard-educated womanizer Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (1888-1969; Harvard class of 1912), father not only of Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (1915-1944; Harvard class of 1938), but also of John F. Kennedy (1917-1963; Harvard class of 1940) and several other younger children, somehow excelled in his various endeavors in the American capitalist system of his day to become a very wealthy man.
In addition, Joe Senior valued the very competitiveness that had enabled him to become very rich, and he inculcated competitiveness in his family to an uncommon degree, perhaps most notably in Joe Junior and his younger brother Jack.
Now, the Swedish-born American historian Fredrik Logevall (born in 1963, the year in which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas) of Harvard details these three Kennedys in his new 2020 book JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 (Random House), the first volume of a promised two-volume account of the life and times of JFK.
Now, Logevall is also the author of the 2012 book Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam (Random House), which won the Pulitzer Prize for History. Not surprisingly, Logevall carefully discusses Indochina and Vietnam in his new 2020 book JFK (see the index for specific page references). No doubt Logevall will discuss Vietnam and Indochina further in the second volume of JFK.
The densely packed first volume comes equipped with a remarkably detailed index (pages 751-792). With three graduates of Harvard College figuring prominently in his book, Logevall, in history at Harvard, includes a kind of running capsule history of Harvard University scattered in various places in his book (see the index for Harvard for specific page references). In addition, he sprinkles in informative capsule histories about relevant world affairs throughout the book.
Now, I have no idea if Logevall is familiar with Faulkner's 1936 novel Absalom, Absalom! But Joe Senior, Joe Junior, and JFK emerge from Logevall's book as extraordinarily competitive - in Ong's terminology, their male agonistic tendencies are in over-drive.
Nevertheless, despite Joe Senior's otherwise over-active competitiveness, he came to be seen as a coward for his strong stand of appeasement toward Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany - when Joe Senior was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom (March 8, 1938 to October 22, 1940; Logevall discusses the charge of cowardice against Joe Senior on pages 279-280, 326, 373, 378, and 685n38).
In addition, Logevall discusses the strong rivalry between Joe Junior and JFK (see esp. pages 352-354 and 374-375) and Joe Junior's dangerous gambits in the Navy (page 374).
Logevall also discusses JFK's competitiveness (pages 76, 78-79, 384, 540, and 635) and his recklessness, risk-taking and carelessness (pages 166-167, 217, 384, 550, and 646). In addition, Logevall discusses JFK as being in Joe Junior's shadow, their rivalry, and his love for his elder brother (pages 67-72, 69, 74-75, 88-91, 115, 136, 159, 352-353, 368, and 695n56).
But let's go back to the charge of cowardice against Joe Senior for a minute. Logevall quotes Joe Senior's friend Arthur Krock as saying, "'Joe Jr. when he volunteered on this final mission which was beyond his duty, beyond everything, was seeking to prove by its very danger that the Kennedys were not yellow. That's what killed that boy. That's why he died. And his father realized it. He never admitted it, but he realized it'" (page 378).
I do not think that Krock is totally off the mark in what he says here about Joe Junior and about Joe Senior's realizing that the charge of cowardice against him contributed to Joe Junior's motivation beyond his duty. No doubt such a realization deepened Joe Senior's profound mourning of Joe Junior's death.
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