Now, Father Ong valued choices and decision making. See Ong's article "'A.M.D.G.' ["Ad majorem Dei gloriam" = "For the greater glory of God"]} Dedication or Directive?" in the now-defunct Jesuit-sponsored journal Review for Religious (September 15, 1952). Ong's 1952 article is reprinted in volume three of Ong's Faith and Contexts, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (1995, pp. 1-8).
Ong reprises his 1952 article "'A.M.D.G.': Dedication or Directive?" in his 1986 book Hopkins, the Self, and God (pp. 78-81 and 87), the published version of Ong's 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.
Ah, and what about me - do I value choice and decision making as they define one's character? Yes, I do. And I see my choices as defining my character.
For example, in my OEN article titled "Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development" (dated September 17, 2024; viewed 1,235 times as of June 21, 2025), I set forth an account of the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore's thought about the eight masculine archetypes of maturity and their sixteen accompanying "shadow" forms in each human psyche. In addition, I used Moore's thought as the basis for my criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church's moral vision of individual personal moral development.
More recently, I have sharpened my criticism of what I first referred to as the tragic anti-body heritage of Christianity in my wide-ranging and, at times, deeply personal 28,800-word 665th OEN article titled "Fareed Zakaria and Ezra Klein on President Trump's Foreign Policy" (dated March 24, 2025; viewed 1,808 times as of May 18, 2025), mentioned above.
But also see my three following subsequent OEN articles: (1) "Thomas J. Farrell's Encore on the Tragic Anti-Body Heritage of Christianity" (dated April 29, 2025); (2) "Thomas J. Farrell's Further Reflections on the Tragic Anti-Body Heritage of Christianity" (dated June 14, 2025); and (3) "Thomas J. Farrell's Postscript Reflections on His Life and Work" (dates June 16, 2025).
Now, Ong famously refers to as our contemporary secondary oral culture. By this term, Ong differentiates our contemporary secondary oral culture brought to us by the various communication media that accentuate sound (e.g., television, telephone, radio, movies with soundtracks, DVDs with soundtracks, internet videos with soundtracks that are available free on the internet today, podcasts, and the like) from pre-literate primary oral cultures, including pre-historic pre-literate primary oral cultures. For all practical purposes, the communication media that accentuate sound reached a critical mass around 1960 - and this critical mass of communication media that accentuate sound has produced out contemporary secondary oral culture that has superseded the print culture that emerged in our Western cultural history after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s.
So, around 1960, secondary oral culture versus print culture within American culture.
Remember that I accept the axiom that American politics is downstream from American culture.
In terms of American politics, secondary oral culture versus print culture translates into liberals and progressives such as OEN readers today versus conservatives such as Trump voters today.
You see, in media ecology terms, I see American conservatives today as longing for their idealized sense of the lost world of print culture in American culture up to the 1950s - but their idealized sense of the lost world of print culture in American culture in the 1950s is an imaginary idealization.
In media ecology terms, I see American liberals and progressives today as representing American people who are soundly orienting to our contemporary secondary oral culture.
I see the following five books as classic media ecology studies of the print culture that emerged in our Western cultural history after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in the mid-1450s in Europe:
(1) Richard D. Altick's 1957 book The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public, 1800-1900;
(2) Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin's 1958 book in French titled The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800, translated by David Gerard; edited by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and David Wootton (1976);
(3) Walter J. Ong's 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason, mentioned above;
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