Recently Camille Paglia, the multi-directional cultural commentator, has gotten good press in Time Magazine" and the "Wall Street Journal" for publicly defending male virtue against the anti-male male views of certain other feminists. Yes, she is a self-described feminist. I happen to agree with her basic view of male virtue. But the views of Walter Ong and David Bakan can deepen our understanding of male virtue.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) December 30, 2013: Camille Paglia recently published a polemic in Time Magazine titled "It's a Man's World, and It Always Will Be" (dated December 16, 2013).

But that title is not exactly the rallying cry of contemporary feminists like young Hanna Rosin, author of the feminist book The End of Men (2012). So will other young feminists respond to Rosin's rallying cry: "The End of Men"? I hope not. So I was happy to see Time publish Paglia's spirited rejoinder to Rosin's rallying cry.

Even more recently, the Wall Street Journal published a thoughtful interview of Paglia titled "Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues" (dated December 28, 2013). Bari Weiss interviewed Paglia and wrote the lengthy piece.

But feminists are not exactly famous for offering a defense of masculine virtues. Yes, Paglia does consider herself to be a feminist, even though she criticizes the views of other feminists in the women's movement.

I should mention that Paglia has also published op-ed commentaries about politics, but her liberal political views are not mentioned in the lengthy WSJ piece. For this reason, some liberals might see her spirited critiques of feminism in the WSJ piece as contributing to the Republicans' war on women.

Now, both Camille Paglia (born 1947) and Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003), are multi-directional cultural critics. Each takes the long view of culture, going back to ancient times. Each has also defended certain kinds of male behavior. In this respect, each has countered the anti-male criticisms of certain brash feminists.

But their respective ways of countering certain anti-male criticisms of brash feminists have been strikingly different. Paglia has engaged in polemics with the brash feminists. By contrast, Ong has been irenic and contemplative in his works about male agonistic tendencies. In light of his commitment to being irenic and contemplative, he did not publish op-ed commentaries about his political views, as Paglia has.

As a spirited cultural critic, Paglia has undoubtedly had a bigger impact on the American reading public than Ong had -- perhaps because she writes about subject matter that seems closer to the immediate experience of the American reading public than Ong does. But Ong liked to say that we need both closeness (proximity) and distance to understand something. If this is true, as I think it is, then Ong's cultural critiques might supply the American reading public with the distance they need to get their cultural bearings about the kinds of cultural changes we in Western culture are undergoing today.

To show this, I will first review briefly Paglia's and then Ong's careers as multi-directional cultural critics. Next, I will pivot to David Bakan's important insights and relate them to Ong's thought. Finally, I will review and examine some of Paglia's specific criticisms in the WSJ piece.

CAMILLE PAGLIA'S CULTURAL CRITIQUES

Trained as a literary critic, Paglia received her Ph.D. in English from Yale University. Yale's prolific literary critic Harold Bloom (born 1930), author of the best-selling book of bardolatry titled hyperbolically Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998), served as the director of her 1974 doctoral dissertation. She published her revised doctoral dissertation as the wide-ranging learned book Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (Yale University Press, 1990).

Subsequently, Paglia has distinguished herself as an extraordinary polemicist, commenting on politics, popular culture, and contemporary feminism. But she is also a stylist. She expresses her critiques with admirable style. Because of her style, her polemics can be delightful to read. But the authors who decide to write responses to her polemics usually cannot match her style. Very few writers can. I, for one, cannot. Nor can Ong. She knows how to deploy the language very effectively.

Now, as is well known, many brash feminists have expressed anti-male views. However, for understandable reasons, many men have shied away from publicly criticizing brash feminists for their anti-male views. I guess that many men figure that a strategy of containment might work best as the way to fight against the anti-male views of certain brash feminists -- you know, like the strategy of containment that the United States famously used in the Cold War against the (now former) Soviet Union.

Hey, if your wife published a feminist book titled The End of Men, as Hanna Rosin did in 2012, you might want to consider a strategy of containment for dealing with her and her like-minded brash feminist friends.

But if many men dare not to criticize publicly the anti-male views expressed by certain brash feminists, Paglia is not afraid to take on their anti-male views publicly. She's a veteran warrior in the intra-feminist culture wars. Yes, in addition to conducting their anti-male culture wars on many fronts, feminists have been known to engage also in intra-feminist culture wars.

WALTER J. ONG'S CULTURAL CRITIQUES

Despite Paglia's stimulating polemics and admirable style as a multi-directional cultural critic, my favorite multi-directional cultural critic is the late Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003). Trained as a literary critic, he received his Ph.D. in English from Harvard University. Harvard's famous Americanist Perry Miller (1905-1963), author of the pioneering work in American Studies titled The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1939), served as the director of Ong's massively researched doctoral dissertation, which was published in two volumes by Harvard University Press in 1958.

