Article: Reflections on Ian Morris' Book About the West and China

In his short summative book ORALITY AND LITERACY (2002, page 127), Walter Ong discusses the quantification of thought only briefly, so that only the most attentive readers of this book would notice it. Nevertheless, Walter Ong's knowledge of the scholarly research in the history of logic has enabled him to identify a very important variable in my estimate.

According to Walter Ong's way of considering cultural developments as inter-related, that new state of mind contributed to the historical emergence of modern science, modern capitalism, modern democracy, the Industrial Revolution, and the Romantic Movement in the West. For all practical purposes, the United States epitomizes the West. In the introductory-level course that I taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth based on Walter Ong's thought, I told the students, "This course is about you and your American cultural conditioning." We Americans epitomize Western culture. But it does not necessarily follow that we should be uncritical of our Western cultural heritage.

Related Reading: Concerning the quantification of thought in medieval logic, Ong cites Willard Van Orman Quine's MATHEMATICAL LOGIC revised edition (Harvard University Press, 1951) and Joseph T. Clark's CONVENTIONAL LOGIC AND MODERN LOGIC: A PRELUDE TO TRANSITION, with a preface by Quine (American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1952). But also see I. M. Bochenski's A HISTORY OF FORMAL LOGIC, translated and edited by Ivo Thomas (University of Notre Dame Press, 1961) and William Kneale and Martha Kneale's THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOGIC (Clarendon Press, 1962).

COMPARING WALTER ONG'S ACCOUNT TO IAN MORRIS' ACCOUNT

In my estimate, Walter Ong does a better job of explaining why the West is dominant today than Morris does. But Morris understands the potential of China as a competitor for the West better than Walter Ong does.

As Ian Morris understands, Confucianism is a widespread and powerful force in China. As the recent test scores in Shanghai show, Confucian cultural conditioning can readily be adapted to promoting formal education in reading and math and science to roughly replicate through formal education the kind of new state of mind that Walter Ong has identified as being inculcated through medieval logic for three centuries and more of formal education in the West.

As I have indicated, the challenge that China poses for the West may lead to the end of the West as we know it. As those Shanghai test scores show, and as Diane Sawyer's reports about China today show, and as the ominous caption in the NEW YORK TIMES intimates, Ian Morris' book should be a wake-up call for many Americans today, but especially for liberals.

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