(6) the world-as-view sense of life is not agonistically toned; instead, it tends toward being irenic;
(7) the world-as-view sense of life is not empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced; instead, it tends toward being objectively distanced;
(8) the world-as-view sense of life is not homeostatic; instead, it tends toward change;
(9) the world-as-view sense of life is not situational rather than abstract; instead, it tends toward being abstract.
For further discussion, see my article "Walter Ong and Harold Bloom Can Help Us Understand the Hebrew Bible" in the journal Explorations in Media Ecology, volume 11, numbers 3&4 (2012): pages 249-266.
As a thought experiment, we could deliberately undertake an effort to look for examples of what Ong would style as residual forms of the world-as-event sense of life in our contemporary American culture. For example, oral/oratorical redundant copiousness is often manifested today in political stump speeches. In the context of one-to-one psychotherapy today, many psychotherapists deliberately try to establish rapport with the client. To establish rapport with a client, the psychotherapist is empathetic and participatory. Now, if the psychotherapist and the client are both empathetic and participatory in their interactions with one another, the Ong would characterize the two persons as engaging in I-thou communication (Martin Buber's terminology). Ong never tired of recommending I-thou communication.
Ong refers to I-thou communication so frequently in the overall body of his work that I refer to I-thou communication in the subtitle of my book about his work: Walter Ong's Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication, 2nd ed. (Hampton Press, 2015).
For a fascinating discussion of I-thou communication, see Hannes Nykanen's article "Wittgenstein's Radical Ethics" in the European Journal of Psychoanalysis:
http://www.journal-psychoanalysis.eu/wittgensteins-radical-ethics/
Among other things, Nykanen argues that I-thou understanding tends to be repressed. However, this implies that at one time in each person's experience, I-thou communication was not repressed. As a rule, repression results from traumatization. Repeated traumatization tends to strengthen repression. To one degree or another, all of us have experienced traumatization and repression. Consequently, all of us need to undertake emotional (affective) recovery work, as Pete Walker suggests in his awesome self-help book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (Azure Coyote Book, 2013). See my OEN review essay "You Are Suffering from Complex PTSD":
Now, no doubt these nine characteristics of the world-as-event sense of life and certain other aspects of Ong's thought can be used as guiding heuristics to orient us to interpreting the Hebrew Bible and understanding the great shift that interests Kugel. However, as far as I know, Ong does not discuss neuroscience, except in passing in his discussion of Julian Jaynes in his book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982, pages 29-30). But Kugel does, including g his lengthy discussion note about Julian Jaynes (pages 410-411, note 7). Your guess is as good as mine as to why Ong does not discuss neuroscience, except in passing. But my guess is that he may have figured that he could make a valuable scholarly contribution to our understanding by articulating his phenomenological approach to thought and expression. But it is undeniable that it is fashionable in certain academic circles today to discuss neuroscience. No doubt neuroscientists have generated an enormous amount of excitement about what they refer to as the plasticity of the human brain. Simply stated, the plasticity of the brain means that connections formed in the brain are malleable.
For example, in the book Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of Human Invention (Viking, 2009), the cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene shows that learning to read involves forming new connections in the brain. This finding supports Ong's broad claim about visualist cognitive tendencies. Dehaene's finding is also relevant to Kugel's interests, because the ancient authors who wrote the various texts in the Hebrew Bible had first learned how to read.
In addition to cognitive brain connections, there are affective brain connections such as those involved in the repression that results from traumatization, mentioned above.
Now, as I write, we are celebrating the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968). Later in 2018, we will commemorate the 50th anniversary of his assassination in 1968. In Dr. King's practice of preaching, he proceeded to compose his speeches in the spirit of an oral singer of tales -- anonymously drawing on the speeches of certain other preachers, but without explicitly adverting to them by name. No doubt Dr. King's moving oratory exemplified the oral/oratorical tradition of redundant copiousness. But Dr. King was highly educated. He had done graduate studies in Christian theology. Moreover, he could weave learned theological references into certain speeches, when he wanted to do so. Consequently, we can say that he stood astride the great divide that Ong describes. In contrast, as noted above, Ong himself did not exemplify the oral/oratorical tradition of redundant copiousness.
In conclusion, your guess is as good as mine as to why there has been such strong scholarly resistance to Ong's carefully nuanced multi-dimensional account of the great shift in our Western cultural history. In light of the scholarly resistance to his account of the great shift, it strikes me as a bold move for James L. Kugel to title his book The Great Shift. It also strikes me as remarkable that Professor Kugel has written his learned book in such an accessible way -- almost as though he thinks that the reading public today will not greet his discussion of the great shift with the kind of resistance with which scholars have greeted Ong's account of the great shift.
(Article changed on January 18, 2018 at 13:47)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