However, Ong's book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (1958) did NOT become the kind of big breakthrough book for him that Paglia's book Sexual Personae (1990) became for her. But the wide-ranging topics that Ong discusses in his 1958 book were not as sexy as the topics that Paglia discusses in her breakthrough book.

Nevertheless, with his 1958 book Ong established himself as a multi-directional cultural critic, and so he had successfully launched his long and productive academic career as a multi-directional cultural critic. However, in his numerous publications (more than 400, not counting reprintings), Ong never engages in the kinds of polemics that Paglia engages in regularly. Instead of being polemical, Ong is characteristically irenic and contemplative in spirit.

In his important book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press, 1967), the expanded version of his 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University, Ong alerted people to the significant cultural shift that was by the 1960s underway in Western culture.

According to Ong, the cultural shift that is underway is a shift from the visual cultural conditioning of print culture to the aural cultural conditioning of the communication media that accentuate sound, including television. Ong had detailed the aural-to-visual shift in print culture in his 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue. Thus in his 1967 book he was exploring the new modification of this earlier aural-to-visual historical shift that was emerging in the 1960s. In theory, the emerging new modification suggested that the earlier aural-to-visual shift was undergoing a re-balancing of the aural and the visual sensory orientations in Western consciousness.

Ong's 1967 book was undoubtedly read more widely than his 1958 book about Ramus and Ramist logic had been. However, Ong's 1967 book was NOT the big breakthrough book for him that Paglia's 1990 book was for her.

But the people who read Ong's 1967 book were tipped off that a big shift in our Western cultural conditioning was underway. So taking a hint from Ong, they should have expected to see certain specific kinds of cultural shifts occur.

As a thought experiment, we might wonder for a moment about people who did not read Ong's 1967 book, or who did not take his word about a big shift in Western cultural conditioning being underway.

Indeed, certain kinds of cultural shifts were already emerging in the 1960s -- for example, the black civil rights movement led by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In addition, the contemporary women's movement was also emerging, or re-emerging, with new vigor. But along with the new vigor came certain brash feminists who advanced strong anti-male views. It sounded as though they would be willing to throw out the baby (men) with the bath water. However, as I noted above, many men decided not to counter their anti-male views publicly.

But Ong was one of the few men who tried to defend the male agonistic spirit, as he styles it in his book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (Cornell University Press, 1981), the published version of his 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University. The Greek word "agon" means contest, struggle.

In The Presence of the Word (1967, pages 192-286), Ong discusses polemical structures at length. The Greek word "polemos" means war, struggle. So he had been thinking about these matters for years before the strong anti-male rhetoric emerged in the contemporary women's movement.

Because Ong had studied polemical structure (also known as agonistic structures), he did not structure his book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (1981) as a polemic against brash anti-male views advanced by certain feminists. In other words, he did not happen to advert explicitly to their anti-male views as a way to establish a framework for his own thought and presentation.

Surprise, surprise, Ong's book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (1981) also was NOT the big breakthrough book for him that Paglia's 1990 book was for her. In my article "Ten Guys on Fox News Commented on Alleged "Wussification' in America in 2013" that was published at OpEdNews.com (dated December 28, 2013), I have discussed Ong's views in this book in detail.

Three strikes, and you're out, Ong! Paglia hit a home run with her first book. But you whiffed with each of your books. So she has had a big impact on the American reading public, but you haven't.

Ironic as it may sound, though, we can step back from the polemics of the women's movement and make a wry observation. The various feminists involved in those spirited polemics, including both Paglia and Rosin, are thereby engaging verbally in the kind of agonistic behavior that Ong discusses in connection with men. As he sees it, agonistic behavior always involves the felt sense of adversativeness -- of being up against it, whatever "it" might be. The irony of course is that feminists usually have not praised the agonistic spirit in men.

In the 1956 Broadway musical My Fair Lady, the character Professor Henry Higgins famously sings "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?" Thanks to the renewed women's movement that emerged from the 1960s onward, American society now has educated and articulate feminists engaging in verbal polemics -- just like the verbal polemics of men that Ong studied.

Of course this was probably not what Professor Higgins had in mind. Moreover, many feminists have been singing their own song back to Professor Higgins: "Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman?" So is it possible that many women today, perhaps including even some feminists, are becoming more like men and that many men today are becoming more like women?

If both of these possibilities are emerging in more people today, then those people can be described as becoming more androgynous -- that is, the women involved are becoming less stereotypically feminine and the men involved are becoming less stereotypically masculine. Put differently, they are becoming more balanced.

By developing their agonistic spirit verbally, outspoken feminists are thereby cultivating the agency dimension of their psychological lives -- as David Bakan explains this term.

DAVID BAKAN'S INSIGHTS

Next, I want to turn to the insights that David Bakan (1921-2004) of the University of Chicago develops in his book The Duality of Human Existence: An Essay on Psychology and Religion (1966). Then I will connect his terminology with Ong's thought. Subsequently, I will turn to some of Paglia's observations and discuss them in light of Ong's and Bakan's claims.

