Ong further explored the oral-aural tendency in Western cultural history in the following books:
(1) The Barbarian Within: And Other Fugitive Essays and Studies (New York: Macmillan, 1962);
(2) In the Human Grain: Further Explorations of Contemporary Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1967);
(3) The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press, 1967), the expanded version of Ong's 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University;
(4) Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the Interaction of Expression and Culture (Cornell University Press, 1971);
(5) Interfaces of the Word: Studies in the Evolution of Consciousness and Culture (Cornell University Press, 1977);
(6) Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London and New York: Methuen, 1982);
(7) Hopkins, the Self, and God (University of Toronto Press, 1986), Ong's 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.
Arguably Ong's book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981), his 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University, is most centrally related to Paglia's Sexual Personae. In Ong's earlier comments quoted in Newsweek's cover story titled "Anything Goes: Taboos in Twilight" (November 13, 1967, pages 74-78). In the half century since that Newsweek cover story, certain Christian sexual taboos have been challenged by various currents in popular culture, which Trump's white Christian supporters find alarming. In Sexual Personae, Paglia discusses certain Christian sexual taboos that Trump's white Christian supporters more or less endorse. But certain Christian sexual taboos need to be revisited.
In a number of his books, Ong routinely refers to Jungian thought, as does Paglia in her 1990 book. But Paglia does not happen to advert explicitly to Ong's sweeping account of Western cultural history in her own sweeping account of Western cultural history in Sexual Personae.
As far as I know, Ong does not discuss Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian contrast, or Paglia's 1990 book. However, in "Post-Christian or Not?" in In the Human Grain (pages 147-164), mentioned above, Ong perceptively discusses Nietzsche.
For further discussion of Ong's thought, see my online essay "Understanding Ong's Philosophical Thought":
http://hdl.handle.net/10792/2696
For a bibliography of Ong's 400 or so publications, see Thomas M. Walsh's "Walter J. Ong, S.J.: A Bibliography 1929-2006" in the book Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J., edited by Sara van den Berg and Walsh (New York: Hampton Press, 2011, pages 185-245).
In conclusion, MacDonald's new book is a timely reminder for Trump's white Christian supporters of the Dionysian crucible embedded in the Gospel According to John -- and in Christian spirituality, broadly speaking. However, apart from Trump's white Christian supporters, MacDonald's new book is relevant to understanding and coping with our contemporary Dionysian crucible in Western cultural history, as are Paglia's discussion of the Apollonian/Dionysian contest in Western cultural history and Ong's discussion of the visual-aural contrast in Western cultural history. Broadly speaking, the Republican Party tends to represent the Apollonian spirit as Paglia delineates this tendency. In contrast, the Democratic Party tends to represent the Dionysian spirit as she delineates this tendency.
(Article changed on April 17, 2017 at 20:35)
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