In his 1966 book, Bakan works with the conceptual constructs of agency and communion. In Western culture historically, agency is stereotypically masculine; communion, stereotypically feminine.

What Ong refers to as male agonistic behavior involves agency. Although I have not mentioned it previously, he never tired of championing I-thou communication, which involves communion.

Now, according to Bakan, we should work toward a balance of agency and communion in our lives.

According to Bakan, a person who has over-developed agency but seriously under-developed communion is not a well-balanced person. By this standard, certain American men are not well-balanced persons. But we could argue that many American men have been encouraged to over-develop their agency, on the one hand, and, on the other, to seriously under-develop the communion dimension of their lives, because of biases in our Western cultural conditioning.

Conversely, according to Bakan, a person who has over-developed communion but seriously under-developed agency is not a well-balanced person. By this standard, certain American women are not well-balanced persons. However, we could argue that many American women have not been allowed to develop their agency, on the one hand, and, on the other, have been encouraged to over-develop the communion dimension of their lives, because of biases in our Western cultural conditioning.

But remember that in the 1960s Ong was saying that we in Western culture were already undergoing a shift in our cultural conditioning and consciousness because of the impact of the communication media that accentuate sound. As a result of this shift in our cultural conditioning and consciousness, perhaps many Americans will be able to work out a better balance of agency and communion in their lives.

For example, when men today are urged to get in touch with the feminine side of life, this recommendation is best understood to mean that they should develop the communion dimension in their lives.

In theory, a person could work out an optimal development of both agency and communion. Such an optimally developed person could be referred to as androgynous. Conversely, a person could be seriously under-developed in both agency and communion. But I do not have a term to use to refer to such a seriously under-development.

Vicki S. Helgeson in psychology at Carnegie Mellon University has researched Bakan's ideas about agency and communion. She refers to her own research in different places in her 700-page textbook The Psychology of Gender (3rd ed., 2009).

I have discussed psychological androgyny at length in my essay "Secondary Orality and Consciousness Today" in the anthology Media, Consciousness, and Culture: Explorations of Walter Ong's Thought (1991, pages 194-209).

PAGLIA'S SPECIFIC CRITICISMS

Weiss devotes a substantial part of her WSJ piece to Paglia's critique of contemporary American education -- starting with kindergarten. According to Weiss, Paglia "sees the tacit elevation of "female values' -- such as sensitivity, socialization and cooperation -- as the main aim of teachers, rather than fostering creative energy and teaching hard geographical and historical fact."

Let me pause here to translate part of this statement into Bakan's terminology. I understand "female values" to refer to stereotypically feminine values. I further understand "sensitivity, socialization and cooperation" to be aspects of what Bakan refers to as communion.

Many schools have cut recess. Paglia says, ""They're making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters."

After a brief discussion of political correctness in higher education, Weiss makes the following statements:

"Politically correct, inadequate education, along with the decline of America's brawny industrial base, leaves many men with "no models of manhood,' she [Paglia] says. . . . "There's no room for anything manly right now.' The only place you can hear what men really feel these days, she claims, is on sports radio. No surprise, she is an avid listener. The energy and enthusiasm "inspire me as a writer,' she says, adding: "If we had to go to war,' the callers "are the men that would save the nation.'"

Now, we might wonder if it is true that there are "no models of manhood" today. Or is it just in parts of American culture that are under the influence of political correctness that there are "no models of manhood"? After all, the political correctness police have not been publishing books with titles like Models of Manhood.

Because the Greek word "andreia" means both courage and manly, John F. Kennedy's book Profiles in Courage (1956) can still serve as a compilation of models of manhood. But of course there are also other forms of courage besides political courage.

Ong does not compile examples of manhood. Moreover, he would readily acknowledge that our Western cultural conditioning has included white men enslaving African Americans and also denigrating women. However, after he has noted the obvious moral failings of many white men in Western culture, he nevertheless celebrates the agonistic spirit of men not only in Western culture but also in all other cultures around the world. The agonistic spirit is at the heart of manhood -- the lived experience of men.

No doubt American men can learn much about themselves and their culturally conditioned views of masculinity and manhood from the critiques advanced by feminists and by other critics. So I see the give-and-take between American men and their feminist and other critics as part of the emerging sense of masculinity and manhood that is itself part of the emerging shift in our consciousness that Ong has told us as earlier as the 1960s we are undergoing in our contemporary culture.

CONCLUSION

Paglia is a baby boomer, but Ong was not a baby boomer. I guess that many baby boomers saw him as part of the older male establishment that they were rebelling against.

But what about all those men who were too timid to challenge publicly the anti-male views of certain brash feminists? Couldn't they rally around Ong's defense of the spirit of male agonistic tendencies?

Finally, what about Paglia herself -- couldn't she strengthen her own warrior contributions to this ongoing debate by studying Ong's books and articles about male agonistic behavior?

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview